Navbar builder

**Thack** · 13 April 2009, 01:27 PM

I was quite disappointed to see the enormous loss of functionality between WebStyle and XWD when it comes to navbars.

PLEASE: bring back the super-slick navbar builder (or something very similar).

**covoxer** · 13 April 2009, 04:37 PM

Let me clarify one mistake here. There is no "loss of functionality". You can create much more complex and functional navbars and menus in WD than you ever coud in Webstyle.

**Thack** · 13 April 2009, 06:12 PM

OK, but it isn't as magnificently easy to use as Webstyle, which is what I incorrectly called a "loss of functionality". Sorry for using the wrong term.

But, maybe I'm missing something. In what ways can WD produce "much more functional navbars and menus" than Webstyle?

This is a genuine question, not a point-scoring exercise! Maybe we would benefit from a reasonably detailed and advanced video covering this.

Believe me, I'm a major fan of Xara and WD, and I'm looking forward to using it instead of Serif's WebPlus X2.

Meanwhile, hints, tips and pointers on how to quickly produce sexy and functional navbars would be great!

**covoxer** · 13 April 2009, 07:29 PM

Menumaker and Webstyle menus are plain text menus. Every option on the menu is a line of text. All they have the same formatting, are aligned and have simple (single color) background. Also the rollover effect on the dropdown menus is simple colored rectangle.
Of course you can reproduce this type of menus in WD. But in WD you have no limitations to the submenus design and content. Every item on any submenu level can be placed anywhere you want, look anyway you want and have any available rollover/popup effects.
Just some of the practical possibilities: you can make menus semitransparent, use graphical background for menus, you can add icons to menu items, you can add hint popups to menu items, you can create skewed, perspective, rotated, circular, radial, and generally freely aligned menu structures to better follow your design.

And yes, I do understand what you are asking for, but my clarification is necessary because unexperienced readers seeing your statement in it's original form may mistakingly assume that it is impossible to create navbars in Web Designer.

**Thack** · 13 April 2009, 08:16 PM

Ah, wonderful! This is definitely crying out for a video tutorial that covers all those features and effects. I hope you will pull some strings for us!

Thanks,

Thack

**dlynnhicks** · 25 April 2009, 12:16 PM

I too, who have been using all of Xara products for a couple years now, wish the ease of MM was available. I am having just a dickens of a time trying to get MM to work properly. Sometimes it does it and on another page it doesn't.

If I had time to make my own menus I probably wouldn't have purchased MM. My drop downs look awful on my page here. I went to insert a navbar set from MM that would look much better and It just went away. So far I have 2 hours into trying to get my navbar back per the instructions in this forum to do it.

Unfortunately I am going to have to leave the project as I have meetings for the rest of the day.

I love all the Xara products but it seems that WD has made obsticles of those modules we already have. I guess that is a complaint, but I do want to clarify that Xtreme and WD are probably some of the best and easiest pieces of software I have use. I guess it is really what you get used to. I have invested a lot of $ in the Xara software. Most of my work is gratis work for non-profit. Mostely organizational sites. To clarify I do have successes with inserting MM into my sites. Here. This is a site where I added my navbar build using WD. I like the look of the first site better than my feable attempt on the second.

I found intrigration with Dreamweaver quite functional. I love WD because it makes the site look better and is more efficient. On the other hand my husband who goes in using homesite to update little things once in a while does not like the layout and was not able to update the site. Perhaps that is just for lack of knowledge.

**Soquili** · 25 April 2009, 03:58 PM

Hi Debbie,

Are you using the instructions from the Xara Support site to add your MenuMaker items to Web Designer? http://support.xara.com/index.php?_m...articleid=2741

I haven't used many of the MenuMaker or Webstyle navbars in my Web Designer pages but all of them have worked without issues when I have used them.

**dlynnhicks** · 25 April 2009, 07:31 PM

Yes I am. I am sure it is something I am doing wrong. It is just frustrating and time consuming. I got it right on these two sites Hereand Here. I thought I had it down pat.

Guess not.

Thanks for the encouragement.

If I don't explain this correctly you'll know why I keep having problems with the MM.

When you save your graphic you set your file location to the index_files_htm and when you choose the location you put the root file your main index.htm is in. This seems to fix the problem. It works now and I am happy. Before I was saving it all in the files folder.

**suzzie1234** · 29 April 2009, 07:03 PM

I am ABSOLUTELY FRUSTRATED with trying to create nav bars in WD.

You can see in the regular forum that after 4 hours of trying to follow instructions, on boxes and letters and grouping, and layers, and soft layers, and on rollover layers etc AND IT IS NOT, NOT, NOT working!

I am an intelligent software person...have owned other Xara products for years.

YOU CAN SEE...I HAVE RESORTED TO POSTING A "WORK FOR HIRE" POSTING TO HELP MAKE ME A CASCADING NAV BAR THAT WORKS!!!! AND I WAS SO UPset with the hodge-podge of 21 different posts... and multiple stickies on misinformation...I HAD TO PAY SOMEONE TO GET PROPER ADVICE and create a bar for me. Did I say that a user here was frustrated!!!

Ive lost hundreds of dollars in billable hours here trying to learn how to create stable workable NAV BARS that function well.

I NEED A STEP- BY- STEP....BABY STEP VIDEO...THAT GOES SLOW...AND DOESNT SHOW OFF...AND DOESNT GLOSS OVER ANY IMPORTANT STEPS...AND THAT EXPLAINS "WHY AND WHAT" IM DOING IN SELECTING... AND HOW TO CHECK GROUPING... AND MAKING WORKABLE NAMED LAYERING... .AND MOUSE-OVER SETTING...AND LINKING AND POPPING UP a picture or going to a page. ETC ETC.

Please help...I am besides myself in frustration with WD.

I support the immediate priority of creating one definitive...one place video... to learn nav bars. PLEASE STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING...ASSIGN YOUR TRAINER TO SPEND 3 HOURS TO BUILD THIS...THIS WEEK...TOMORROW!

If you were to make a Webstyle wizzard or the ability to import a Webstyle build menu without needing to be a rocket scientist with java code and coding this and coding that...and retyping this...and naming that...that would be much appreciated as well!!!

Thank you for listening to customers.

Suzzie

**covoxer** · 29 April 2009, 07:41 PM

Suzzie, I think your frustration of building drop down menus is because you were trying to follow instructions step by step, without understanding what are you trying to achieve. I don't know what exactly doesn't work in your attempts, so I can't help with them, but I may try to explain the sole principle of this approach.

Think about your menus as popup panels. Every such menu with a list of options is just a popup layer. I'm sure you know how to create buttons on such panel. If the button has to open another menu, set it's Mouse-over setting to "Show popup layer". That's it. Nothing complicated at all.

Second step may be attempt to add rollover effects to the buttons on every such menu panel. For this purpose you have to create separate MouseOver layers for every popup layer. This is easy - create layer just on top of the popup layer and give it any name that starts with "MouseOver".

This is all. You don't need anything else to make you menus work. All the manipulations with grouping/ungrouping, soft groups and repeating objects are there to simplify the process of repeating operations, but they may be confusing and misleading if you don't know their purpose.