EDICY
Not bad but not quite there yet
Edicy is the brainchild of design and software studio FRAKTAL, based in Tartu, Estonia. The user interface exists in no fewer than 16 languages including Greek and Chinese. The first thing that takes some getting used to is having the toolbar at the bottom of the page, and not at the top.
Edicy is very simple in its commercial approach :
- Either you go for the free plan, which gives you 0.1 Gb of storage and the possibility to work on the site with 2 users, standard template designs, basic statistics and static content.
- Or you select the PRO plan with 5 GB storage, access to PRO templates, more and better statistics, dynamic content, and an unlimited number of users to work on your site if you decide to give them access rights. The PRO version costs €12/month if you subscribe for 3 months, €10/month for 6 months, €8/month for 1 year, €6/month for 2 years, and €5.5/month if you commit for 3 years. I must say that the templates, even the PRO versions, are not what I would call attractive.
Working with Edicy
Every time you add a page, you have 3 options : add a common page, a page for blogs and news, or a front page.
A common page is where most of your content goes. You can add text, a gallery or a form, a map or a table, and that's it. The text feature is very basic, you can for instance change the font size, but not its type or colour. The same applies to the pictures module and the form, it's all basic but they do the job.
Your main dashboard is in the bottom left (the example left is in Dutch, Edicy seems to be looking at your IP address to determine what backend language to display).
You have 5 main commands that you can use : EDIT (work on current page), SETTINGS (see below), FILES (listing of all your files including pictures, documents etc...), BLOGS (add/edit your blog posts), and DESIGN (change your template).
Within the SETTINGS environment, where you'll spend most of your time, there's another few options for you to choose from :
- page where you can add or edit your SEO codes and description for that particular page,
- structure to organise your pages and ensure your language pages relate to the same page in the other language(s) - (excellent, this !),
- people to determine who can work on your site,
- addresses for managing your domain names,
- account including details on what kind of plan you're on and when the next payment is due,
- SEO for main site SEO settings,
- statistics to see how many people have visited your site and where they come from,
- and finally forms, where you can have a look at the replies that have been submitted for any form you have on your site.
Edicy's big plus is the possibility to edit the site in multiple languages. The process is very straightforward, just "add another language" and the script takes you through the setup. It creates a mirror site of the one you have at that point, and you can easily edit not only the content but obviously also the page names, their characteristics including descriptions and meta tags, as well as including your Google codes, if relevant. What you have to be very careful about though, is making sure you're in the right environment once you start adding more content. I put a NL blog entry on the EN version of the test site that I've made, only to repeat that same mistake an hour later ! It's just possible that that says something about me, but still.... you better look out.
The blog feature in itself is true to form - basic but effective. It's not for you if you're a decicated blogger, but if you don't need all the sophisticated tools that you'll find on dedicated blogger platforms, this will do. Every entry is automatically posted on your homepage and since I think that's a good place for it, I like it.
Would I use it ?
Yes, but only if I had a relatively simple site that I needed to publish in more than one language. There are a few templates that are OK without being great, but none of those available have a "wow" factor for me. Editing text is too basic, as is the ability (or rather, lack of) to determine the lay-out of your pages once your template has been selected.
