Google Sites Equals Instant Wiki

I just discovered Google Sites while (for the umpteenth time) looking for a simple tool for writing documentation. In the past I had always fallen back on using Google Docs, Basecamp, or just passing around text files. These got the job done, but always felt a little clunky. I knew what I wanted was probably going to be a wiki, but the idea of installing and experimenting with a bunch of open source wiki software was not appealing.

Randomly, it popped into my head. “Doesn’t Google have a service for building basic websites? I wonder if its any good?” A few minutes later I had a multi-page documentation site with embedded media, configurable tables and list, file attachments, and comment support. It also supports private sites with the ability to control viewing and editing privileges.

Here are some of the highlights…

No-nonsense Rich Text Editing
No fluff. The controls are paired down which makes maintaining consistent formatting easy.

Great Navigation Controls
You can either create your own custom navigation, or have sites generate the nav for you automatically. You can also drop in Table of Contents blocks on individual pages that render automatically by detecting the heading structure of your document.

Decent Layout Control
You can configure the layout of each page (x columns, headers, footers). Seem to give you just about every standard configuration you could want.

I won’t be using Google Sites to build my next client’s site any time soon. A friend of the superstar css tweaker it is not. But for something that needs to be functional, consistent, and organized this is a great tool.