Is this a Beta

[colb]

Wasted over AUD $100 on this programme and get nothing to work, pretty graphics which are of no use as I cannot link anything to anything,the help files are woeful, company support is nil and a question on this group resulted in nothing.
A total wastye of time and money as far as I am concerned if they were australian I would be applying to the dept of fair trading for a refund

[colb]

Wasted over AUD $100 on this programme and get nothing to work, pretty graphics which are of no use as I cannot link anything to anything,the help files are woeful, company support is nil and a question on this group resulted in nothing.
A total wastye of time and money as far as I am concerned if they were australian I would be applying to the dept of fair trading for a refund

[design]

At least you received something. A beautifull CD, that you could use as a small placemat?

All I got was a receipt of my creditcard company. No CD from Xara. No reply to my emails. Nothing.

[apexii]

I received my cd about 2 weeks after ordering. How long has it been for you two?

[AntonyF]

Colb, no, the software is not a beta. Unfourtunately users do sometimes encounter problems, as some users do with any software on the market. But these are in thankfully in a minority for our products. The thousands of users who are happily using Webstyle would not think it is a beta.

A question on this group did not result in nothing, I just looked at the post and noticed you had two replies. You never replied to the topic again saying you still had problems, so thus users will assume you solved it.

If the problem is still occuring, maybe you can outline the problems again in great detail, provide links to a website where you're experiencing the problem etc. and we'll see if we can help.

I'd also appreciate a report on how you felt the help guide and movies didn't help you in this matter.

design, please can you let me know your name and when you emailed, and who you emailed, and I will see if I can chase up what has happened.

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I'd start a revolution, if I could get up in the morning.

[colb]

Set yourself the task of a beginner and trawl through the web site and help section very vague. Then look how to ask for help, equally vague - then send an email asking for help and WAIT I have no idea who I got the response from but it was of no help and in fact condescending.Chesk the videos yourself the actual informationm on doing anything is woeful. I had no problem with delivery probably about two weeks which is ok from UK to Aus. I am using parts of Xara quite effectively now but the learning process was not helped by your information it was trial and error - this possilby reflects more on the designer of your web page than anything else

[AntonyF]

colb, with all due respect if Webstyle was difficult for beginners it would not sell anything. Webstyle is ideally suited for the beginner, and thousands of satisfied customers attest to that.

I would be happy to look into specific problems, as feedback is always useful. But unless I know what you were trying to achieve, and how the resources failed you, then I'm afraid I can't look into the issues.

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I'd start a revolution, if I could get up in the morning.

[chickenman]

Hi Folks:
It seems as though there are many people are having problems like I did.

WebStyle is a very cool program and the instructions are not that good and if you have a lot a time on your hands it's quite possible that you can figure it out.

As for myself I found it very frustarting at 1st and I'm sure I must have done one website over 10 times.

As you can see by the # of questions in the Forum there are may people like yourselves having issues but then again on the other hand there are many happy clients (like me now)

You must relize that Xara had made every effort to integrate this with Microsoft FP which in itself must have been a real challenge. They have done a good job and the product is outstanding.

I must say that I can create a site in about 2 minutes flat and that was my problem with webstyle I was just wizzing through much to quickly especially in the area of saving the project. You must be sure of where your saving the project to and give it a project name and MAKE SURE any changes are saved to that same project.

I have that software down pretty good. I know the forum is not as quick getting back on issues so if I can be of help just email me and i will try to pull you through. You can email me here cybercec@nt.net and make sure in the subject line you put "WebStyle help"

Good luck

[Dana Xara User]

I believe we could all use this program much more efficiently if the CD included the users guide!
My problems were with drop down menus. The buttons all pointed to the correct files and locations, but the menus added a +LOC command which screwed it all up. Once I located and removed this unnecessary command my menus all worked fine. Having NO Java experience this took much trial and error...I recreated the menus about 5 times until I tracked down the problem. The movies and tips are all a bit overly simplistic. While this program is intended to simplify creation of complex menubars we really need a detailed user's guide with much more reference material and examples (text of code) to follow.

I like this program, but am waiting for you to post an electronic copy of the user's guide for us to download.

Dana

[Brousemkb]

Just a note here to state my experience with Webstyle 4.0... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

I personally have found it rather difficult in many areas, and definately agree that the help files are extremely limited. There should be a troubleshooting area for sure, and I would love to have a manual with the CD/or even online myself. This may turn into a long post, but maybe it will help someone else (including the creaters of this program).

At first I was thrilled with the trial period, and loved the whole idea of being able to load my photos into albums! (Complete with thumbnail images that are linked to that nifty little pop-up that you can scroll through the larger images with.) This was a perfect time saver for me. One of my web customers will be selling posters online, and I have already spent many hours just saving off about 4500 images to web useable graphics. I dreaded the thought of having to thumbnail and link these pictures manually, and basically JUMPED at the chance to buy this tool just for the time I thought it would save me.

But alas, we know how that goes. Looks too good to be true, it probably is! I buy the program, and I spend many more hours playing with the designs, learning the tool, and basically getting frustrated with the simplest of things. For instance, I found out real fast that I couldn't use my shortcuts of renaming things, I couldn't move anything - or I ended up with a broken page. I had no idea about creating new projects each time I created a new look, I didn't know the order in which some of this stuff was supposed to be done - it just seemed like nothing worked like it says it's supposed to in the help files. Trial and error for sure!

I too, probably tried to go too fast, and didn't really pay attention. I didn't know what I was doing, and just wanted to see what the tool would do. Boy did I end up with so many errors and broken pages - that I finally went in search of more help.

Now Xara does not advertise tech help, nor do they make it available in one easy link. I did some searching to find out who to ask for help. I got into :THIS: area a couple times, and found some stuff that really helped me - thank goodness - but you know how it is... just isn't exactly what your looking for sometimes.

Finally I write "CS" an email - and they have actually helped me quite a bit - even if it does take a few days. Seems to me (for anyone who is interested) that they seem to do thier help emails in the morning, and that they don't work weekends. I was on to that schedule pretty quick, and tried to contact them on thier time schedule.

Here's a funny, I honestly thought that "CS" was one lonely tech help person with the name of "Carl Schmidt" for all I knew... until I finally saw "Customer Service" listed on the bottom of one of the emails. I was actually feeling sorry for the poor guy until that last email! Uhhh - Duhh Michelle - get a life! http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Anyhow, after I finally figured out what I could and could not do - I ran into the problem of my navigation bars not showing up on two particular themesets (rectangular and sci-fi) - and only when it was burned onto a disc or placed on a server. I tried everything I knew to try, from deleting all old files, reinstalling Webstyle from disc (thinking that maybe I had a corrupt file from the download I had been working from) re-created the same site I can't tell you how many times, and generally driving myself crazy.

Back to tech help I went. Of course that took a good week, so in the meantime I deleted some .TMP files, thinking maybe Webstyle was pulling some info out of a temp file somehow - because by what tech help told me - the paths that site was trying to call no longer existed on my machine. Then I also found and deleted the "default" area files that Webstyle likes to use if you don't pay attention, which is something like C:/mywebs/ etc... a folder I never intentionally use.

At this point I also thought - IS THIS A BETA TEST? Thier Java script must need altered! Man this is a pain in my a**!!! I bought this thing to SAVE time, not SPEND time!

But as with any other tool I currently use - it's taken me some time to learn the tool - and I'm stuck in the learning curve again. Tech help isn't the best for this program, but they don't advertise that either. Honestly, I didn't think I would even NEED tech help - which was my mistake. They have helped me though, which is better than NO HELP. And this area has been nifty too.

In a nutshell - here's what this "Webstyle 4.0 newbie" thinks:

#1 - This program needs a nice little help manual complete with troubleshooting, that gets way more in depth than it currently does. Some of us folk have no trouble RTFM - as long as it's there to read.

#2. - Tech help needs some help. I realize they don't advertise it, but they should. And they should have more than a couple people working on it - even on weekends (when I work too).

#3. - I love this program for what it can do for me "in theory" at this point - and the time it will save me in the future. AFTER I have completely learned the program, and all it's "picky-ness" as I call it.

#4. - I would love to have the option of loading some of my own designs into Webstyle - to alter and change colors etc. that you can do with the "template" desings - although I don't know if that would even be possible. Ok, call that a dream!

As I currently sit, I dread having to go in and figure out how to get all my nav menus linked to the pages they are supposed to go to. I've read about it and it looks like it's going to be another huge project. Easy in "theory" - but I'm pretty sure it's not going to work like it's supposed to. Ahhh... then the photo albums that I loved so much! HA! That's a whole different ballgame.

So, if any of you nice people who are experienced with this program would like to save me some time on working with the nav menus, and the photo albums - please feel free to email me! Otherwise it looks like I'll have to bug ole "Carl Schmidt" again.

Thanks for reading, hope it helped someone!
Michelle