The 2012 Xone: Coming Real Xoon!

[Gare]

Hi Joe—

There's not a lot to teach about using Xara with WordPress, other than how to scale your media for inserting into a WordPress template.

It's been said before, but just to recap: Xara Designer excels at writing static, exceptionally handsome, clever, short HTML documents. It is an HTML authoring tool, but...and here's the big "but"...it has no capability to serve as an HTML editor.

It can write very elegant pages that would take an eternity for an inexperienced person to code by hand. It was never designed to re-import its own HTML export, though, and for that reason, it's somewhat masochistic to try forcing a Xara exported HTML document into DreamWeaver, or WordPress' online editor.

It's not that Xara Designer is doing anything wrong, or it cannot be used to make websites; it just was not designed to write HTML that's easy for an HTML editor to edit.

NOTE: I am not in any way dumping on Xara here. Please read this 3x aloud. Xara does one thing exceptionally, and several other things outstandingly, and a few things conveniently, okay?

The be fair, it's unfair to compare WordPress to Xara, and to extend this idea, it's not realistic to expect WordPress and Xara to be totally code-compatible chums.

The decision we all agreed upon was a structured website that's extensible, seeing that no one can predict if holograms will be the standard for video in 3 months, you know? We wanted something that doesn't require an Einstein to upgrade, add new content, and maintain. So we're using a CMS, and it happens to be WordPress, because WordPress went from being a blogger's tool to a web developer's in several version over the past three years.

But this is all mechanical stuff under the hood. The January Xara Xone does feature new graphics and a new layout mostly because I'm not the artist Gary Priester is, but if you don't know what's driving the pages, all you'll see are some nice Xara illustrations. Cosmetically, for all intents and purposes, the new Xara Xone was designed in Xara.

It's just the plumbing on the other side of the screen we've tinkered with.

And we're having server problems today (the12th), so please stay tuned. We're paddling frantically below the water!

—Gary

[Gare]

I feel as though I'm pacing and nervously practicing my lines just off stage left waiting for curtain call—

If all goes well (which I'd be foolish to expect), the switch should be thrown Friday the 13th at 7am U.K. time, 12 noon in New York, and 3:37pm in San Francisco.

If XaraXone goes live=[yes],
then tg XaraXone area=NewThread

...which I'll open for discussion and be ahead of time for once. We can talk about the tutorial of the month after people have digested and worked on it.

Xooner or L8r,

Gary

[angelize]

I'll be eagerly waiting for 3:37 tomorrow

[zaphodeist]

... 7am U.K. time, 12 noon in New York, and 3:37pm in San Francisco...

[Karateed]

I'll be eagerly sleeping at that time but when I wake up......watch out....it'll be the Xone factor with Gare....for the first but not last time.

[Rik]

If all goes well (which I'd be foolish to expect), the switch should be thrown Friday the 13th at 7am U.K. time, 12 noon in New York, and 3:37pm in San Francisco.

7am U.K. time?!!!
Some of us are still sleeping at that time of the night!
Better set an alarm clock, then!

[Drwyd]

I think New York is -5 hours from London time and San Fransisco is -8 hours

[Big Frank]

Not wishing to sound too sycophantic, but I'm very much looking forward to this

(I suspect His Xaraness Lord Priester is pacing up and down in the wings, itching to see what Monsieur Bouton comes up with)

((Many kind thanks to Madame Bouton for her propping up of both Monsieur Bouton and the Xone during this transitional phase))

wasn't too sycophantic was it?

[Soquili]

Gary you are obviously pacing and practicing because you added rather than subtracted time zones.

7 a.m. London = 2 a.m. New York = 11 p.m. (previous day) San Francisco

Our friends in OZ will be well into the 13th. FNQ will be 5 p.m.

[zaphodeist]

1 hour 10 minutes past opening time ... old decor still in place