Webstyle and what it does

[jamesmc]

Being a Webstyle user, thought I would drop a note or two about what Webstyle is and isn't.

• It is a program that provides Graphics, templates, animated GIFs and javascript to help build your Website.
  
• It is not an HTML, CSS or XML program.

The reason that I am putting this here, it seems a lot people are having problems figuring out what to do with Webstyle items that are imported into their Web Folders.

The only items Webstyle puts into your folder is the name that you decide for that project and the appropriate graphics and/or javascript.

The location of the graphic on your Web page is entirely up to you.

There are some conflicts with certain browsers and javascript (Internet Explorer and Mozilla) that occur time to time. And it can be a hair-pulling experience to figure out what the problem is. With that said, it is a browser problem and how it deals with javascript(js) and not the js itself.

What Webstyle does with buttons and menus is provides you with some GIF images and some javascript functions that control when the menus slide up or down or which direction (depending on the style of the navabar or button.)

If you are having trouble making it fit or locate it precisely on a Web page, use a table or some other method to capture the graphic in a box, just like you would any other graphic.

All in all, I would just like to remind people that Webstyle inserts graphics and sometimes javascript to help you make a Webpage. It can resize, re-color, change the text, change the style and even add to the graphic on the fly when interfaced with Dreamweaver or Frontpage.

Hopefully, that will clear some things up to realize that Webstyle is a smart graphics program to help make html design easier. But it is mainly a graphics interface, nothing more.

[stlewis]

James

Yes, and also an inspiration maker/giver! Which is how I use it.

It is an awkward product to market and support - it *looks* like a tool for beginners but it needs a bit of knack to make it work and fit into other tools. I commend you for your efforts in trying to explain how to use it!

[Soquili]

Hi James,

Very good explanation of what Webstyle can do. I've owned each version that has been released but haven't used it much, I'm not a web designer.

[samrc]

Nice description. It builds items that get placed/used in your web page but does not build the page itself.

I have used Webstyle for a while now and find it a useful tool to quickly create pieces that can be included quickly into web pages, especially when I am crunched for time and can not take the time to make something from scratch. The simple interface makes changing colors, text and size quickly on preset designs. I do not use Frontpage or Dreamweaver so must manually take the HTML code, js files and images created by Webstyle and work them into my web pages.

Basic web-building skills are necessary to add special features to your site no matter what you want to implement. They are the same skills used for inserting a free script/piece of code from a site like Dynamic Drive. If you know how to do that, you can insert the items created by WebStyle (menus, rollover buttons, ads, etc). You still need to fix them to your web page and work your text content around these extra things. If you can insert an image into your page, you are 1/2 way there!

[TwidderBird]

if anyone is familiar with Earthlinks website builder 'Trellix Site Builder', is webstyle similar to that? thanks
nance

[Soquili]

Hi Nance,

It has been several years since I used Trillex as a stand alone application, not part of Earthlinks or any other site.

From what I remember it was more like most WYSIWYG page editors.

Webstyle is more of a pick a template then edit elements of that template.

The attached images show the main screen. The Web Page choice from the main menu. And selecting to edit the colours in the theme of the template selected.

[TwidderBird]

thanks Soquili. so Webstyle is just making various choices on a number of templates to choose from.....and you can't go and customize the template or beyond choices availabe. maybe I got it now

[snicho]

I've owned and used Webstyle for some time now. Previously I have just used portions of it (eg. menu customising, scrolling banners, etc) to create elements to include in my webpages. However, recently I have also struggled with the best ways to use this program to the fullest extent.

While using all the other options seemed intuitive, when I first tried the "Web Pages" menu in Webstyle, I thought that I had to use this to generate each individual page for my web site. This is not the case. It just provides you with your own customised framework (template) that you can then copy and edit for each web page on your site.

From the "Web Pages" menu on the "Start" page, you can use Webstyle to generate the html for your webpage layout from pre-defined templates. Using this feature results in one single html file along with a folder containing all the graphics and the java script(s) for the menu(s). You can then open the html in a separate editor to edit the text and customise the page layout, linking in (or deleting) any different page elements you require. Because the generated html is well commented, it is easy to identify what areas of the page to edit. If you keep the same fundamental layout for subsequent pages, then just copy this html file for each additional page you require for your site.

All the other options on the Start page allow you to generate a wide variety of webpage elements that you can also link into your webpages, again through the use of your separate webpage editor.

Add-ins for both FrontPage and Dreamweaver are provided for linking the output from Webstyle to these webpage authoring programs. Alternatively, any html editor will open the html page that Webstyle generates. If you create separate webpage elements in Webstyle, then these can be linked into your page as you would any graphics, script, etc.