Sandvox 2 is Now Available!

We are unbelievably excited to be able to finally announce to you that this morning we released Sandvox 2. This is a big day for the development team at Karelia — Mike, Terrence, and Dan — because after two years of development since we started working on this major new version, it’s finally ready for you to download.

What’s New in Sandvox 2

Sandvox 2 has more than five dozen new features and major improvements. This represents a huge leap forward for anyone using a Mac to easily create powerful websites. All of the new features and improvements in Sandvox 2 are designed to give the modern website builder more flexibility than ever.

Under the hood, this new version introduces a completely new architecture and new editing engine, which allows you to mix and match “objects” on a web page in a much more naturally expressive and creative way. For example, photography and video can now both reside on the same page, along with text, custom HTML and whatever else you can dream up.

Sandvox 2 has also leapt into the realm of social media! Now with multiple points of Facebook and Twitter integration, you can keep visitors apprised of your status and drive more traffic to your website by making it easy for them to “tweet” about or “like” specific pages on your site.

Websites you build with Sandvox 2 are now more “modern” than ever before. Any page can pop up a photo gallery on a layer just above it to present a lightboxed slideshow. Hierarchical drop-down menus are automatically built by Sandvox 2 to help visitors navigate your site. Audio and video are playable in a way that’s accessible to just about every computer and browser out there — including iPad and iPhone.

And this is just for starters! New designs and design chooser, an all-new inspector, directly resizable images, drag-and-drop placement of objects on a page, and more!

And need we mention that this is on top of the amazing features that have been part of Sandvox all along: Live editing of your actual website, with no preview mode. Tons of designs to choose from. Everything you need to get your website built, no add-ons required. Easy blogging and podcasting. Build sites that are optimized for getting attention from search engines. And publish to just about any web host under the sun.

But it’s probably better for you to just see it. Download the new Sandvox 2 and try it for yourself.

Everybody Gets “Pro” Features

The previous version had a distinction between “Regular” and “Pro” editions. No longer! Now, everybody gets to use the “pro” features of Raw HTML editing and Google Tools and Analytics integration that previously required a more expensive license.

48-Hour Discount on Sandvox 2

For members of this mailing list, we are providing the best price possible for a new license to Sandvox. Only for the first 48 hours of the launch, you can get Sandvox 2 for an amazingly low price of US $49. You will need to act quickly — this price expires at the end of the day on May 12, 2011.

To get this special price, use the coupon code LIST MEMBERS ONLY on our online store at <https://secure.karelia.com/buy_now/> Just in case you miss that window of opportunity, you can still take advantage of our $67 introductory price, good through the end of the day on May 20, 2011.

Note: If you already have a license to Sandvox 1.x, you’ll be able to enter your original license key on our web store to get a discounted upgrade price.

See you in the Sandvox!