SANDVOX TRAINING COURSE: FEATURES 19 CHAPTERS

Web design requires a lot of prerequisite knowledge and training especially if you’re looking to create a site with advanced features. Sandvox is a popular website design application many developers have been using. 

Its design interface is easy for those who are new to web design to navigate through, while still allowing advanced web designers to work with HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and other languages.

Karelia Software didn’t design Sandvox for you to just figure out how to use it on your own, they went ahead to create a video training system to help users get the most out of Sandvox. 

For those that are new to web design and would like to understand the basics of Sandvox, as well as its more advanced features, take out time and go through Karelia Software's new training DVD.

This article will try to give you an insight on what to expect from the Training Course which features up to 19Chapters.

Sandvox Training Course: Overview

The Sandvox Training Course is available on a DVD as well as on the Karelia web site. This dual availability lets you use the DVD at home, and the website while on the move. Both the DVD and the web site contain the same material; purchasing the training course provides you with both the DVD and access to web training.

The training course has 19 chapters. Each chapter contains a video of screencasts on that chapter's specific topic.

The Sandvox Training Course is broken down into five sections:

The Basics:

• Chapter 1: Document Management and Designs
• Chapter 2: Document Editing

Page Components:

• Chapter 3: Pages
• Chapter 4: Pagelets
• Chapter 5: Pagelets: More Details
• Chapter 6: Collections

Moving Along:

• Chapter 7: Blogging and Podcasting
• Chapter 8: Site Outline and Page Details
• Chapter 9: Text Editing
• Chapter 10: The Inspector
• Chapter 11: Banners and Logos
• Chapter 12: Preferences

Getting Published:

• Chapter 13: Publishing
• Chapter 14: Publishing to A2 Hosting
• Chapter 15: Publishing to Live Oak Hosting
• Chapter 16: Publishing to Server Logistics

Advanced Features:

• Chapter 17: Code Injection
• Chapter 18: Google Integration
• Chapter 19: Google Analytics

The DVD includes the video tutorials in three different video sizes: Full (1024x768), Regular (640x480), and iPhone (480x360). The iPhone size is a nice addition, and the training course includes easy instructions for copying the iPhone size videos to your mobile device. You will also find a PDF transcript of the training on the DVD.

Sandvox Training Course: Using the Training Course

Each of the 19 chapters is a separate video containing screencasts and voiceovers covering the chapter's topic. As is typical for screencasts, the videos highlight the areas, such as menus and dialog boxes, which are actively being used. This helps focus your attention on the particular steps involved in the process.

Video runtimes range from a low of 2 minutes for Google Analytical, to 12 minutes to take you through the process of Code Injection. The total runtime is 2-½ hours.

One thing to note: The Sandvox Training Course is made up of individual videos. There is no overall application to, and no viewer required, other than the ones that come with your Mac or portable Apple product. Because there's no application to manage the training course you can easily select the chapters you wish to view, but you can't use any type of bookmark or other process to track your way through the tutorial.

Sandvox Training Course: More About What's Covered

The overall flow of the Sandvox Training Course is elegant. The sections and chapters are well thought out, with a logical flow that starts from the basics and works through to the details you'll need to publish your finished web site.

The final section, Advanced Features, is geared towards Sandvox Pro users, who have more capabilities available than users of the standard version of Sandvox. It’s not really cumbersome. The chapter covering Google Analytics is particularly short. Of course, that's largely because the training is geared toward showing you how to set up your web site to use Google Analytics, not how to make good use of the information that Google delivers to you. Even so, a little background on what type of insights Google can provide, and why, would have been helpful.

The training approach though, is not well structured and does not address web site from design concept to finish product. Each video chapter is pretty much self-contained. Those that need help with a few of Sandvox features will find it sufficient; but those that are looking for more involved training, won't find it here.

Sandvox Training Course: Review

Overall, the Sandvox Training Course is great. It's nice to see software developers put together a training course that lets users view the content on multiple devices, as well as online. Karelia is concerned with providing end users with a great deal of flexibility, a trait that isn't shared by all companies.

Course content was well planned, and provides enough information for both Sandvox and Sandvox Pro users to pick up some helpful tips on how to perform various tasks with Sandvox.

The Sandvox Training Course serves as a good introduction to Sandvox and a great source of information for Sandvox users who need pointers on using specific features.

Do visit the Manufacturer's Site.