Grouping Items as Div, not baking it as image

Hi all,

I am doing some pretty cool stuff with Xara and jquery, and it's amazing how close Xara comes to being the *ideal* tool for dynamic website development.

One of the issues I'm having is that I'd like to group some items...but as soon as I do that, Xara bakes the group into a PNG file, and all my links, HTML placeholders, etc. go away. :-( I'm building a registration form that stays hidden until the user clicks "register", and the form slides in from the side. I can do this with a popup layer, but I don't have quite enough control over it using Xara's built-in functionality.

Seems logical and natural to me that Xara should treat (or have the option of treating) a group as simply a Div...so I can name it and manipulate it in jquery.

Making it a soft group doesn't bake it into an image, but also doesn't put it into a div. And separate layers also have no effect on the output.

Is there a way to get Xara to group things into a div?

Thanks so much!

-John

John, soft group your form items. In XWD9P, Name them all htmlclass=register; this adds the Class "register" to each one.

Use the Page Head and insert a small jQuery statement: jQuery('.register').wrapAll('<div class="registerWrapper" />');

You can now use more jQuery to manipulate the register form as you choose.

Acorn

P.S. For other flavours of Xara, you can instead add a Name of "register" and use jQuery('#register').wrapAll('<div class="registerWrapper" />');

@John

When you group objects, even a line of text, this forces Xara to export the object or group of objects as a bitmap.

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Originally Posted by Acorn

John, soft group your form items. In XWD9P, Name them all htmlclass=register; this adds the Class "register" to each one.

Use the Page Head and insert a small jQuery statement: jQuery('.register').wrapAll('<div class="registerWrapper" />');

You can now use more jQuery to manipulate the register form as you choose.

Acorn

P.S. For other flavours of Xara, you can instead add a Name of "register" and use jQuery('#register').wrapAll('<div class="registerWrapper" />');

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Acorn, that is a brilliant response, and exactly what I needed...thank you SO much!! :star:star:star:salute::star:star:star

-John

Hi Acorn,

So I'm having trouble getting this to work. I should say I'm using Xara Designer Pro X 8.1.2.23228...this should be a superset of all Xara Web Designer functionality, correct?

When I apply the same name to a bunch of items (either as a soft group or individually), they retain the name in Xara but in the exported code, only the first item in the group gets the name. (htmlclass=dlgSignUp gets ASCII-ized as id="htmlclass:61dlgSignUp:59"...using just a name still only generates one element with that name.)

Any idea as to what I might be doing wrong?

Thanks!
-John

OK, so I downloaded the XWD9P demo, and Acorn's suggestion worked beautifully. The exported HTML looks MUCH improved over my "Pro X" version. :-O

So given that there is, at present, no "Pro XI" (Pro 9), would I be allowed to use XWD9P for free since I already own the flagship product which is supposed to be the superset of all product offerings? I would hope that the fine folks at Xara would not make me purchase a "lower end" product to get a usable web export? :confused:

Thanks!

-John

You can use the free 30 day trial of WD9P, the next version of DP hasn't been released yet, but when it does it will have all of the same, improved HTML features as found in WD9P.

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Originally Posted by PeteS

You can use the free 30 day trial of WD9P, the next version of DP hasn't been released yet, but when it does it will have all of the same, improved HTML features as found in WD9P.

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Awesome, thanks Pete...any idea when the next version of Pro X is set to be released?

-John

If he knows, he could tell you, but then he'd have to..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jobie

OK, so I downloaded the XWD9P demo, and Acorn's suggestion worked beautifully. The exported HTML looks MUCH improved over my "Pro X" version. :-O

So given that there is, at present, no "Pro XI" (Pro 9), would I be allowed to use XWD9P for free since I already own the flagship product which is supposed to be the superset of all product offerings? I would hope that the fine folks at Xara would not make me purchase a "lower end" product to get a usable web export? :confused:

Thanks!

-John

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Glad I tripped across this! I am about to tackle part of a web project that will involve embedding a form, collecting user input, posting to a PHP script that in turn calls a remote server, and finally feeds results back to a page with embedded javascript widgets (various chart / graph widgets) along with some formatted text.

Just now starting to dig into the php side of it and have been examining various chart widgets, jquery-based packages and the like, and will likely run into what you've all been discussing in this thread. Timely subject for me. I'll probably hit the same kind of questions within a couple of days... :)

(let me know if you guys have done anything along those lines with Xara WD or DP - thanks!)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jobie

So given that there is, at present, no "Pro XI" (Pro 9), would I be allowed to use XWD9P for free since I already own the flagship product which is supposed to be the superset of all product offerings?

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Wishful thinking, but no freebie.

Quote:

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I would hope that the fine folks at Xara would not make me purchase a "lower end" product to get a usable web export? :confused:

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Nobody is making you do anything. Just be patient.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jobie

I would hope that the fine folks at Xara would not make me purchase a "lower end" product to get a usable web export? :confused:

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Do previous versions of Web Designer/DesignerPro not have usable web exports?

Many, many people use it daily to export websites.... :D

I think Jobie is referring to his experience in getting his jQuery stuff working as per Acorn's suggestion.

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Originally Posted by pauland

Wishful thinking, but no freebie.


Nobody is making you do anything. Just be patient.

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When WDP9 was first announced at $99 a few weeks ago, I struggled a bit with a similar decision -- wait for the upgrade from PDX8, or go ahead and get WDP9 and start using the newer features now. I started with the free eval version, and after a month -- and in consideration of a current project, I opted to spend the money on the WDP9. I was a bit disappointed that there were no cross-grade options, but in the end it was my decision to spend the extra money to get the features sooner, knowing that I'd still upgrade to PDX9 when it comes out.

Last week I received a promotional email notice letting me know about a discount crossgrade from PDX (and I believe possibly from WebStyle too?). I was a bit put out at first that I missed the discount, but wrote to the customer service folks at Xara - noting the 18 or 19 Xara products I've licensed over the last 10 years or so. I received a quick reply within a couple of days, and will be able to take advantage of the cross-grade when PDX9 is released, effectively getting my discount on WDP9 after the fact. I was pleased at such a courteous and responsive reply. Kudos to Xara.

In the end, if you have a qualifying product, getting WDP9 now will cost you something like US $50. If having the features now, probably a few weeks before DPX9 is released, is worth $50 - then it should be a no brainer. If having them now isn't worth $50, then rest assured that DPX9 will be out later this summer. I found just enough difference so that my workflow is improved -- and that's been enough for me to drop the $50 on it (it was actually enough for me to spend $99). Maybe it wouldn't make a difference to others. But that's why we have choices.

All in all, I'm a happy camper using WDP9 now, and knowing DPX9 will be coming out soon.