Is auto-adjusting/resizing of page lengths finally in Designer Pro X (v8)?

[HarpGuy]

For as long as anyone can remember, no Xara web design product has been useful for designing template pages for use with/in common Content Management Systems (CMS) because web pages created by Xara web design products will not vertically auto-resize in the browser (and "in the browser" is the operative phrase, here), as the content increases or decreases.

Remember that a CMS template page must have markers inserted into the places on the page where the CMS is allowed to place text; and said text is placed by said CMS, and as it grows or shrinks, the length of the page needs to grow and/or shrink in the browser with it. Even back when everyone used tables to create body copy areas on the page, it was very easy to code said tables so that they grew or shrank in the browser as content was added or removed.

I realize that there's a script available here which, by hook or by crook, can make it happen; but, of course, that's a workaround, and good computer usage practices abhor workarounds. Plus, it's common for third-party scripts of that type to break as the product-in-chief with which said scripts are supposed to work is updated/upgraded, and so those who rely on said scripts must wait for their original makers to update said scripts to keep-up with the product-in-chief updates.

I further realize that there's a member here who sells (for no small amount of money, I might add) a CMS that allegedly works seamlessly with Xara web design products. However, I hate to think that that's the only choice available; that anyone who wishes to use Xara web design products with CMS systems is limited to how that particular CMS maker envisions proper CMS functionality, and so, then, the features which he decides to include or not include in his CMS. Some of the best CMS's out there are open-source; and some are quite feature rich and operationally creative... generally better, frankly, than the one sold (for too high a price) by the member here (no offense intended, of course).

That Xara has summarily ignored, through version after version of its web design products, the critical need for the web pages produced by said web design products to vertically auto-resize, in the browser, as content increases/decreases, so that said web design products may be used to create template pages for use in common CMS systems, is unconscionable, given how virtually the entire professional web design world is now routinely delivering web sites to clients with CMS systems built right into them.

I keep making "in the browser" bold, here, because I see on this web page...

http://www.xara.com/us/products/designer/whatsnew/

...on the "Designer Pro X" tab...

...as the first item under the "Web Authoring / Web Publishing" heading...

...that "Automatic object positioning & smart page resizing" is now a (new) feature of Designer Pro X (v8). However, it's not clear whether said "smart page resizing" happens only when in the Xara web design product (as shown in the video), or if said "smart page resizing" also happens in the browser, outside of any Xara web design product.

If it only happens when inside the Xara web design product, then said web design products remain useless for purposes of creating web page templates for use in common content management systems.

Does anyone know if the vertical auto-resizing happens just inside Xara, or if the pages it creates will finally also vertically auto-resize outside of Xara, in the browser, too?

If the answer is that it only happens when in Xara, but still not in the browser, then what is it going to take for Xara to finally get a clue? When is this august body of users finally going to put the pressure on Xara to catch-up with the times? The market now requires that new web site builds include the site owner's ability to make additions, deletions, corrections, etc. by himself/herself, without calling upon the services of the web designer. Depriving the site owner of that capability holds him/her hostage to the continued expensive services of the site designer... which is (and never has been) the right and honorable way for the site designer to make a buck.

The CMS is what allows the site owner to maintain at least the content (but, of course, not the design) of his/her own web site; and in pretty much every universe except this one (the Xara one), web designers all both know and embrace that... and would just laugh at any web design product which in any way limits their ability to deliver it.

Of course, if it turns out that the new "smart page resizing" happens both while inside Xara, and also outside Xara in the browser, then that immediately-previous two-paragraph rant of mine was wasted energy; and I hereby retract it, and apologize for it. But, in case it's not obvious, I'm frustrated with Xara that it has taken until now for it to happen at least inside Xara; and if it's not now also happening outside Xara, in the browser, then my frustration continues! And if it's not happening in the browser, too, then shame on this group for not insisting, long ago, that it does. What's the point of having Xara's ear in these forums if its membership never insists that Xara implement at least the essentials? And/or if Xara never listens?

So, does anyone know? Does vertical auto-resizing finally happen outside Xara, too? In the browser?

Or is Xara still living in the '90s on this issue? And, if so, then that, despite my having emailed Xara's president back in version 6, I think, and explaining the critical need for this feature; and pointing him at industry article after article after article explaining said critical need; and so, then, his just summarily ignoring it through at least one additional version, possibly two (depending on what you folks, here, tell me, in reply to this posting, about whether vertical auto-resizing in the browser now finally exists).

Comments, anyone? Criticism? Ridicule? I'm open to any of it.

[gwpriester]

As I believed I responded to your equally long e-mail, I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill, and not just a mountain of words.

I have designed probably 50 or more websites for clients with Xara Web Designer and Xara Designer Pro, and I have yet to hear a complaint about the page not automatically resizing to fit the browser.

Website design is about providing relevant content that the visitor can locate quickly. It the site is well designed, that's even better.

[HarpGuy]

As I believed I responded to your equally long e-mail, I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill, and not just a mountain of words.

Sadly, that you think that has clearly kept you from actually reading them. I fully explained why it's important; and when I so did, I assumed that even my detractors would bother to understand my point before taking it on. Your having failed to so do is obvious by your points missing mine by a mile.

I have designed probably 50 or more websites for clients with Xara Web Designer and Xara Designer Pro, and I have yet to hear a complaint about the page not automatically resizing to fit the browser.

And I've no doubt that every last one of those 50 was -- and remains -- an artistic masterpiece. Certainly the one to which you referred me (in our private email conversation, my reply to yours of which you've still not responded, by the way... though we can just as easily hash it out here, I suppose) was beautiful, indeed. No argument here.

But we're not talking about the art of it, here... or at least I'm not. We're talking about functionality... from a technological perspective. You see, that's often the problem around here, where everyone's living in their right-brain and only contemplating the ethereal and the artistic, and to hell with technology. And that, I dare say, is part of what happens when a primarily graphics program like Xara decides to venture into the world of web design. While it's important, indeed, for the aesthetics of the web site to be first rate (and Xara products, in the hands of masters like you, certainly ensures that), form over function can never rule the day with web sites. Even Xara understands that, else it wouldn't tout that its pages are W3C- and whatever else compliant.

As for your saying that you've yet to hear a complaint about the page not resizing to fit the browser, why would you? You make sure that every page fits its content as you design it. Have you ever even delivered a web site to a client which has a CMS integrated into it so that said client may login and maintain the content (but not the design, of course) of his/her own site? Trust me, if you did, and if the pages would not automatically vertically resize to accommodate however much content your client added, you'd hear a complaint from him/her in a big hurry!

Under your paradigm, your client must contact you and pay you your fee to have you make whatever changes to his/her site that s/he needs. Either that, or s/he must own a copy of the Xara web design product...

...at which point, other than the art of it, why would s/he need you anymore? That's part of my point which you've clearly been above actually reading: To make the client come back to you, and pay your fee, every time s/he needs to change anything on the site is holding him/her hostage. It's disingenuous, and a shameful way to make a buck. The responsible designer includes, these days, a CMS of some kind; and, if so, then the template pages must vertically auto-resize as the client, through the CMS, adds or removes content. It must; and all your wishing otherwise won't change that.

Website design is about providing relevant content that the visitor can locate quickly. It the site is well designed, that's even better.

Website design, these days, is, indeed, about providing relevant content that the visitor can locate quickly; and, yes, if it's well designed, along the way, all the better. But it just ends, there? Are you kiddin' me?

Website design, these days, is also about the site owner not being held hostage by his/her designer who, absent a CMS, forces said site owner to keep coming back to said designer, over and over, again, just to get changes made to his/her own site. The price the site owner pays for having a truly beautiful site such as your likes so wonderfully do using a tool like Xara should not be that s/he cannot make any changes, additions, deletions, etc., himself/herself.

It is just counterintuitive -- nay, irrational... nay, folly -- to argue that content management systems are irrelevant. Only a bunch of right-brainer artists who value form over function (rather than function, in addition to their magnificent form as created by Xara and their fine talent) would ever dare go down that ridiculous road. If Xara wants to be a serious player in the web design world (rather than the niche player, to artists who don't bother to keep-up with web trends, that it currently is) then it needs to make it so that its products' web pages will vertically auto-resize in the browser (and not just inside Xara) so that said pages may be used as templates in common CMS systems.

And, seriously, Gary, I can't believe that someone of your obvious brilliance -- seriously... no sarcasm, here -- and talent would question that. Given the state of the web design industry these days, and the fact of the site owner's typical insistence on being able to make his/her own modifications to the site without havint to go back to the designer, it's a bit like arguing that wheels on a car are optional. I can't believe you don't get that; and so I can't believe we're even having this discussion.

Which brings me to that nothing in your response, here, answered my question; just as your not replying to my email reply effects the exact same thing. Yes, I read your saying in your first email to me that vertical auto-resizing isn't a feature of any Xara product; but then, just to make sure you hadn't missed it, I pointed-out, in my reply to that, that Xara's now touting "smart page resizing" in its new Designer Pro X (v8), and so I essentially re-asked the question in light of that...

...to which you've still not replied... either there, or here.

My taking the time to explain, here, why it's important (which you've clearly not bothered to read, else it's difficult to believe you'd still see it as a mountains and molehils sort of thing) speaks, simply, to my encouragement of the members, here, to pressure Xara to add the feature and, by so doing, keep-up with the times. However, since no one here can actually make Xara do that, it's really my question that I want answered, to wit:

Does Xara's new "smart page resizing" only happen inside Xara, or does it also happen on the pages it creates when said pages are being viewed inside the browser?

Does anyone know?

[Soquili]

Short answer: Only at design time.

The "Smart Page Resizing" responds to the "Push" feature.

Automatic Object Positioning / Smart Page Resize In previous versions of Web Designer Premium you had to manually adjust the position of items on your page as you edited or added more text. Similarly you had to drag the bottom of the page down to make it longer as your content grew. No longer! Web Designer Premium has the ability to make growing text areas automatically push other objects down the page, and also lengthen the page automatically to accommodate the enlarged text areas. Creating websites based on templates will now be considerably easier and faster.

[Drwyd]

Smart re-sizing only works in editor, not in browser.

Xara's WD and DP products are aimed at those that have no knowledge of HTML/CSS and have little or no desire to learn. Having said that, a little knowledge goes a long way when pushing its boundaries. WD and DP are just not that kind of product.

And its great for prototyping

[HarpGuy]

Okay, thank you, Soquili and Drwyd. Now I have my answer.

For me to keep making the point that that's not how it should be, though, would, it seems, be a waste of time, here. I appreciate the talents and skills of the members, here; and I appreciate, Drwyd, what you wrote. All of that is good. And I completely understand, believe me, the value of the Xara products. When CMS integration is not a factor, Xara's web design tools may well be best-of-breed among WYSIWYG products...

...hence the reason for my frustration. Xara web design products' unsuitability for use with CMS systems is the single factor that's keeping me from standardizing on it for virtually all of my work. I'm not one of those techie purists who decries WYSIWYG systems, and who believes that the only honorable way to do a web page/site is to hand-code it. Those guys have something to prove... are likely the kinds of guys who'll need to buy a sports car as a substitute penis as part of their midlife crisis. I'm not one of them. I LOVE Xara...

...and would standardize on it in a heartbeat if it would just become CMS system friendly.

I sure wish others, here, would understand that (and don't get me wrong, I'm sure they do) and would, then, put pressure on Xara to finally get this right. Xara's leaving money on the table with this. Not everyone agrees with the hand-coding purists. There are many out there like me who can hand-code with the best of them, but who appreciate the potency of using a WYSIWYG tool to at least knock-out the core layout; and then maybe tweak with some hand-coding, as needed.

Of course, if Xara would really and truly become CMS friendly, it would allow for whatever are the necessary markers or tags to be placed into whatever part of the page they need to be in order to allow the CMS -- no matter which one it is -- to place text there; and then said tags or markers would survive Xara's rendering to HTML; plus, Xara would also allow pages with such markers or tags to vertically auto-resize in the browser. If so, then no additional hand-coding would be necessary.

But, alas, it's been at least two versions since I fully documented the need for that to Xara's powers that be, and the best they could come-up with is what's now in Designer Pro X (v8). And don't get me wrong, that's nice. If the site is owned/operated by the Xara user, then s/he can just use Xara, itself, almost like a CMS, and that's fine...

...for them. But I, for one, don't want my clients using their own copy of Xara to make modifications to the sites I build for them; and I'll simply not, any longer, deliver a site which doesn't have a CMS integrated into it. If the client doesn't want to use it, and asks me to maintain his/her site, anyway, then, fine: I'll, at that point, be the one who ends-up using the CMS. Either way, using said CMS is still easier for site maintenance... plus, a CMS can be logged-into from anywhere. If, on the other hand, one uses Xara, itself, for constant site updates, then one must be sitting at the computer on which it's installed in order to so do. So the CMS even helps the Xara designer to simply make basic content changes, additions or deletions.

[sigh] Oh, well. It is what it is. If this group (which seems to be pretty much the only thing to which Xara will listen) won't put pressure on Xara to get caught-up with the rest of the web design world, then it all may, at long last, be a lost cause.

Pity. I've got 300 bucks in my pocket that I'd love to spend on a copy of Designer Pro X (v8); and I know of several others who feel the same way... who all agree that Xara's singlemost vexing problem is its inability to produce pages that will vertically auto-resize in the browser. I'll bet, between just us, that there's pushing $2,100 of revenue that Xara's just leaving on the table because it's so bull-headed.

And, worse, the members of this forum, to which Xara obviously listens, seem okay with that.

[shakes head in disbelief]

[sigh]

[Drwyd]

I would be a little worried if Xara produced an application that could do all of that in its usual simple and elegant way -- What would happen to all the web designer/developers ?

[pauland]

HarpGuy, it's you who is missing the point here.

I've no doubt that if Xara could make the web page designs auto-size to content inside the browser, they would.

Anyone who understands how HTML and CSS (which is what the browser renders) works, will know straight away why Xara cannot auto-size content in the way that you wish. The HTML and CSS created by the design tool is designed to faithfully replicate the design created by the tool and to do that it places elements at specific sizes in specific places.

Web pages designed for dynamic content don't work like that. They don't need to replicate a particular design; instead they are optimised to create a layout with set relationships between the page elements. Because they do not use fixed sizes and positions they can adapt to content.

It takes a lot of skill using HTML and CSS to build content-adaptable pages. It requires none of that knowledge to build fixed size pages using Xara.

Don't waste your energy moaning about Xara not listening. Not building in this feature is not a choice they have made - it's a problem to build it because of the HTML generation techniques required to replicate a specific design.

There are workarounds to the problem, wish as much as you like that Xara incorporate this feature, but don't keep believing it's not been implemented because Xara doesn't realise how useful it can be.

Work around it with Xara or use some other software.

[HarpGuy]

I would be a little worried if Xara produced an application that could do all of that in its usual simple and elegant way -- What would happen to all the web designer/developers ?

I see that you jest... but, of course, only in form; and that you see it as a real issue. That's my point: It's not. It's folly to believe that you will not get just as much business and revenue from your work if you allow your client to make all his/her own web site modifications. It's only this forum that doesn't already know that. This was figured-out long ago pretty much everywhere else. And it has gotten to the point, in fact, that it is viewed as fundamentally dishonorable to hold one's client hostage by forcing him/her to call the designer every time the site needs updating.

Remember that site design is just that: DESIGN. A CMS has nothing to do with design. It's a MAINTENANCE tool. The designer still earns his/her money by designing the site; and by organizing it; giving it its sections, creating all the boilerplate text on such as the "About" page, and the "Contact" page, and the home page, etc. The designer then educates the site owner in the logic of the basic construct; the importance of doing things only in certain ways to maintain navigational integrity and site optimization. A good designer merely oversees that, and gets the client's blanket permission to login to the CMS and move stuff around whenever/if ever the site owner gets it wrong (and to email the site owner, of course, and explain what s/he did)... and there's revenue in all that.

Site owners, it has been figured-out elsewhere, aren't as worried about the cost as they are the inconvenience of having to constantly contact the designer just to make content changes/updates. They want to feel like they're in control of their sites...

...because, trust me, the other business owners with whom they chat are all maintaining the content of their own sites using a CMS, and so you don't want them wondering why you don't have them set up to do that, also. The designer is still the one to whom the site owner must turn for design changes (graphics, template page layout standards, navigational/organizational stuff, etc.); and there are always plenty of those over time.

If you properly educate the client, s/he understands what you've done for him/her, and what little s/he is actually doing whenever s/he logs-in to the CMS and makes an addition, deletion, or change/update to just content. S/he knows what remains your role, and s/he'll continue to pay for that. S/he just wants to feel in control. All his/her fellow business owers at the club, or at the local chamber of commerce meeting, all have control of their sites. Believe me, you don't want the clients to finally realize what you're doing to them by depriving them of maintaining at least just the basic content of their own sites.

But if you properly educate them, they'll realize that they don't know as much about the larger issues as do you; that they don't understand navigational and search engine optimization; that they don't know the best way to do this, or that, or whatever that a CMS system really doesn't empower them to do. There is NO danger of there being no place in the universe for web designers/developers on account of CMS systems; and the belief that there is evidences a fundamental misunderstanding of what they're for and how they work in the real world.

As for your "I would be worried if Xara produced an applicagtion that could do all that in its usual simple and elegant way," it's not really "all that." There's just not that much to it. Other WYSIWYG web designing tools already allow for vertically auto-resizing pages in the browser. Starting, again, even back in the days when tables were used to do what CSS now does, text areas that vertically auto-resize in the browser as CMS systems insert text into (or remove text from) them have always existed. Even Microsoft FrontPage could do it... still can, for those who still have it installed on their computers.

It's easy. Piece o' cake! It would be no big deal for Xara to add this feature; and to add, at the same time, the ability to go ahead, right in Xara, and place the markers or tags that the CMS wants wherever on the page it wants them. Seriously. It's not rocket science. Any one of Xara's cooler features is several orders of magnitude more difficult to build into Xara than would be the simple task of allowing the web pages it outputs to vertically auto-resize in the browser as text from CMS systems -- from any CMS system -- is inserted or removed. And as long as Xara was at it, it would be just as easy to include a means by which to choose the spot on the page where the text from the CMS goes, to outline it, to declare that that's the part which should auto-resize, and then to place therein the marker or tag that the CMS system will use to know where to put the text.

Seriously. It's easy... much easier than most of the really, really cool features already built-in to Xara.

And all that, while still maintaining simplicy and elegance. It's just not that hard. Trust me.

[pauland]

Other WYSIWYG web designing tools already allow for vertically auto-resizing pages in the browser.

Please give examples.

All of the web authoring tools I have seen that support adaptable layouts are really template configuration tools rather than freeform designers like Xara.

I'd be happy to see some examples.

Paul