newbie - should I bother?

[jmlorang]

Hi. I'm brand new to this forum, am a self taught not very experienced web master. I purchased webstyle about a month ago, and have been playiong with it ever since. I'm redoing my web site that has about 70 pages, I use FP 2002, Windows XP, and haven't spent a lot of time learning html. I really liked the cool stuff on the xara web site, and their assurance that even a newbie could use it. I've read every post available here to try and get some answers, BUT...

It just doesn't seem to work right. It crashes pretty regularly. When I try to insert my cool new navbar, about 90% of the time Xara doesn't open the menu where I have the choices I should have to save it to FP - I get into a menu where it wants to overwrite everything I've done, and doesn't insert it into FP. I use a lot of subfolders to organize my pages, and a shared border, and it sounds like I'm going to have problems displaying the nav bar in the border of each page, unless I save it in each subfolder. And where do I save it in each subfolder? There are so many issues listed on this forum with bugs and difficulties and lack of support, and the manual is so bad, I'm wondering if it is worth the trouble to spend the many hours this will take to work through each issue. I've searched for some tutorials that will help with the issues I'm having, and don't see anything that really breaks it down step by step.

I love the look of the cool new navbar, and would like to think it will work. But, I don't have 50 hours to throw away. Is it worth it? And if not, can anyone direct me to a program that will create drop down menus and is truly is friendly for a newcomer to use? Many thanks for any opinions!

Jeanne

[jmlorang]

Hi. I'm brand new to this forum, am a self taught not very experienced web master. I purchased webstyle about a month ago, and have been playiong with it ever since. I'm redoing my web site that has about 70 pages, I use FP 2002, Windows XP, and haven't spent a lot of time learning html. I really liked the cool stuff on the xara web site, and their assurance that even a newbie could use it. I've read every post available here to try and get some answers, BUT...

It just doesn't seem to work right. It crashes pretty regularly. When I try to insert my cool new navbar, about 90% of the time Xara doesn't open the menu where I have the choices I should have to save it to FP - I get into a menu where it wants to overwrite everything I've done, and doesn't insert it into FP. I use a lot of subfolders to organize my pages, and a shared border, and it sounds like I'm going to have problems displaying the nav bar in the border of each page, unless I save it in each subfolder. And where do I save it in each subfolder? There are so many issues listed on this forum with bugs and difficulties and lack of support, and the manual is so bad, I'm wondering if it is worth the trouble to spend the many hours this will take to work through each issue. I've searched for some tutorials that will help with the issues I'm having, and don't see anything that really breaks it down step by step.

I love the look of the cool new navbar, and would like to think it will work. But, I don't have 50 hours to throw away. Is it worth it? And if not, can anyone direct me to a program that will create drop down menus and is truly is friendly for a newcomer to use? Many thanks for any opinions!

Jeanne

[Micheal]

I also have just started using webpage 4 and am having problems with the files. The manual doesn't explain enough about it.I just redid my complete site of only 8 pages and had it working perfectly on my computer but when uploaded it seems to have lost the files needed to work correctly and I can't edit it online and it still doesn't work correctly and I'm sure its the file placement. A better manual would be good because I like the look of it and it was farily simple to build.a good product if it can be uploaded right.

[GOC]

The secret of using Webstyle is putting the files in the correct places. My web site (www.wega.org.uk) is made up of about seven separate sections. Each section is self sufficient.
For instance the Info section (folder) contains a sub folder Info_files which is produced by Webstyle.
This contains a plethora of files (mainly gifs) called things like Info_corner.gif which are the bits of the web page produced by Webstyle. Also included are three javascript files - info_hnavbar.js , info_vnavbar.js and xaramenu.js . These are essential to the working of the pages based on this version of the Calibrate theme. They do not work with other versions even if, superficially, they look similar.
Besides the Info_files sub folder, the Info folder contains the art work (Headings created in Webstyle etc) and all the web pages using the info version of the Calibrate theme. I include a blank page - it has the nav bars etc but no content. When I want to add a new page, open the blank, add the content, update the vertical nav bar in Webstyle (check that it is saved in Info_files), and save with an appropriate name. Upload the page with its art work and re-upload the Info_files folder. If I was keener than I am, I could work out which bits of Info_files are needed but it is easier to upload the whole thing.
The other sections of the web site have a very similar structure