Web Designer change template possible

Just came across Web Designer and have a couple of questions:

1) Having used other web site design packages that would allow one to change the style or template of a website after it has been designed, is there a similar process one can use in Web Designer that is not long and drawn out?

2) I notice that in order to insert additional pages in a website one can drag a page out of the templates folder. The pages in the templates folders have preset text fields on them. If one edits the header on one page and then tells Web Designer to duplicate that text onto the other pages, the duplicated text is overlaid on top of the unwanted preset text fields. Which means one has to go to each page and remove the unnecessary preset text. Is this the acceptable process?

Hi pcguy,
I'm very much a XWD newbie, but I can give you some advice based on (limited) experience:

• Changing templates is easy. Actually much easier than other applications because it's all WYSIWYG, and you do not need other tools to make the changes. Of course you can use Photoshop or something else if you want, but you're not forced to do so. I think there are a couple of things you might need Xara Extreme Pro to do (if you wanted to make your own stretchy buttons, for example). But most of the stuff can be done inside XWD.
  
• Choose the template that most closely matches your needs.
  
• Figure out what you need to change. The most obvious item is any logo elements. For example, my company logo needs to be on a white background. The template I was using had a patterned area under the logo. So I just deleted the patterned area - simple!
  
• It's worth spending some time to get your basic page layout right. Once you have the page you need, just add the content, copy the page to create a new page, and then fix the navigation.
  
• I didn't do this on my pages, but I suspect you can make it easier for yourself by using Layers. You could, for example, put all dynamic page content on a new layer. That way you can turn of editing on the background layer to avoid selecting background elements by mistake.
  
• Remember to use repeating items - very useful.
  
• Remember you can update all repeating items in one operation.
  
• Remember you can have any mixture of page styles in the same website.

Hope that helps.

Cheers,
Geoff

Very well said Geoff. :)

Welcome to the forums PCGuy.

Sorry - I re-read your post and realised I neglected to directly cover this point...

2) I notice that in order to insert additional pages in a website one can drag a page out of the templates folder. The pages in the templates folders have preset text fields on them. If one edits the header on one page and then tells Web Designer to duplicate that text onto the other pages, the duplicated text is overlaid on top of the unwanted preset text fields. Which means one has to go to each page and remove the unnecessary preset text. Is this the acceptable process?

Yes, this can happen but it doesn't have to be that way.

For example, if your objective is to create a bunch of pages in which the title text is different, then of course you would not want those text elements to be linked as repeating objects.

If your objective is to create pages that have the same title text, then you make that text a repeating object on the first page you create, and it is then repeated on all other pages, AND it will be updated in one step any time you need to do so.

If you change your mind half way through the development process, and want repeating text, then of course XWD doesn't know that the text you already have on the pages is now redundant - so it will display both.

That's why it helps to plan your pages in advance. :D

By the way - I don't think Xara is any worse than other applications in this respect. I can't think of an application that would avoid the situation you describe.

Cheers,
Geoff

Thanks for the nice reply. I am still a unclear on changing the template being used for an existing web site that was already designed by Web Designer. The way I read your first post in this thread, I read it as starting a new site as opposed to one that already existed and had content on it using template A and I wanted to instead use template B or did I misread it?

I do though follow the replacing of the text elments on multiple pages with repeating text and automatically updating this text by changing the first one.

If I understand your question correctly, you are asking if it is possible to have a site designed with XWD and then, at the push of a button, apply a new template and have a totally different look while retaining all your text and pictures. If that's your question, "no" is the answer, XWD is not an application that produces 'canned' websites.

XWD is a website design program that uses templates to help you get started (and even build complete websites with them), but really aims to assist you in creating your own unique website adapting those templates and/or creating your own.

In doing so, as spudmachine already explained, the program has various functions -- such as 'Repeating Objects' and 'Named Colors' -- that give objects a template-like character which allow you to change recurring design elements on the fly. This approach gives the user much more freedom and allows you to mix-and-match existing templates with your own designs (for which XWD offers you a pretty nice set of tools).

Hi pcguy,
Sorry for the slow reply. I'm suffering from PC problems at the moment :)

I think Boy is correct - I haven't tried starting with one template and swapping to another, but I can't think how that would work with XWD.

You can change all the colours at once in a theme of course.

Sounds like a very useful feature actually! And I believe it's something that CSS would be very good for. Also I think it's something that Frontpage can do.

How many pages are in your "Template A" website? If it's not too many then maybe it's easiest to just copy all the content from one to the other.

Alternatively a series of "paste attributes" might also work - I guess it depends on the specific page designs.

My solution sounds very low tech, but by the time you work out a fancier solution maybe it might be quicker :)

Cheers,
Geoff

In the template A site there would be about 15-20 pages. Business sites grow stale after a while and need to be refreshed with new layout etc. Really would like to use XWD as it has some amazing features but I want to try to make sure I know the shortcomings of a product up front and that the clients needs are going to be satisfied. The last thing I want to do is to spend weeks on a site only to run head long in a brick wall. I have been down that road too many times. ;)

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Originally Posted by pcguy

....Business sites grow stale after a while and need to be refreshed with new layout etc......

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As far as I know there isn't a single product out there that can change your whole layout with the press of a button.

Not exactly looking for a one button push operation but if the client does not like the design or layout of either a redesign or wants the site refreshed I do not want to have to start from square one and redo everything from the ground up. Rearranging some elements after changing to a different template can be expected.

Until one uses a clients data on a template it is hard to determine whether in fact the two are suitable for each other. It appears that with XWD that one uses the inital page as guide for the subsequent pages and if I do carefully layout this page that down the road I will have problems with changes to subsequent pages in the site.

I am also looking at alternatives like Wordpress, Squarespace or even Joomla and am trying to discover major pitfalls in each application to reduce surprises down the road.

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Originally Posted by ss-kalm

As far as I know there isn't a single product out there that can change your whole layout with the press of a button.

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Joomla ;)

And this is probably a better bet for anyone designing large sites as ,IMO, WD is targeted at the smaller site. A template based CMS solution (like Joomla) is a no-brainer for large sites. (There are various Joomla template managers, like Artisteer, that work very well, and are so easy to use, and where the graphics could be generated from within Xara/WD as required.)

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Originally Posted by GregWallis

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Originally Posted by ss-kalm
As far as I know there isn't a single product out there that can change your whole layout with the press of a button.

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Joomla ;)

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Joomla is not a designing tool.

True, but it allows a designed template to change the whole site instantly; that was my point. As above, I stated that the graphics could be made in Xara/WD, the template made in (for example) Artisteer (SO easily), and then changed instantly in Joomla.

Yes, of course, but I presume that ss-kalm was talking about designer tools. ;)

Hi pcguy,

I think it makes much more sense to avoid WYSIWYG HTML editors in your case.

Beside Joomla, also Typo 3 and Wordpress offers the possibility to change a Template with one click.

The difference between CMS and blog systems and WYSIWYG HTML editors is, that the CMS and blog systems are separating the content and the layout, so that you can insert thousands of pages full of content, but you need just one click to change your layout for all this pages.

Most of the CMS and blog systems are also able to import your content from another CMS or blog system, so that you're able to migrate from one system to another. This is often not possible with WYSIWYG editors.

Furthermore CMS systems offers the possibility to let your customers edit their content by themself without the danger that they are destroying your well thought out design.

Remi

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Originally Posted by remi

Furthermore CMS systems offers the possibility to let your customers edit their content by themself without the danger that they are destroying your well thought out design.

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How can anyone destroy something that isn't there? ;) :D (for people not familiar with smilies this means "a joke").

CMS is what it's called - a content management system. It has nothing to do with design. It allows you to conveniently create and maintain your content, mostly textual, with minimum constrains on it's size and structural complexity. The resulting output in web CMS are the script generated HTML pages which represent this content in a visual form based on the layout information available.

Think of it this way - in a CMS you enter and maintain the text, and all the rest - graphics, design, code is generated automatically, you don't have to worry about it.

If you want to make your own design in CMS, you can customize templates but this is much harder task than creating a graphic site with typical web authoring tool (like Dreamweaver), never mind the XWD.

So it's all about priorities. Look at this board - it has a design which you may spot on hundreds of other forums all over the web. But this is irrelevant since the essence of this site is it's content. Knowing how talented all the moderators and users on TG are one may wonder why it uses default template? The answer is trivial - because no one really cares. The design of this site really doesn't matter at all.

So if you are about to create a site with tons of dynamically altered information, and neither you nor your visitors care a lot about it's unique design, you should go for CMS.
But if your design is important and you don't have a tons of content, it's much better to go for XWD.

Theoretically, you can use both CMS based content and XWD created design to embed it. But I'm not aware if someone had already created such a project.

The design of a CMS or blog system is created from a Webdesigner and often added with some JavaScript functions/widgets and/or Flash from the Webdesigner himself or a Webdeveloper.

The endusers are creating new pages with new content (including different content types like text, tables, images, videos, ...). And such systems are offering integrated WYSIWYG editors, of course, so that the enduser is able to see what he get. The endusers are often called "editors" in such environments.

Often there is also an Administrator for the CMS or blog system (depends on the size of the company or other factors).

So, this is a division of responsibilities.

Using different templates for CMS or blog systems is very easy. For example, if you use Wordpress as a blog system (or a simple CMS), you can choose of thousands of available templates from a very big community and also commercial vendors. The same with most of the CMS systems.

Creating your own template is also easy. There are a lot of tutorials available, which are teaching you how to create a new template or customize a given template.

It depends on the Webdesigner and/or Webdeveloper, what kind of layout he is designing for his CMS or blog system. In the case of Wordpress there is a great website available, which shows the different layouts, talented Webdesigners were able to create. It's called We love WP. In the case of Typo3 I could recommend a lot of different websites, in order to see what's possible with this CMS, but I will limit it to a special website: The website from MAGIX (owner of Xara Ltd.). They show how to use Typo3 together with some flash content and a nice layout.

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Originally Posted by covoxer

Theoretically, you can use both CMS based content and XWD created design to embed it. But I'm not aware if someone had already created such a project.

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I'm not sure if XWD is really useful in this case. The exported HTML from XWD works with absolute positionized content and unfortunately this is not the best approach with a CMS or blog system. I've seen your JavaScript based tweak you're offering as a workaround, but I if you look at templates of popular CMS and/or blog systems, you'll find more flexible layouts with variable lenghts and sometimes also variable widths.

Remi

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Originally Posted by remi

The endusers are creating new pages with new content (including different content types like text, tables, images, videos, ...). And such systems are offering integrated WYSIWYG editors, of course, so that the enduser is able to see what he get. The endusers are often called "editors" in such environments.

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So, if the "end user" is an author of the site he has to hire the qualified "Webdesigner" to do the design. Or, alternatively, learn and create it on his own. This works great, except that it requires a lot of work.

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Often there is also an Administrator for the CMS or blog system (depends on the size of the company or other factors).

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Yes, you can't get away without administrating if the amount of content is large.

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So, this is a division of responsibilities.

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Perfect. But not efficient if you are not creating something large with a low budget. Otherwise, it's always better to hire a professional photographer to take pictures you need, professional designer to create site design, professional programmers to write code and professional administrators and SEO experts to maintain it. The result will be always better than doing everything on your own. But if you can't afford it, it will not work for you this way.

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Using different templates for CMS or blog systems is very easy.

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Absolutely easy. But creating new, unique templates is hard.

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Creating your own template is also easy.

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Saying that it's easy, you have to mention comparing to what. Of course it is easier than, for example, writing your own web server, but comparing to designer's tools it can't be called easy.

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There are a lot of tutorials available, which are teaching you how to create a new template or customize a given template.

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Yes there are a lot, but this doesn't change anything. It's much easier to create your design in Dreamweaver than the similarly looking template for CMS. And of course, it is much easier and faster to create a design in WD.

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It depends on the Webdesigner and/or Webdeveloper, what kind of layout he is designing for his CMS or blog system. In the case of Wordpress there is a great website available, which shows the different layouts, talented Webdesigners were able to create. It's called We love WP.

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So, does it mean that creating those templates was as easy as creating a site design in WD?

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In the case of Typo3 I could recommend a lot of different websites, in order to see what's possible with this CMS, but I will limit it to a special website: The website from MAGIX (owner of Xara Ltd.). They show how to use Typo3 together with some flash content and a nice layout.

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Yes, good example. Everyone who has the same budget for creating and maintaining website can do just the same.

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I've seen your JavaScript based tweak you're offering as a workaround, but I if you look at templates of popular CMS and/or blog systems, you'll find more flexible layouts with variable lenghts and sometimes also variable widths.

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Yes, of course. This approach is not very flexible from the content layout point of view. But the use of the CMS templates is just as inflexible from the design point of view. Though I'm not sure if any non professional CMS users ever care about the design, the choice of existing templates is usually enough.

On the other side the drawback of WYSIWYG HTML editors is, that they don't offer content management functions, like the CMS or blog systems are doing. As we have discussed in this thread so far, this is problematic, whenever you have a website with a lot of pages and would like to change your layout. With a WYSIWYG editor, you have to start from the beginning in this case.

The best would be, if we would be able to use Xara Xtreme or XWD for rapid prototyping, but without the current absolute positionize approach. If this would be possible, than one could use the exported HTML in order to convert it into a new template for his CMS or blog system. I would say, just in the moment this is too much work because of the mentioned absolute positionize approach and therefore counterproductive.

Remi

You mean you want a WYSIWYG CMS template generator? ;)

I'm not sure if this would be useful for me, because I have my own workflow and prefer to export my design piece by piece in different steps (sometimes with, sometimes without a background, sometimes only a short section of a design with the need to split up parts of the exported images, ...). But it could be useful for some of your customers with another workflow. Maybe it's worth to start a poll in the "Outsider Discussion" forum, here at TG, in order to ask your customers about this?

Remi

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Originally Posted by remi

Maybe it's worth to start a poll in the "Outsider Discussion" forum, here at TG, in order to ask your customers about this?

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No, I don't think so. Currently it would be something like starting a poll about who wants a time machine. ;)

A time machine would be great. ;) :D

Indeed. :D

I already have one.. It's called a clock :D

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Originally Posted by sledger

I already have one.. It's called a clock :D

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Nah.... It goes only downhill and doesn't have any brakes. :rolleyes:

Yes, without brakes you're bound to get breaks :P

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Originally Posted by sledger

Yes, without brakes you're bound to get breaks :P

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D'oh! Evil spellchecker... :mad:
But hey, it's right, no breaks either. :D

EZGenerator can change the overall look at a click of a button but doesn't have the flexibility of XWD. You can change elements by clicking say a graphic on a banner, and then importing a new file into the site but positioning the graphic where you want isn't an option.
I use various webdesign packages and I am quickly becoming a fan of XWD.
Its powerful, has some of the best templates I've ever seen and the flexibility is immense. Now where do I get my fiver ;)

Jinker

I'm with you, PCguy. I really miss not being able to just pick a style (h1, h2, p etc) so that in the future I can change the headline font, say, throughout the site with a simple change to the css.

This also makes for consistency in design, no 12pt text on one page and 11pt on another (unless you really mean to do so, in which case you would create a new style 'smallp' or something like that.

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Originally Posted by ss-kalm

As far as I know there isn't a single product out there that can change your whole layout with the press of a button.

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Actually there is. Try Image Cafee with Network Solutions, I use it all the time and change the entire look of my 20 some page site simply by picking a different template. Works great. Unfotunately it is only available if you are hosting with Network Solutions. Can't find it to buy. Andre

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