which software do I need?

[Song]

I went to the website looking for a menu maker... then I saw the 'web designer' and thought it might be more practical to purchase it...my question is ... if I get 'web designer'... does it include a way to make dropdown menus or would I have to end up buying 'menu maker' as well to accomplish that??? Thanks for your help.

[Soquili]

Hello Song,

Welcome to Talkgraphics.

Web Designer can be used to create dropdown menus that are only limited by your creativity and knowledge of using the program.

Menu Maker is specifically made for creating menus using templates.

[Song]

I am reeaaaallly new to website building and the software associated... how user friendly is the web designer... and what kind of learning curve is associated with it? I am a quick study on most everything... but not at all familiar with the territory.
thanks again

[Soquili]

Web Designer is much easier to learn than many other web site creating applications.

Web Designer is basically a vector drawing application. You put images, shapes, and text where you want them to be on your web page and then use the File menu > Export to website. The page or pages you export will look the same as they do within Web Designer.

[Song]

Sounds totally fabulous.. however... I just spoke with our webhost and they tell me that it is not compatible with them... I am working on our e-store... and he says that if I were to build the pages in Xara and then upload them to the store it would not work because I would be sending an application into another application...so... after all this... apparently I can only use menu maker after all... thanks so much for all your help.

[Merlin_AZ]

Not true!
You use Web Designer to create the website and save it in it's own format.
That's true.
Then you "export" it as .html files, and it's those files that you "publish" up to your web host.
It shouldn't have any issues.
If you already have a hosting account, download the demo and see how the program works.
If you don't, I think you will miss out on a very good tool to create websites.

[dogbertbh]

I agree. Unless there's some issue with the way XWD handles CSS.

[Song]

My husband builds websites... our website has a store... I just inherited that job... the e-store... I don't like the limitations and the way it looks... the hosting company told me to check out menu maker... in order to make drop down menus...that is where I saw the "web designer"... I am sure we could use it to work on the website itself... but apparently the e-store would be different ...does that sound right? I will download and check it out.
thanks!

[dogbertbh]

It's possible that they only let you change the menu and that's why.

Maybe they allow you to make a menu and insert the code.... dunno really.

[Soquili]

Song your estore would be different, as it is probably an application that must access data and process the orders.

Web Designer can create html pages but to have it work with active content you would need to know how to code in the language used by the estore.

Menu Maker is easier to use to create menus, dropdown menus are very easily made with the program.

If however you do need to create complete web pages or a web site then Web Designer is more powerful in that respect.