Involving obscured layers, irregular layers, Popups popping popups, and pain...

[Cwelborn]

Alright here's my problem--for my rant, you can scroll down past the asterisks.

I'm been using Xara Web Designer 7 for a while now and at the moment I'm designing a multifaceted site where on the front page, has many irregular shaped mouse-over triggers around a single irregular shape having many different popups in different layers.

Confused yet?

Specifically: The outer-lying layers around the centered object (Henceforth known as Panels and colored red in my attached file) have links to different pages. (all of these pages have a similar layout) They also have mouse-overs set to show different center pop-up layers (Henceforth known as center-previews depending on which one has the mouse hovering over it.
I have fixed (mostly) the problem of having irregular panels (whose invisible boundary boxes overlapped with one another) by putting invisible small rectangles/squares soft-grouped together over the panels in the rough estimation of each panels specific shape for the various layers needing links/mouse-overs.

For example: You mouse over the Panel "Epic". The center-preview layer "Center-Epic" then pops up. All is well with the world because the Panel "Epic" lies beyond the invisible square bounding box for "Center-Epic"s irregular layer. As a relevant side note, if you move your mouse from the Panel "Epic" to the middle of the center-preview popup layer, the center-preview layer doesn't go away--it just stays visible. This remains so until you move your mouse out of the invisible bounding box for that center-preview popup layer or mouse over a different Panel.

The pain begins when you attempt to mouse over a Panel that's within the invisible bounding box for all of the center-preview layer popups.
For example: You mouse over the Panel "Ethnic". The center-preview layer "Ethnic" then pops up and, invisibly I might add, obscures most of your ability to click on the panel you just moused over because sadly, it's within the bounding box of the irregularly shaped center-preview layer. This isn't the only panel. It happens to two others as well.
My attempt to remedy this problem has been less than stellar: Me, being the brilliant and handsome devil that I am, created a second layer for the panels with the same properties as the panels under them (Henceforth known as Secondary-Panels and colored in green in my enclosed file) with the obscuring problem and told all of the center-preview layer popups that I want all of them to have the Secondary-Panels to popup whenever the center-preview layer has the mouse on it. So that this happens: You mouse over the Panel "Ethnic". The center-preview layer "Center-Ethnic" pops up obscuring your ability to click on or mouse over the Panel "Ethnic" but then since you are now mousing over the center-preview layer, the Secondary-Panels pop up for the all three Panels that have the obscuration problem.

Temporarily you are happy.

But then you mouse over the Secondary-Panel "Ethnic" and it shows the center-preview "Center-Ethnic" and while your mouse IS STILL INSIDE the ever invisible square bounding box of the center-preview, you mouse over the Secondary-Panel "Special" and the center-preview "Center-Special" does not appear. That is because for some reason the popup layer "Center-Ethnic" is above (in the layer order) of the particular center-preview popup "Center-Special" and the the "Center-Ethnic" layer didn't disappear when you moused over a different Secondary-Panel.
Please note that the center-preview does disappear and display the Panels which don't have Secondary-Panels over them and the Panels which are outside the Invisalign center-preview bounding box.

For your convenience, understanding, and sanity, I have enclosed the file that I'm working with.
For my convenience, sanity, and blood-pressure, please read all of the above and open the file I have attached before you attempt to answer or ask me, "Did you properly set XY or remember to check the YX??"

**************
/rant

Firstly, I would just like to state that not having support for any type of built in irregular image linking (meaning not being able to click/mouse-over the irregular object itself and instead actually clicking/mousing-over on the square bounding box which is entirely too large) is a ridiculous shortcoming of software that is supposed to be used professionally.

Secondly, you should be able to more adequately customize the popup layers. There is no one size fits all category for every website that's out there and I for one want to be able to have a popup layer appear in whatever layer order I want it to. INCLUDING behind static layers. It's crazy to say that just because you want something to be invisible until you mouse-over/click on it, that it MUST BE IN FOREGROUND. What if I just want a layer to appear and not pop out of the page on top of every static layer in existence? It's ridiculous that it should have it's own set of rules for layer order.

I will also point out that this was originally imported from a photoshop .psd file which has had problems in and of itself: whenever I tried to import a .psd that included a text file, it appeared about 15-20 pixels (in internet explorer, but not any other browser) above where it was placed in the Xara Web Designer program. It didn't matter if it was moved around after the import as it still retained that odd setting.

**************

I'm frustrated, exhausted and I've been tried to think of a way to make this work for the past 5 hours. I thank any who are brave and knowledgeable enough to solve this problem.

I'm going to sleep...
Caden

[steve.ledger]

a ridiculous shortcoming of software that is supposed to be used professionally.

Hi Caden,
I don't recall ever seeing a statement by Xara that Web Designer is web development software aimed at the professional?
Though it's true that templates are included which have been created by professionals for the novice user

I realise venting feels good, but honestly for your first post don't you think that simply posting a question asking if it were possible to create irregular shaped image maps in WD would come across better than introducing yourself with mild hostility?

Welcome to the forum

[Cwelborn]

I don't recall ever seeing a statement by Xara that Web Designer is web development software aimed at the professional

"...aimed at professional and commercial web designers..." - Found in the first paragraph you read on the page located here.

"Xara is renowned for making quality website and graphic design software for professionals..." - Found on the second link on this page.

I don't believe anything else needs to be said here.

I realise venting feels good, but honestly for your first post don't you think that simply posting a question asking if it were possible to create irregular shaped image maps in WD would come across better than introducing yourself with mild hostility?

You really shouldn't be making the assumption that one's experience any any particular given field is tied to his "posting count". For all you know, I could be an administrator for a forum on a different site.

I'm not here to be flame-bated. I'm not here to flame. What I'm here for is to have a problem fixed. Let's skip analyzing each others emotional presence within a post and get to the meat of the matter. Now that we ARE on topic as to what I posted for, if you would have read the entire post as I said that anyone answering should, you would know that I'm not asking how to create irregular shaped linkable/mouseover-able image maps.

As I said here:

I have fixed (mostly) the problem of having irregular panels (whose invisible boundary boxes overlapped with one another) by putting invisible small rectangles/squares soft-grouped together over the panels in the rough estimation of each panels specific shape for the various layers needing links/mouse-overs.

I have remedied that problem.

The problem that I AM having has to do with the popping up of different Panel and Secondary-Panel layers around the invisible boundary boxes of the center-preview. And the correct center-preview1 not coming to the foreground while the center-preview2 which was previously there (while the mouse was on a different Panel) disappears. What happens instead is the center-preview2 stays up and in the top-most layer order while the center-preview1 pops up behind it.

Please, PLEASE read my entire post and LOOK at the file that I have attached which ever so clearly shows my problem. I even took you through the entire process in my first post.

Welcome to the forum

Thank you.

[steve.ledger]

Hi Caden,
I did download your file and read your post twice (it was a little confusing).
What I see you are trying to do in your file is create 'irregular shaped linked areas', Xara cannot do this. Every object on your page becomes a rectangular shaped bitmap 'bounding' area. That's it.

Image maps are (eg) ;

<map name="Map" id="Map">
<area shape="poly" coords="327,60,391,181,439,164,498,161,513,23,411, 26" href="#" />
</map>

They are easily created in a Web Development application like Dreamweaver..


As Xara is not a HTML editor, you can't easily do this.
It's possible you could create what you need in say Dreamweaver (as shown above) then embed it into Web Designer, but as WD uses absolute positioning (WYSIWYG) html, this could be a real problem I feel.

I hadn't ever seen Xara Web Designer referred to as a professional's tool and to be picky, the link only points out that there are extra features aimed at professional and commercial web designers, no mention that the program itself is suitable for the big guns of commercial web development (which it isn't, sorry - but it just ain't)

Peace

PS: Cool web page design by the way.