webstyle help in web designer

[nowizzard]

hello everyone. i am not a skilled designer but have been useing xara products for many years for they work for me.

i am redesigning my web site www.thecustomtag.com with xara web designer.
i was useing frontpage with xara webstyle 4 before.

first i designed my index page with headings, text, etc. all works fine.
then i decided to add a navbar useing xara webstyle 4. i followed the instr to the 't' and placed all the code correctly in the place holder. it works and shows perfectly where i placed it on the page in web designer.
now this is the problem i am having. after i place my navbar all new items that i add below (text, etc) the navbar show on my page that iam designing but when i view and export the page the items do not show and look to be hidden. i have tried to use the move fwd, put back but nothing seems to work. if i remove the nav bar and update the page all items reappear. what am i not doing correctly. thanks for your help.

[nowizzard]

this is what seems to be working since my first post. i removed the complete rectangle where i placed my navbar code in the placeholder, continue to design my page, save page, then add a new rectangle, place code in placeholder, save, export. this seems to work. it may take me a little longer but suggestion will help, thanks again

[Soquili]

Hi Nowizzard,

I'm unable to duplicate the problem you described.

Could you please give step by step instructions that can cause the problem?

[nowizzard]

hi bill and thanks for your continued support.
i believe i have found the problem i was having. i will describe the before and after. i am useing fp to produce my web style nav bar and exporting web designer to fp then uploading my files.
1. i created my pages in web designer then saved the pages and exported.
2. i created a nav bar with web style 4 in fp and saved the graphic in a folder named topmenu.
3. i went back to web designer and created a placeholder and pasted the code as per instr. i then saved and exported and all worked well.
4. when i opened web designer again to make changes to my pages and changed anything below my nav bar on the page nothing updated when exported. it was like it was hidden. all of the pages in web designer looked good.
5. each time i updated my nav bar i had to copy the code again, open web designer, remove the old placeholder, hit update, open the place holder again, paste new code, save, export and all worked.
6.how i seemed to fix my problem. going back to basics i re read the instr on how to use web style in web designer. i realized that the graphics i was saving in web style was being saved in my folder topmenu. i chaned it to save in the folder index_htm_files. it was like a i died and went to heaven. now when i make changes to my nav bar in fp all i have to do is open web designer, update files, save, export, view and all is updated automatically,
i believe unless i am doing something incorrect again the navbar made in webstyle should be only saved to the index file ( index_htm_files ).

i must stress that iam a novice designer and xara started me with webstyle 3, then 4 now web designer and has made my life so much easier. keep up the good work.

ps now that my nav bar works, i am finding it easier to use and learn.
thanks again
john

[Soquili]

Hi John,

The problem is the using of frontpage. When I looked at your page shortly after getting home from work early this morning I saw the webbot (frontpage creation) it had placed the hidden attribute around several of your page elements.

You should open Webstyle4 without using frontpage. The step by step instructions from Xara Support do not include the changes frontpage makes to the code.

[nowizzard]

good morning bill,
thank you for your help and support. i will change this asap. also a additional note. when the navbar is incerted into web designer i have to make sure i make it on top and all other text etc under the pulldown to move back or else the pull down menu is under the text etc and unreadable. thanks again.
john

[Soquili]

Good Morning John,

I also saw the need to put the other objects (text, images, etc.) below the menu. Doing so in Web Designer is much easier than it was with programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver.