export as .php

[jamesd]

I think many people would agree that you should be able to export your Xara website as .php as it would reduce the need to use SEO unfriendly Iframes, as well as all of the other positives of PHP

[Albacore]

I know Design 6 is being marketed as away of assembling and publishing a static web site but it is not an HTML Editor is a vector programme which like others it is capable of publishing your designs to the web. I think that what you have asked for there is a big ask since it was only I think DreamWeaver CS3 developed that ability about 6 years ago and that is the industry level of an HTML editor.

[steve.ledger]

Do you mean to write .php code or export as a .php extension file?
If the later - you can already.
Xara automatically exports the first page as .htm no matter what, but all other pages can have a .php extension if you name them with this in the page name properties.
So in order to get your site exported as .php extension files (because you might be using php includes) simply leave the first page as a dummy file and name the remaining pages as required.

See attached file.

[jamesd]

Cheers! I didn't realize this

[gutterleech]

Please tell me the benifits of exporting the files in php extension. I am new to web design and SEO, so want to learn as much as I can. Few points on it would be appreciated.

[steve.ledger]

php is a server-side scripting language which processes HTML pages BEFORE they are served to your browser.
Mostly .php is used for connecting to databases and other stored data.
Unless you have some special requirements that suit the use of such a scripting language, using it provides no benefits.
The purpose of changing a .htm file extension to .php is only if you include a little PHP code (snippet) in your .htm file.
Without this extension, the server will not parse the file as .php so your script snippet will not be processed.

[Albacore]

I think the days of being an actual Web Designer are diminishing! Just look how much the social websites are spreading throughout the web with companies with any savvy linking in to these sites. Who would you rather buy from a company that your friends recommend or just an anonymous site that a search engine has provided.

Unless you have some special requirements that suit the use of such a scripting language, using it provides no benefits.

All the most successful sites around the world must have some form of database to allow people to engage with the site and make it interactive and the best way to do that at the moment is to use some form of scripting. What I was saying was to expect a vector programme to do this is asking a lot as it is not a web editor like Dreamweaver and there are lots of data driven editors like Jumala and WordPress that you can use along with Xara graphics to assemble such a site.

[steve.ledger]

Yes I agree with most of that Pete. However the OP was not actually asking Xara to *write* PHP scripting language instead of the current HTML, I don't think it could every be done anyway. His requirement was to export pages with a .php extension, this has been possible for sometime as I explained in post#4.

[StevenWWinters]

The purpose of changing a .htm file extension to .php is only if you include a little PHP code (snippet) in your .htm file. Without this extension, the server will not parse the file as .php so your script snippet will not be processed.

Going slightly off topic here, but another option is to configure your website to parse .html / .htm files as php pages. I've done this on linux based hosting sites using the method described here:

http://php.about.com/od/advancedphp/p/html_php.htm

I know it can be done on Windows based servers but haven't looked into it. Either Google it or ask your hosting service tech support for instructions, if interested.

This would completely eliminate the need to rename the pages to .php, just save as .html with the desired scripting embedded in the file as usual. There may be a slight performance hit but if you have a large number of pages where scripting is needed, it may well be well worth it. In my case, it was...

[steve.ledger]

Yes, if you know how to handle dot files and your FTP access shows hidden files, this would be a neat way to run .php code embedded via placeholders.
Thanks Steve