iframe questions for cms option?

[TXAlba]

hi, exploring iframes and have managed to integrate a site fairly successfully but i have a couple of questions i am hoping some experienced xara web designer users can shed light on.

1. is it possible to share a web page through iframe without showing that websites menu.
What i am trying to do is have pages on a wordpress site that show in an iframe on my XWD site, then give client access to the wordpress site in order for them to be able to update their own site.

2. is it possible to have an iframe on my XWD designed site that only shows part of another sites web page, for example a particular section of that page that is between two photographs, where a client could update the text through wordpress access.


thanks for your help and please comment if you have any alternative methods that allow a client to update their XWD site. I know it cant be done through the software providers but i am aware of XT-CMS which i am exploring.... looking for something thats simple for Joe Blogs to use.

Any experiences to share on the subject would be welcomed too.

[Cloud]

As far as I know there is no way to show just a part of an external site in an iframe. I have to ask, if you have set-up a wordpress site then why not have all the site as wordpress, why just a section. If someone else has set up the site then I would suggest again creating the whole site in wordpress for the client (for some extra monies of course)

[Acorn]

The quick answer is no.

You can use AJAX and jQuery to get a fragment of a web page and render that in another site page.
You could download the entire page and then use jQuery to hide any parts you want; it would be a slower and more fragile approach.

It would not be simple and unless you are into HTML coding I would not recommend it.

I would turn it around 180deg and use XWD to create all the pretties and use WordPress for the client site with full control with the client.

If you have committed a lot into the XWD design, then consider dropping WordPress and use a series shared folders in Dropbox, one with a particular HTML style for the client, which you embed.

Use a second copy of XWD and have the client publish their pages into a separate site, from which you can embed their pages.

Acorn

[TXAlba]

i like xara a lot, im not a great html coder but im learning, i have a graphics background which is why XWD appealed i the first place, i really like it! The problem I have is that XWD does not have an integrated cms solution. This is a drawback i find hard to swallow but have done for a few years now. But... over the years Xara choose not to develop a solution, which i think is nuts. Anyways........ i do want to remain loyal to XWD if poss so am trying different ways of getting info onto a web page from other sources.

I have integrated google calander to use as 'availability' solutions for B&B and Hotels, integrated Ecwid as a shopping cart solution and working on PHP for my database solution. I have used wordpress to produce a site Blog and integrate it with my XWD design with iframe. The logical next step for me is to provide an area or series of areas throughout the site where the client can add/amend their own text and even photos if need be (but would rather they didnt do photos to be honest).

XWD fails me at this point and so it appears does iframes.

At this point im thinking as both of you have said, to do the whole thing on wordpress, wordpress developer is not what i had in mind, i like to put objects where i think their best put, not a templates pre-designed location. The more expericenced would just create their own template, but im way off even attempting this. I could pay for a design - that defeats the point.

I am sure i could create wordpress sites no problem but i feel i can do better with XWD, its a shame it cant keep up with my development but then it is only one piece of software, i may have to start looking for something else with a cms solution built in that still gives me the freedom of expressive design (if there is one) and leave XWD behind as a distant but fond memory.

In the meantime and for this client i think ill build the entire site in wordpress and see how i get on. Ill charge them half price as this is going to take me longer to do, troubleshooting and fire-fighting as i go. I dont mind that, its good to develop ones skill set. Once finished ill expore XT-CMS completely and then make a decision for the future of web deisgn for both my business and my personal development.

Xara - if your reading this, can you give an explaination of why there would appear to be no aspirations towards XWD with a CMS solution.

[zaphodeist]

As I understand it, it's not that Xara have chosen to ignore cms and responsive design but that the Xara engine - Camelot - which is renowned for it's speed amongst other things would have to be dismantled or replaced to implement these things. We'd lose some things that make Xara so good. But don't despair, Xara have been advertising for people to work with the "Cloud" - too late for this year, but perhaps next year things will be a bit different. I'm only guessing, I'm not privy to their future plans obviously but Xara obviously see the way things are going and I'd be surprised if they don't innovate as they have done in the past :-)

[Cloud]

For me and I guess for any person creating websites for clients; there simply is no one software solution for everything, you just have to live with it. I know that xara are so far behind Adobe Muse that it's not even funny (and unfortunately the whole 'but it can't be done with a wysiwyg software package' just doesn't hold water in most cases as adobe have a wysiwyg solution which does things like parralax scrolling or dynamic pages etc) but I digress.

This is what we do at my company.

Simple website with 1 to 20 pages - XARA

Simple website with ecommerce - XARA WITH ECWID WIDGET

CMS website - WORDPRESS

Medium Ecommerce website for non tech clients - WORDPRESS WITH WOOCOMMERCE

Larger Ecommerce website for intermediate tech knowledge client - OPENCART

Very Large Ecommerce websites - MAGENTO

If you want a very good video demostrating a beginners guide to wordpress then I suggest http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jv47_VIBOQ

I have a feeling that the new option xara are developing will be something similar to wix and the many other template based online web design editors, rather than something for actual web designers, but then maybe I'm wrong.

One thing that I will say is that there is nothing to compare with xara for web designing for graphic designers used to adobe or corel, and nothing to compare with wordpress for anyone, it has grown remarkably in the past couple of years and pretty much every web designer works with it, there are now tens of thousands of website templates or as I prefer to call them 'themes', for instance envato have nearly 4000 wordpress themes which are exclusive to them and template monster has over 2000 exclusive themes plus the many other sites, nearly every web designer company or other creative company site is done in wordpress, it really does rule the roost so getting to know it is very important if you want to work in the web design industry, I myself have a basic understanding of it as we have wordpress experts in house.

For me xara is perfect, to the point that I am creating two web design companies, on for simple xara created sites, which will be operated by me an a couple of staff, as I love creating a 5 page site in xara in a couple of hours and another for corporate clients and those who need the power of wordpress. The xara business will have a site created in xara.

[TXAlba]

yes Skech, i have bookmarked that one in the past, its very good, i also have Matt Wolfes Wordpress Revealed book and its seldom on the book shelf as was invaluable when i was learning how to set up a Blog.

Thanks very much for your detailed info above, very interesting to see your solutions for your website designs. I have decided to throw myself into wordpress as a result rather than only using if for blogs, if i dont ill stand no chance in the market place. I have already lost a few clients due to not having a cms solution and cant afford to do that again. I will keep an eye on developments from Xara and hopefully see them tackle and overcome this issue.

Having an extensive background in CorelDraw since way back in 1992, the graphical design manner that is XWD was ideally suited to my needs when i first used it for my Digital Portrait business back in 2008, since then that business has unfortunately been a casualty of the recession but in contrast my website designs have done well and i want to progress this avenue of design as a viable business for the future.

I will continue with my design aspirations with XWD and for clients wishing CMS use WordPress, I like Ecwid a lot and will continue to use it in my designs, i have started to play with it in WordPress too and like what i see.

Thanks again to you guys, i think i have a plan.

Cheeers!! and all the best for the year ahead.

[maxtrac]

I'd like to suggest a CMS solution based on MS Word (for customer convenience) and Dropbox that seems to work OK. It is incorporated in this Xara website, which is under development:

http://goo.gl/yRy8jz

The iframe code is: <iframe src="https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/247986918/cms/index.htm" height=100% width=100% scrolling=no frameborder=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0></iframe>

I enabled the "Public" folder in Dropbox and iframed the "public link" to each document. The CMS files were created with MS Word and saved as "Web Page, Filtered." It would be nice to find a way to stretch the length of the page automatically depending on text/photo content. Any comments and suggestions are much appreciated...

[TXAlba]

Now that is interesting Maxtrac, definatley worth investigating further

[Acorn]

maxtrac, I use this approach for complex tables and use LibreOffice instead of MS Word (as it's free).
The power of your approach is you can produce a locked MS Word template with all the styles that match your site.

The biggest problem is the bloated HTML that MS produces.
I can get round that with a number of tricks (GMail, http://word2cleanhtml.com/ and others) becuase I know what I want and can do it myself; a client is a different matter.


Acorn