Xara Xtreme to Dreamweaver question

[Deanna]

Hi, it is me again with a question.
To refresh; I create websites with Dreamweaver and have sites up on the
web. I wrote to Xara asking if Xara Xtreme could integrate with Dreamweaver before I bought it and was told that it does not. I do understand that and also why.

One of the things that the support help told me was that I could create my pages in Xtreme then copy and paste the design I created into Dreamweaver to finish, to be able to use with my existing website.
Has anyone here tried this? I searched the postings, didn't find anything about it.

I tried doing it, it did not work but I am thinking that the layers should be flattened or grouped maybe? I would think it would need to be one page with no layers to be able to do copy and paste. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Deanna

[steve.ledger]

One of the things that the support help told me was that I could create my pages in Xtreme then copy and paste the design I created into Dreamweaver to finish

Hi Deanna,

Copy and paste what and how exactly?

[Deanna]

My Xara Xtreme designed web page.
Otherwise I design the web page with graphics, text, etc.
Then copy and paste it into Dreamweaver, put the links in to the files
I have on my site and up load it and the concept is that it works with all
of my other Dreamweaver files. Sounds like a good idea as I love the design ability that Xtreme gives me. I bet you are going to tell me this can't be done.
Deanna

[steve.ledger]

Sorry Deanna you haven't answered my question.
Copy and paste what and how exactly?

Please describe the steps as suggested by Xara support.

[Deanna]

Copy and paste the web page that was created in Xtreme in Dreamweaver.

Copy/paste or insert as a jpeg in Dreamweaver to be used as the background of a web page.

My goal is to be able to design with Xtreme a web page that I can use on my Dreamweaver site that is already created and active.

I said I bet you will tell me this can't be done because I do not see how it
could be done when the page created in Xtreme has layers. But that is what the support person said that I could do as work around with Dreamweaver. At the time I did not own Xtreme so I just believed him, however, in now understanding a little about how this software works I have my doubts unless there is a way to export the whole page as a one layer jpeg.

I am sure if it can be done, I knew someone here will be able to tell me how to do it!
Deanna

[pauland]

Deanna,

You can generate web pages with extreme and edit the resulting html with dreamweaver, just by editing the html files. I don't know what you mean by copy and pasting between the applications - it is never going to give the result that you want.

There's nothing stopping you using Xtreme to generate images for use in dreamweaver - just create the graphics files using Xtreme, as you would with any other graphics program.

Frankly, using Xtreme as a feed to generate html for use in Dreamweaver is going to be a big dissappointment. Xtreme uses absolute positioning to achieve it's WYSIWYG design and particularly in text handling that results in some text portrayed using graphics files,but more importantly, every separate line of text is placed in a separate div.

You can edit Xtreme generated HTML in Dreamweaver, but it won't be a pleasant experience for anything but manipulation of placeholders and simple edits. Worse still, if you update the Extreme design, you'll be starting over with your Dreamweaver edits.

[steve.ledger]

Well I can't help much because you haven't described the steps that Xara gave you to make this a possibility.

Perhaps they said you could use Xtreme as a prototyping tool and use a screenshot of the layout from Xtreme to follow in Dreamweaver with individually exported image resources, I don't know

But I can tell you that copying and pasting directly from Xtreme into DW will not give you a *web page* because there is no underlying html in Xtreme to copy, at best you'll only get the text from the Xtreme page.
You can export a finished site from Xtreme then open the html in Dreamweaver, but that is very likely not to work either, at least I have not see it work so far because Dreamweaver will break Xara's absolute positioning CSS html code, for example 'text areas' will become single lines and not flow when opened and edited in DW.

Personally I see no advantage in trying to use Xtreme to design a site that you want to then bring into DW only to integrate into your existing site when integration of new pages only requires links (and back links) to those new pages.
In other words, use Xtreme exclusively for the the new pages, and simply edit the Dreamweaver pages you already have to include links to the new stuff.


EDIT: Paul got in while I was posting

[Deanna]

I understand what you are telling me but I think I haven't given you enough information.

The main site that I would love to be able to redo in Xtreme is a Desktop Theme site...it is updated all the time. When I learned that Xtreme would have to upload the whole site every time I add something, I realized that it may not be a very good idea to redo it in Xtreme. There are many themes and I create new ones all the time and upload them to that site. I have other sites that I want to tie into this one because of the traffic I get, many of which will not have to change (which I will redo those in Xtreme). I have been commissioned to do a new one for a 50s cafe which I will do totally in Xtreme because it will be not be interactive nor will it need to change very often. The Desktop Theme site is interactive, is growing large, and people download the theme files, plus I upload to it several times a week. It would have been wonderful to have them all created in Xtreme because of the benefits it gives, like changing the whole site colors or change of design.

So, as you can see it would be counterproductive for me to redo that entire site with Xtreme. If there were a way that I could export a page I create as a jpeg and were able to insert it into Dreamweaver as a jpeg, I could make that site so much more attractive than it is now, design wise. I don't have to, it just would be great if I could. As you know the design factor in Dreamweaver can be limiting to a point.

Sorry, I should have told you all of this in the beginning. I understand you would wonder why I even wanted to go there.

Deanna

[steve.ledger]

Yes of course you can export the entire *page* as a single JPG.

Ctrl+A (select all) Ctrl+SHIFT+E (export) Select JPG file type, name it and save.
Of course if you intend using this in the final output, you will have one very large resolution JPG for your visitors to download.
The JPG won't have any links or editable text either

Attached is an example web page from the Design Gallery to illustrate the result.

[pauland]

Deanna,

Having the page as a single jpg, is as sledger points out, easy but it is not a wise thing to do - the page size is larger than an HTML equivalent, text isn't selectable or scannable for SEO purposes, nor can screenreaders read the page. I have seen sites made from single page images, but they had huge file sizes and were very poor imitations of a real web page.

You say that "It would have been wonderful to have them all created in Xtreme because of the benefits it gives, like changing the whole site colors or change of design."

Well, properly structured sites created with dreamweaver allow sitewide colors to be changed and designs to be changed - courtesy of CSS and Dreamweaver templates.

I and sledger understand what you are trying to do and why it's an attractive idea, but we also realise you are never going to get a usable workflow from Xtreme in the way that you seek.

If you want to see if it's at all viable, design a single page in Xtreme, export as HTML, then open the HTML file in Dreamweaver and see how you get on.

Paul