My efforts to date

[gpholman]

Here's my efforts:

www.feetandsole.co.uk

http://members.multimania.co.uk/atmospheres/ (free hosting which adds adverts which can mess it up a bit)

www.jmlederman.com

[gwpriester]

Nice work. I thought I had responded to this but I guess not. (Advancing years, etc.)

Keep up the good work.

[gpholman]

Thanks for that Gary. I did these all as freebies and it's not how I make my livelihood so I've no idea if or when I'll do another.

[Rik]

I don't normally visit this forum but just happened to...

I have to say that you've done a fantastic job on those web sites.
One thing that always bothers me are the rollovers - when you move your mouse over a menu item and there is a lag before the next pic loads.
Well done indeed.

I assume that you used Web Designer.

[gpholman]

Hi Rik, thanks very much for the kind words! I used XDP 6, although I don't think there's anything in there that could not be done in XWD. I used various bit of JavaScript I found on the web to add in some of the jazzier content.

I know what you mean about lag on mouseovers - I used to see this a lot but not so much these days. Maybe it's down to browsers being better at loading images in the background or internet connections in general being faster... Either way I didn't consciously 'do' anything to stop that sort of lag - Xara can take the credit there.

One thing I have noticed is it's worth reviewing the images that Xara exports. By switching certain PNGs over JPEG you can massively reduced the total size of your site without impacting its appearance (I've gained 50%+ size reductions). If you leave Xara to automatically choose between PNG or JPEG formats it will almost always choose PNG over JPEG (one exception is for a photos, but only if they have not been manipulated in any way - e.g. faded, bordered etc). This is a logiacl choice in that PNG is lossless and provides alpha transparency. However, although PNG is efficient size-wise for limited colour images they are considerably bigger than JPEG when applied to something complex with a high number of colours, such as a photo. So if you have photo / photo-like images that are in the background of the page (where transparency is not an issue) and Xara has elected to use PNG you can make excellent savings by forcing Xara to use JPEG instead.

Cheers
Grant

[champ]

Here's my efforts:

www.feetandsole.co.uk

http://members.multimania.co.uk/atmospheres/ (free hosting which adds adverts which can mess it up a bit)

www.jmlederman.com

The Rudy Adrian website looks really good. I'm going to eventually post a link to my website design created with Xara Web Designer but until then I will wait until I perfect the layout and design. Your design has now inspired me for a future project I think I will try to finish it by either late April or early May of 2011 and show you what I came up with.

[gpholman]

Hi champ, thanks for the compliment. I think this must be the first time I've ever 'inspired' anyone :-)

Post back once your site is done!

[scase1024]

Wow, really like your sites! The reflexology one is very nice - nice use of the graphics representing the business.

Regards,
Stephanie

[champ]

Hi champ, thanks for the compliment. I think this must be the first time I've ever 'inspired' anyone :-)

Post back once your site is done!

Hey I finally finished my design that was inspired by you. You can watch the video on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3jQ8_xZ5lw I really took things up a notch and really put the xara web designer roll over feature to work.

Here is an image of it to: http://www.xaratemplate.com/index_htm_files/129.jpg or you can visit my website at: www.xaratemplate.com

Giving you a few options just-in-case one doesn't work.