First bash using Xara.

[Derek Bates]

Being relatively new I've built 2 sites for sister companies in the Dales Group I work for based on the ZCard theme. My pet hate is having to scroll websites so I made these site as scroll free as I could.

http://www.dalesrenewables.co.uk

http://www.dalescontracts.co.uk

Under Construction:

http://www.dalesrenewables.co.uk/ecodesign

[gwpriester]

Sites look good Derek.

I would ditch the repeating background pattern on the ecodesign site. It does not add anything to the site, it is distracting, and it takes longer to load.

Also, make sure you Optimize your images (either right click on the individual image and select Optimize Image or Utilities > Optimize all Images).

[Arpeggio]

When I used templates Z-card was my favourite choice. I didn't see the Background you must have removed it but as the business is about efficient renewable energy perhaps you could use a simple outdoor grass / sky scene for the BG. Google image search for "Summer field" looks interesting, you'd have to keep all pages the same length or make the image fixed while the site can scroll over, I don't know how but I have seen a couple of other Xara sites do that.

[gwpriester]

you could use a simple outdoor grass / sky scene for the BG. Google image search for "Summer field" looks interesting,

No, for the most part that is copyright infringement.

But there are lots of stock images that you can license for a modest fee and stay honest as well as eco friendly.

[Derek Bates]

I've gone with fading background for EcoDesign, it's in keeping with other sites, loads fast & doesn't infringe copyright.

[Rik]

There appears to be an apparent problem on the EcoDesign website.
Well, it happens for me.

When I go to the 'Contact' page, the background seems to reload.
Doesn't seem to happen on other pages.