CMS, blog and shopping cart integration

Dear Xara (people from Xara really do actually read this, right?),

I know this has been brought-up and whined about before, but, seriously, folks...

...it really is time, at long last, for Xara Web Designer (and the web design capabilities of Designer Pro) to be able to easily (and that's the operative word, here: easily) accommodate the integration of a true content management system (CMS), or a blog or shopping cart which similarly integrates.

Yes, I know about the tweak which allows for dynamic page sizing, but that's a really crude and tedious workaround. Don't get me wrong: The guy who wrote it did a great job...

...but he really shouldn't have had to. CMSs (and CMS-similar -- in terms of integration technique -- blogs and shopping carts) are no longer curiosities or optional. No serious (and that's the operative word: serious) web designer can get through a week, anymore, without the client asking if s/he can make content (as opposed to design) updates himself or herself, without engaging the services of the designer (likely for a fee).

And this is not a new thing. I mean... c'mon... CMSs (and CMS-similar blogs and shopping carts) have been around a long time, now; they've become commonplace. No one who's doing serious web sites for clients which are more than just multipage electronic brochures, in effect, is able to seriously use Xara's web design products because there's no easy way to code the page so that it dynamically resizes, vertically, to accommodate whatever variable-sized content is put onto the page via the CMS (or blog or shopping cart).

There are also issues with easily embedding the CMS's code into Xara's finished HTML, but that problem at least feels conquerable somehow compared with the problem of not easily being able to allow pages to dynamically vertically resize, based on content.

While it may not have been true back during version 5 days, it is absolutely and incontrovertibly true now that no WYSIWYG HTML editor which cannot accommodate vertically dynamically resizable pages (so that pages will vertically resize based on CMS-inserted (or blog or cart inserted) content) is ultimately useful...

...not matter how cool are all its other features.

I realize it's all about Xara's accurate-to-the-pixel placement of things on the page; but something, somehow, has got to change. It just has to. It's finally time. It really is.

First, there needs to be some kind of easy configuration setting whereby the vertical length of the page will dynamically resize based on whatever content is in it; and, second, there needs to be an easy way to insert (maybe through a dialog or something) the tags/codes which tell the CMS (or blog, or cart) where to display its content on the page.

If Xara's products would do that, on top of what they already do, they would, indeed, be a force with which to be reckoned among WYSIWYG web design products.

Of course, no matter what, as long as Xara generates the kind of code that it does, with all the extra coding that it needs to place things just so, HTML purists will always hate it; and will cite it as one of the worst examples of the kind of typically bloated and unnecessarily complex code which WYSIWYG editors tend to generate. Xara will never make those guys happy.

But that's okay. As long as the site looks good, and gets the job done, and does okay in search engines, and is fast-painting on the screen, the client doesn't care. And neither should the designer. To heck with those guys, on that score.

But the inability of easily inserting the code necessary to accommodate CMSs (and blogs and carts which are technically, in terms of how they're coded into the page, CMS-like) is fast becoming a deal breaker. It really is.

I hope -- nay, pray -- that Xara will take this problem VERY seriously; and will come out with a version 7.5 or 8.0 which finally, at long last, will easily allow the two things which pretty much all the CMSs need, and that's pages which dynamically vertically resize, based on the amount of content; and, also, an easy way to embed the code into the right places on the pages which tell the CMS (or blog, or cart) where to place content.

Those two things are absolutely "must have" features... at least now, finally, these days.

Please, Xara... please... finally... get this fixed.

Please. I implore you.


- HarpGuy

HarpGuy, I'm sure Xara knows that CMS integration is important, but they have a big problem with that because their WYSIWYG idea is built around fidelity of the design at design time and is not built to adapt to changing content. It may be a deal-breaker for some, but for the vast majority of independent and hobbyist web developers it is a viable and very capable solution.

Don't imagine that you are the only person on the list to understand the importance of CMS to modern web design, but do understand that the fundemental technology upon which Xara builds it's web pages (WYSIWYG layout) is at odds with unspecified content. No doubt you are aware of other web development systems that use templates to accommodate CMS functionality and don't attempt the WYSIWYG trick that Xara does so well.

Xara does allow modest CMS integration by allowing placeholders to include content that can be generated outside of Xara with raw HTML. Effectively, Xara delegates the control of areas of the web page to the developer.

You can only "fix" something that's broken and Xara isn't broken. It does a great job, but it doesn't do everything, nor does anything else.

I released a cms a short while ago that works with web pages designed in Xara. Here's an example website I actually just put live for a client yesterday http://www.rosannacrothers.com/ - it's designed and published from Xara into the cms and it has shopping cart functionality and the client can log in and update the content on the pages themselves.

Defining the dynamic content area is easy, just one placeholder with one tag {page_content}

Welcome to TalkGraphics HarpGuy

I can see why you call yourself HarpGuy. ;)

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Originally Posted by xtom

I released a cms a short while ago that works with web pages designed in Xara. Here's an example website I actually just put live for a client yesterday http://www.rosannacrothers.com/ - it's designed and published from Xara into the cms and it has shopping cart functionality and the client can log in and update the content on the pages themselves.

Defining the dynamic content area is easy, just one placeholder with one tag {page_content}

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Yes, xtom, I read about your new CMS in another thread. I'm sure it's nice -- and please don't be offended by this -- but there are freeware and open source CMS packages out there which easily outperform/out-feature it. Moreover, to limit the Xara user to just one CMS that will work with it, and for which s/he must pay handsomely, to boot, is almost as big a problem as that Xara's products don't easily allow CMS integration in the first place.

That said, please do not mistake my academic criticism as being unappreciative of your product. Something like it is long overdue, and my hat's off to you for creating it.

However, if you really delve deeply into the world of CMS systems out there; and which ones are popular and which ones aren't; and which features are most desirable, and which tend not to matter alll that much (and the vast differences of opinion about such things); and the vast differences of need in terms of ability to pay versus freeware/open source...

...you'll agree, I believe (or at least hope), that it's critically-important that the Xara user has choices... including and especially choices from among the freeware/open-source CMS systems out there. The paradigm of the CMS having to process, in effect, the Xara-generated page so that it can be brought in to the CMS's fold (so that, in essence, the vertical resizing problem may be remediated) is exactly backwards (though, given Xara's limitations in this area, I realize that that was just about the only way you could do it, xtom... so, believe me, I'm finding no fault in this case). Rather, the paradigm should be that easily placing the tag or placeholder which specifies the location of CMS content (or the two tags which specify its beginning and end, if the CMS requires it), and the dynamic vertical resizing necessary to accommodate the variable length of said content, should be something built right in to the WYSIWYG editor... in this case, either Xara Web Designer or Xara Designer Pro, whichever happens to be the case. The CMS should simply allow the Xara-generated template page to be copied into its templates folder, as is, without any "processing" to force said page into fundamental compliance with the CMS.

If Xara products did that, then its users would have some real choices of CMS systems... choices from among both fee-based/commercial products, as well as freeware/open-source ones; and that's as it should be.

Xara is, in fact, really missing an opportunity in all this, in my opinion. Just ask anyone who has struggled with the ridiculousness of the "Smarty" template engine, for example. They would, I'll bet, just love to use a powerful design tool such as Xara Web Designer which so easily converts good design into web pages, wherein they could simply put the placeholder tags -- either just beginning tags, or beginning and also ending tags, if the CMS requires same -- wherever they want in a given area of a web page where dynamic CMS-inserted content is to appear; and then they can simply specify, in said area's individual properties, that it can dynamically vertically resize with the amount of said content. I'll bet their likes would much prefer something like that over what they must do in order to use the godawful "Smarty" template engine... just to name one of several equally godawful such tools out there.

Your XT-CMS, xtom, is good in that sense. From your XT-CMS site: "There's no strict template system to follow, you just design or code your page how would normally do it and then add some simple tags to specify where you want the dynamic content served by the cms to appear. No need for header files, footer files etc. etc. (unless you want to!) just design your page as a normal static page and the cms can use it as a page template to serve dynamic content."

Bravo! That's exactly the way it should be. But too much of why it works with Xara is happening in your product, instead of Xara's; hence, Xara doesn't well work with your competitors' products... and that's not good (though it's obviously potentially good for you, of course... and I fault you not, for it, by the way). [grin]

One kind of CMS which is gaining in popularity (though to the chagrin of CMS purists) is edit-in-place interfaces... wherein the person wanting to change something on a web page goes straight to an editable (in a truly WYSIWYG way) version of it and edits the content right there on the page, rather than going into some file-manager-style interface, selecting the page, and then having a WYSIWYG editor interface appear where only the specific content from the specific part of the page is editable, out of context, without being able to see, as it's edited, how the overall page will look on account of the change. The latter is, in fact, how CMSs have long been; but the newer edit-in-place paradigm is making it so that one may more easily both make the edits, and see their net effect, in realtime, as they do it. For my money, that's the better way; though I agree that few tools do it properly, so I tend to agree that the old way, for the moment, is still a little better. But edit-in-place, as well as heavily Ajax-influenced derivatives thereof (imagine Concrete5, but with truly edit-in-place capabilties), are coming (actually, they're here, but are still a little rough around the edges) and will soon be the norm.

In any case, until/unless Xara builds-in to its products the simple ability to precisely place beginning (or both beginning and ending) content placeholder tags into whatever parts of a Xara-generated page they wish; and then, also, specify that the part (or all) of the page wherein said tags are placed is dynamically vertically resizable, then I fear it will not be taken as seriously by as many as it both could and deserves.

I will say, xtom, that I do like your work. Keep it up! And I hope XT-CMS is very successful for you.


- HarpGuy

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

Welcome to TalkGraphics HarpGuy

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Thank you for the welcome. Actually, I signed-up a year ago and have been a bit of a lurker (though, admittedly, not a very active one). I had decided against getting too serious about previous versions, but version 7 has me investigating again. This CMS issue has always been really vexing to me; and I fear that not only that it still exists in version 7, but also that no one seems to think it's important, may continue to keep me from embracing the product...

...which would be a pity because the product is, otherwise, really something.

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Originally Posted by gwpriester

I can see why you call yourself HarpGuy. ;)

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I'm trying to figure-out if I should be offended. Is it because of my avatar, or that you think I'm "harping" on this subject? Obviously, one's offensive, and the other isn't; and if it's the one that's offensive, I'm not upset or anything, but if that's the one that was meant, then it's certainly a cogent example of how few folks around here think this terribly important subject actually is.

Of course, I choose to believe you meant the unoffensive one. [grin]


- HarpGuy

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Rather, the paradigm should be that easily placing the tag or placeholder which specifies the location of CMS content (or the two tags which specify its beginning and end, if the CMS requires it), and the dynamic vertical resizing necessary to accommodate the variable length of said content, should be something built right in to the WYSIWYG editor...

until/unless Xara builds-in to its products the simple ability to precisely place beginning (or both beginning and ending) content placeholder tags into whatever parts of a Xara-generated page they wish; and then, also, specify that the part (or all) of the page wherein said tags are placed is dynamically vertically resizable, then I fear it will not be taken as seriously by as many as it both could and deserves.

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Really I think this ability is already there, at least for the most part. You can define the start of dynamic content using a placeholder and in the case of my cms using just one simple tag. Using this method the position and width of the dynamic area is set and the height/length of the dynamic area is fluid/open to accommodate as much content that you want to display vertically. If you want the page to stretch/resize vertically you do still need to use the dynamic page tweak but it actually works pretty well if done right and to the end user there is no significant difference. You can also avoid using the tweak by having different length page templates for pages with more or less content. If you wanted to restrict the height of dynamic content areas to a set size with or without scrollbars you can use a tiny bit of css in the placeholder too.

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The CMS should simply allow the Xara-generated template page to be copied into its templates folder, as is, without any "processing" to force said page into fundamental compliance with the CMS.

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Again this is pretty much the case with my cms, you just publish the website exactly as it is into the theme folder. The cms does process the pages automatically but for the designer there's no extra work required at this stage.

I understand where you're coming from though, you want Xara to export web pages that easily work with other content management systems so that users have a better choice. I completely agree that choice is a good thing, but I think the problem is that each content management system handles things differently and their template system will probably vary from cms to cms. For any wysiwg software to export code that works with all or even some of these cms's I imagine it would be a lot of work to implement and to keep constantly up to date. I know you and others might feel differently but personally I don't think it would be a good investment of time or the responsibility for the wysiwyg program to try and export pages that works with cms x,y,z but rather I think it makes more sense for cms x,y,z to add support or importers that work with pages exported from the wysiwyg software. If you have a favorite cms it might be better trying to convince the developers to support your favorite design software, rather than the other way around, this way Xara and other design programs can focus their time on adding better design tools and features etc. Of course I respect your post and if Xara do improve their software for easier/better integration with other cms's then that's a good thing!

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Originally Posted by pauland

You can only "fix" something that's broken and Xara isn't broken. It does a great job, but it doesn't do everything, nor does anything else.

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it does what it says on the tin, agreed

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Originally Posted by xtom

I released a cms a short while ago that works with web pages designed in Xara.

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which is just the sort of activity that everyone appreciates :-bd

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Originally Posted by HarpGuy

Xara is, in fact, really missing an opportunity in all this, in my opinion.

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I am sure they know what they are doing ;)

Solution: Disable clipping for site project and use positioning and z-index. I've done it with WP API. It's pretty simply with placeholders.

Do you think it's possible to use Google's Checkout Shopping Cart by pasting the code they provide into placeholders?

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Originally Posted by JeffBob

Do you think it's possible to use Google's Checkout Shopping Cart by pasting the code they provide into placeholders?

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Yes, with XHTML/HTML/Javascript/VBS/Flash/Java-Applet it'll be visual in the software too, depending on how you set up paths and your security settings. For CGI scripts you'll need to set up a test server.

I'm pretty sure everything for Google is Javascript, where they supply code for you to embed.

It would be great if xara did all these things and I am sure that in forthcoming releases they will look at doing them, but let's not forget that in terms of designing a website and publishing it quickly nothing comes near webdesigner, I have tried every solution out there - I am a designer so I look for software which appeals to me as a designer. One of the great things that webdesigner does is placeholders (I know it is not the only software to use these) and using placeholders I have been able to achieve pretty much everything a client has asked for. Adobe recently released a beta of something similar to webdesigner and I have to say that webdesigner wins hands down, and even they do not have dynamic length pages. We should all appreciate what the guys at xara have achieved and I for one am very thankful.

Yeah, given a choice, I would much rather see Xara focus some effort at giving Designer Pro the ability to export templates for wordpress, joomla or drupal. I think that would make DP much more valuable. I'd much rather see better integratation with open source cms that are already popular and widely adopted.

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Originally Posted by Sheff

Yeah, given a choice, I would much rather see Xara focus some effort at giving Designer Pro the ability to export templates for wordpress, joomla or drupal. I think that would make DP much more valuable. I'd much rather see better integratation with open source cms that are already popular and widely adopted.

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The smarter path is improving the placeholder editor and *maybe* doing templates there for loops and calls sectioned by CMS in some drop-down. Currently you can z-index and disable clipping and easily integrate anything. I've done it for WP many times.

Another thing you'll likely never see done is widget creation..exporting self-contained markup for embedding.

I can make a list of things that just make sense for DP and WD but I've been using xara stuff for years and have watched their development and responsiveness and don't see any of them happening even in the near future.

EDIT: As has been mentioned here before xara sites use a lot of javascript fixups and windows only fonts, if you're in it for the SEO remember that. They also don't comply with any form of coding standards required for CMS vendor publishing.

Xara is NOT a CMS application, so it's not being "non-compliant" as you imply.

Web safe fonts are those which are installed on PCs and Macs for starters.

http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html

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Originally Posted by neodeist

Xara is NOT a CMS application, so it's not being "non-compliant" as you imply.

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I think the OP was really pointing out that it's not possible to use Xara (a HTML generator rather than an editor) to produce HTML that matches the requirements of a specific CMS. This is a reasonable statement because HTML editors are generally able to produce compliant HTML code to suit a specific CMS system. It's not an affront to the HTML generation of Xara.

Ah right, OK :-)

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Originally Posted by pauland

I think the OP was really pointing out that it's not possible to use Xara (a HTML generator rather than an editor) to produce HTML that matches the requirements of a specific CMS. This is a reasonable statement because HTML editors are generally able to produce compliant HTML code to suit a specific CMS system. It's not an affront to the HTML generation of Xara.

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Name one CMS that can't be easily embedded with placeholders? OR name one other software that generates designs for any CMS. Site Grinder is the only I know of and it takes longer than xara DP for WP and others..

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Originally Posted by neodeist

Xara is NOT a CMS application, so it's not being "non-compliant" as you imply.

Web safe fonts are those which are installed on PCs and Macs for starters.

http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html

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I only suggested highlighting and templates on the placeholder editor..

Also your link has no mention of any OS or platform besides OSX and Windows..There are a lot just for x86 desktop alone that have large user-bases.

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Originally Posted by tjc

Name one CMS that can't be easily embedded with placeholders? OR name one other software that generates designs for any CMS. Site Grinder is the only I know of and it takes longer than xara DP for WP and others..

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Placeholders are a workaround for use with Xara and really are a poor way of obtaining CMS functionality. Their great weakness is that they are fixed in size and cannot expand and contract according to the size of the content within them. Normally CMS templates are written using CSS rules that accommodate variable content. This makes Xara a very poor solution for CMS integration. There is an expectation that HTML templates will be produced in a specific way and Xara is very poor at handling content that isn't available at design time.

I don't think Sitegrinder has any relevance to Xaras suitability for CMS integration.

Before anyone else points out that many Xara users are currently using a CMS in conjunction with Xara, I would say, "yes, I know". The problem is that the integration is entirely reliant on placeholders punching"holes" in the Xara page for population by the CMS and that only works for fairly simple scenarios and is not satisfactory for anything that involves much content.

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Originally Posted by pauland

Placeholders are a workaround for use with Xara and really are a poor way of obtaining CMS functionality. Their great weakness is that they are fixed in size and cannot expand and contract according to the size of the content within them. Normally CMS templates are written using CSS rules that accommodate variable content. This makes Xara a very poor solution for CMS integration. There is an expectation that HTML templates will be produced in a specific way and Xara is very poor at handling content that isn't available at design time.

I don't think Sitegrinder has any relevance to Xaras suitability for CMS integration.

Before anyone else points out that many Xara users are currently using a CMS in conjunction with Xara, I would say, "yes, I know". The problem is that the integration is entirely reliant on placeholders punching"holes" in the Xara page for population by the CMS and that only works for fairly simple scenarios and is not satisfactory for anything that involves much content.

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Hence why I only mention enhancing the placeholder editor.

SiteGrinder is an identical workflow and used by all the big sellers and contractors..not sure how it's not "relevant" in this comparison. All the APIs do from these systems is output and process data..This is why you can z-index or absolute and get identical yet faster results with xara.

It doesn't effect me at all if they ignore nuances and user requests..I'm already doing all this 'impossible' stuff in minutes.. I can even export PSD and do flash UIs in Catalyst..the 'impossible' stuff is nice.

Is it really so much to ask for a better placeholder editor?

The tweaksets of Xara allows perfectly for changing CMS content length, the placeholders do perfectly for putting the CMS parts into a template designed with Xara. As with for example freewebshop.

Maybe some of the folks asking for a CMS forget that those CMS and shopping cart scripts are based on PHP, which as far as I know would blow the preview in Xara Web Designer.

Maybe wrong idea, maybe very off topic but IMHO Xara would be enhanced a lot if instead of applying PHP based solutions, support for PHP would be added. That would integrate debugging and running scripts into the product. There are enough solutions for PHP support. After that, all options for CMS, webshop, blog and etc. support would be logical next step.

I have to agree that the ability to dynamically add content into the Xara design is crucial for serious website designers. I love what Xara has already brought to the table. But the ability to make good looking websites in platforms like Word Press may eventually put Xara in its grave. I know I've been tempted to leave Xara behind and may have never built any websites using it if I knew how WP and other platforms were going to turn out. All the same I really still like Xara and have managed to get dynamic content (shopping carts, photo galleries with search) into it but the amount of hacking involved is labors to say the least. I'm so glad that we have the dynamic page tweak, but I also realize that it is not ideal. I've also gotten dynamic Facebook widgets into Xara, but have to cut them off or make the page extra long in anticipation that content may be added after page load.

At the very least can't Xara add an optional footer and 2nd body area that is in a separate <div> from the header and regular (fixed) body that Xara uses now. It could float at the bottom (maybe even an option to float to the right or left of the normal (fixed) body) of the regular body <div>) This would allow dynamic content to be added to it after the initial page load as well as on page load.

Put a separate <div> tag at the bottom of the <body> with content that floats under the normal Xara absolute/fixed content? That way you could at least put dynamic content at the bottom of the webpage. (maybe even an option to float to the right or left of the normal (fixed) body content) Basically you would just draw a box and that box could be the background color for your content and then use it as a placeholder for your php or what ever you are creating dynamically. That box is fixed left to right but floats up to the last regualr <div> tag. Then draw a box that would be a separate <div> and put your footer in that and it would float under your dynamic content box. That way it would move down when your php in generated or widget changes or comments added or what ever.

That's my two cents.