Designing a Web template in Xara X1

[Availor]

May I participate? http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Anyway, I'm better off with Macromedia products.... being a lazy person I prefer automated stuff, and I like using Freehand's action capabilities. The file is small, and depending on the graphic you make, it is simple and effective... Well until I learn Actionscript and move to Flash http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/smile.gif
Meanwhile I'm into VisualBasic.... I know CorelDraw is using VBA, so you can create a website insite CorelDraw... I like the idea of just drawing your site and linking buttons to urls... it's much easier.

[jwhitham]

"But why do that today when even the most rudimentary web page creation programs can do the coding faster and more efficiently?"

Because, at least in my experience, they don't produce efficient code, far from it.

It hasn't actually been my job to build sites for a couple of years, we now have a creative department to do that, however I am responsible for our sites correct functioning from a tech point of view. In that capacity I have had to wade through tons of the opaque code generated by a very well known, expensive, page creator, and have been amazed at just how poor a lot of it is. The worst bit, aside from huge blocks that do nothing at all, is the software's obsession with using divs, and absolute positions in such a way that the pages become unreadable if the user changes font sizes.

I rather suspect that people using Flash to do stuff that could easily be done with HTML is because it gets them off having to consider window and font resizing.

I used to use TextPad, and very good it is too, however I now favour PSPad; highlighting, some syntax checking and a built-in FTP client. Really handy for quickly fixing stuff that's already uploaded.

[stubbsuk]

It's a mistake to craft your Web site in Flash only. A Web site should look good, of course, but the whole point is to provide information and for that information to be accessible to as many people as possible. Using Flash locks out countless customers/visitors. I stick with static, optimised graphics and good old HTML/CSS, personally.

[Availor]

I used to use TextPad, and very good it is too

You are a professional designer I presume... I learned using a Freehand book and a week of practice. I do not compare myself to people who can code faster than I can click my mouse. But that requires years of experience. Many of the sites created even for big companies are done by people like me (I work in such a company). They are more than satisfied with the result, and they don't have to pay me the same sum they would have to pay a pro.

[jwhitham]

Availor,

fair point. I *was* a professional designer, though product/industrial rather than graphic, for some 20 years - I'm quite ancient - before interests in engineering and programming took me into other areas.

So, yes, my perspective is maybe different from yours. I still maintain that good web design requires at least a rudimentary grasp of HTML. Maybe the bandwidth wasting inelegance of much machine generated code is of no importance in the context of broadband, but pages that scale incorrectly, or not at all, are very offputting to most surfers. The only sure way to fix such pages is to get in there with a text editor.

[kriz10]

Have you ever tried to create a site that needs enterprise content management and do it all in Flash? Believe me when I say its darn near impossible to get right and I know because I am a hard core Cold Fusion Programmer. I believe that Flash is really for particular types of media and is very usefull for certain things but not all things.

When I think full flash sites I think of sites like movie sites or card sites or rock/pop band sites. Some of these sites load slow even on my T1 connection and brand new, LOADED, computer. I use flash all the time but actually as a replacement for gif animations. When people want information in the business/enterprise setting, they rarely want a full flash site but rather a static, content managed site.

I also use DW on a regular bases for both its wisywig and hand coding capabilities and I assure you all my sites are xhtml strict compliant with no excess crap code. So I agree with Gary in that it’s not so much what you use but how you use it.

Now as for the original question. I agree that you need to do more research. If you want to build templates you should at least have a decent understanding of HTML, CSS and Javascript as has already been implied. You might want to check out this VERY successful template site to get an idea of what template building requirements are all about: www.templatemonster.com.

[jwhitham]

Christian,

not sure if your comments regarding Flash were aimed at me, but if so, I was not in any way advocating using Flash for everything, far from it. I was suggesting that Flash is a lazy way to get around designing a site that scales properly.

Personally I only use Flash for animations that are unsuitable for .gif, or for constructing complex applications. I must admit though I have recently written apps with Flash that I would once have used DHTML for, because analysis of visits to our sites show large numbers are starting to turn off javascript, b****y spyware and browser hijacker worries I suppose.

[kriz10]

jwhitham,

My comment was not for you directly and I am sorry if it seemed that way http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/cool.gif

Honestly I read the posts straight through and alot of times don't even pause to see exactly who it is that said such-n-such and so on. http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif

[John Rayner]

"a better analogy might be a driving a horse and buggy on a high speed super highway compared to driving a Porsche on the same high speed super highway." - Gary

Awe... but which is which? My 11,000 lines of code loaded faster than your 150 lines and that is what really counts... http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/wink.gif http://www.talkgraphics.com/images/smilies/biggrin.gif

The fact remains, Hand slung code is by far faster loading than any WYSIWYDG. Most designers prefer WYSIWYDG editors to slinging code for small slow sites. Large sites, are best done with a code slung script.

[gwpriester]

To continue flogging the dead horse for a moment or two.

Most designers do prefer not to be coders. That was why Clement Mok, one of San Francisco's most prominent designers and web pioneer invented NetObjects Fusion, because as he put it, he wanted to design web pages and not write code. And to be quite honest, that is why I took intantly to the program.

That said, there are things one can be sensitive to when using a WYSIWYG application. Knowing that the program is going to create a complex table to include every item on the page, how you assemble those items can create a lot of extra code or can concerve code, depending upon how things are placed on the page.

I guess what it boils down to is this, no one is going to see your code when they visit a site you have created (unless it is another coder who is more interested in your source code than what is on the page). The visitor to the site is interested mainly in the content. If the content has appeal, the visitor will stay on the site. But if the content is too hard to get to, or if the visitor has to wait for ever for some Flash extravaganza to load, then often times that visitor is going to be off to the next site before you page loads.

So obviously a balance is called for.

If people want to hand code pages, swell. If John thinks his 11,000 lines of code will load faster than my 150 lines of autogenerated code (I would love to see this John, by the way) swell. I am more interested in the big picture, the content, not the tiny brush strokes, the code.

Whatever gets the job done.

Gary