Bug: Lack of page file name causes navigation problem

[planetsquid]

I first noticed this when my 13 year old sister tried to create a simple website. For some reason the button which should link to page 2 of her 3 page site kept taking her to page 3 - even though the link was correct. It took me a good 15 minutes to work out why.

The problem is this: if the user does not enter a file name for each of the pages in their website, then XWD exports them with the filename '.htm'. This means that page links do not work.

To demonstrate this, open the attached XWD document and preview the site. Clicking on the 'Products' link takes you to the 'Contact Us' page.

This appears to be due to the 'Products' page being exported as '.htm' and then the 'Contact Us' page also being exported as '.htm' over the top of it.

This can be easily fixed by giving each of the pages a file name and re-exporting, but XWD's interface does not make it clear that pages NEED file names. In the absence of a file name, maybe XWD could give each page a name such as '2.htm', '3.htm'.

Rich

[Soquili]

Hi Rich,

The problem is the pages were not given names in the Web Properties dialog.

The attached image shows a filename applied to page 2. Of course it could be a more descriptive filename like Products. You do not need to add .htm or .html in the dialog.

[planetsquid]

Hello

The reason I posted this in the 'Dear Xara Web Designer" sub-forum is because I believe this to be bug - or at the very least an oversight in the programming.

Nowhere in the documentation does it tell you that pages must have file names, but if you do not give file names then site navigation will fail. Inexperienced users (or those with no knowledge of how web pages work) may come across the same problem my sister did, but not have a knowledgeable brother to help them out

Any program that will auto export a file with a blank name needs some more validation coding. '.htm' is not a good file name - especially when the behaviour causes an already exported file to be overwritten. All that would be needed to fix this is for:

1. XWD to require all pages to have a file name (maybe pop a warning at time of export), and the documentation to reflect that file name is a required field, or

2. XWD to make sure that exported pages are not called '.htm', but give them a proper name such as '1.htm'

I know this is an easy one to fix - by adding file names to pages - but this is a real-world problem that I know has flummoxed at least 2 people.

Rich

[covoxer]

This is a bug in 5.0.1. It was not present in 5.0 if I remember correctly.
You don't have to enter page file names. But in 5.0.1, if you had entered page title or other fields on that tab, you'll have to enter file name as well.
Sorry about this. It will be fixed.