Any Dreamweaver specialists? Anyone use Xara/DW as a combo?

**herbiehysteria** · 09 July 2009, 06:41 PM

Hi guys. I have done my website design/graphics/layout EXACTLY how i want it to look in xara, but creating the necessary tables/CSS in DW is a struggle. I have attached a jpeg of my website design (in xara) and the various different areas of the page. However, getting it to look right in DW and for all screen resolutions higher and including 800x600 is what i am having trouble with. Wots the best and easiest option? Tables? CSS? Please help, I am a pro artist and this is my OWN website www.artbyherbie.com, showcasing my portfolio etc. I REALLY need your help.

I have created websites from scratch before but only 760pixels wide centred, so they look good on most screen resolutions, but this is my first 'elastic' design which I want to run across the WHOLE page on a 1024x768 resolution, and scale accordingly therafter. The 'wall graphic' at the bottom needs to remain static and the only scroll bar available should be the content area (top right)

Please help.
HH

**Scotty** · 09 July 2009, 10:04 PM

yer linek to Artby herbie.com doesn't work?
Jim

**steve.ledger** · 09 July 2009, 10:06 PM

Link works for me Jim, just no content uploaded yet apparently..

**JaffDave** · 10 July 2009, 12:28 AM

I would recommend css, It's a little harder to learn than tables but gives the most flexibility for your design.

With a little pre-thought you can see how your images will need to be split to fit into the divs.

Break it down to Header, Menu, Content and say left gutter and a footer.

I would then work out my backgrounds. 1 required for each div (Header, Footer Etc.) Content you already have so they just need to be inserted into each part.

There are many sites than will explain how to do this. I have attached a rough css layout that will give you a visual guide.

Hope this helps. If you would like a copy of the fluid css layout and html file let me know.

**ss-kalm** · 10 July 2009, 03:06 AM

Originally Posted by herbiehysteria

..... I have done my website design/graphics/layout EXACTLY how i want it to look in xara ........... which I want to run across the WHOLE page on a 1024x768 resolution, and scale accordingly therafter .........

You can't have it both ways. Either it can look exactly like you had it, or scale accordingly, in which case the layout will alter drastically. Having both 4:3 and 16:9 ratio monitors doesn't help this situation either.

You have to make a choice either it is static and looks exactly like it was designed. OR it's dynamic and won't look exactly like it was designed.

Xara Web Designer was intended for static layouts (even though the Tweakset helps), and was designed so that the Page always looks like it was designed to look!

**earthman** · 10 July 2009, 03:43 AM

CSS layouts are intended to let web pages "flow" as a natural document more than lock them into rigid layouts, though some people try to do that. There are bugs in CSS that will break most layouts that require pixel-precise placement, unless you use strict absolute positioning for everything. You can probably do what you want by locking the body to 1024 pixels (or more likely 1000, to allow for chrome) and declaring your overflow in the div where you want the scrollbar. There is no reason why you can't make it look like you want. You could also do it with nested tables as well, there's no one "right" way.

**herbiehysteria** · 10 July 2009, 02:30 PM

after readin all your kind suggestions and other research, ive decide to just GO FOR IT. im starting with a blank page in DW, no CSS, and im going for the table approach. my monitor is 1024x768 res so im perfecting it on this, will DEFINATELY keep u lot updated, there should be something to c on the domain name very soon.
thanks again