XtGem
XtGem enables anyone to build a fully customized mobile website with remarkable ease. Actually, instead of forcing the user to settle for pre-built fixed templates, XtGem allows him to construct himself module-by-module each page of a mobile website and to apply separately his favourite styles to every page’s elements.
Delivered as a Software as a Service, XtGem can be handled by users from any web browser. Neither own hosting nor software install is required to run the service.
Our review on XtGem mobile website maker
XtGem offers the user an intuitive and powerful tools to customize the design of his mobile website. More interestingly, in order to avoid repetitive tasks and to harmonize colors and dimensions, XtGem allows the user to save customized module properties/styles and subsequently deploy them to other modules. If the user is familiar with web programming, XtGem let him access mobile website source code, and thus give him the opportunity to make even more advanced personalization.
Finally, thanks to its pages managers panel, XtGem allows the user to easily create complex mobile website by creating folder and subfolder along with page and subpage.
By cons, although XtGem backend control panel interface are of the highest quality, the design of created mobile websites doesn’t always look dazzling. The few clicks I made during my test was not enough to achieve my dream mobile website, and even most of ready to use XtGem’s pre-set color pack was not enough to improve my results (Notice however that several pre-built templates that have recently made available on the platform should have surely solved these drawbacks).
| Choose a flyer/poster template (Ads) | ||||
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| Real Estate Flyer | School Poster | Car Dealer Flyer | Restaurant Menu | School Poster |
From my point of view, XtGem is interesting if one wants to build a highly customized mobile website and intend to devote a minimum of time to optimize mobisite design, OR, if one is willing to keep one’s mobisite design close to prebuilt templates and to avoid venturing into customized one.
Finally, even XtGem is available for free, the unavoidable presence of advertising on created mobile website may be detrimental for some business.
Summary
: Free, Easy to use, high performance design customization tools, Efficient contents manager, Many available modules, Custom source codes allowed , One click template change feature, Can handle complex mobile website (Builtin html file and folder manager)
: XtGem footer advertising compulsory, mobisite design could be ugly without in-depth optimization.
Available mobile web features & modules
Text, Link, Image link, Image, New line, New page, File, Utilities (Site search, Time and date, Last modified date, Country, Browser, IP address, RSS reader, Statistic (Counter, Online), Social (Blog, Poll, Twitter feed, Facebook like, Twitter follow, Google+), Contact (Click to call, Click to mail, Map, vCard), Media (YouTube, Image, Gallery), Payements (Paypal, Google checkout, Feeds (google news, CNN), Advanced (File list, local file include), Widget from other authors, Container, Feed, Code, Ads (Buzzcity, InMobi, Mobpartner, Adsens, Mojiva Smaato, MobiAdz, AdFonic, Adiquity, Vserv, Madgic).
Tutorial
XtGem back-end control panel interface is made if three windows:
- A file browser used to manage pages and change their properties.
- A page editor used to customize page’s contents and design and
- A phone emulator for preview.
To build a mobile website. You need first to create a blank page and insert one by one in the right order all the modules you want to include. You can add as many modules as you want in a page, and, each of them comes with specific feature (or content type) that may vary from one module to another (Title module, Image module, Links, …).
Whenever a module is added, you are prompted to customize its contents, styles and size by using a corresponding filling form.
To enhance mobisite readability, you may group as a block two or more modules of a mobile page, and, you can customize each block according to your taste. More precisely, you can among other change block border or background and set custom interactivity (hover style, focus style, ..).
You may build as many pages as you want by repeating the same steps above. When pages are ready, you need to create your home page and build your navigation menu by using internal links pointing to each page of your mobile website.
