Ctrtl+Shift+Alt+A Attach File

I am trying to understand what this really does and why.

Is there any mention of it in the Help File?

It attaches a file to an object in the document. When the document is exported to HTML the file will be included in the index_htm_files folder. If the file is a .js or a .css then the relevant code to include the file in the HTML page will be added to the header. If more than one object on a single page has the same file attached then the file will only be referenced once in the HTML page.

This allows you to easily add css or script files to placeholder objects and have them automatically plumbed in to the HTML page. Then the placeholder code can simply use the script functions or css styles.

This mechanism is designed to (eventually) replace the "support files folder" mechanism that is currently used when you embed various files into a page (PDF, MP4 etc). It has the advantage of the files being attached to the object that requires them so the placeholder object can be easily copied between pages or even between documents and the attached files will be copied as well.

There is another related, undocumented feature. If you apply a name of "UsesJQuery" to an object then the jquery.js script file will be included in the HTML export without clashing with any eyecatcher type widgets that also use JQuery.

Gerry

Thank you Gerry, for your prompt and thorough reply. Five stars *****

One more question, can this be used if you want to segregates files into subdirectories of the published website?

For example, the viewer files I mentioned in this posting:
http://www.talkgraphics.com/showthre...dels-in-3Duite

Would the exporting of the webpage then create the "View" subdirectory on the server if it did not already exist?

Ctrl+Shift+Alt+D will delete all attached files if you no longer need them in your xara document.

Only files can be attached, not folders.

Indeed, Ctrl-Shift-Alt-D will remove all attached files from the selected objects. The mechanism is almost certainly going to be extended to include folders and/or being able to specify each attached file's subfolder path within the _htm_files folder (and possibly alongside the main HTML files).

However, at the moment, the only way to do this is to copy the files in their folder structure into the support files folder for the document (save your document and if there isn't a folder alongside the file with a name of _web_files or _xar_files then try importing a PDF, MP3 or MP4 file onto your page to force it to be created). They should then get exported with the website but you will have to handle adding the relevant script or css code to the correct web properties and copying it into another document will be a manual process with several steps to copy all the bits required.

Gerry