Xara Designer Pro 7 and Wordpress

[candeeh]

Hi,

I am pretty new to the web design and development arena, that is to say, using Xara Designer Pro 7. I currently have a client that needs a Wordpress website so that they can edit/update content and photos on a regular basis. I would love to use Xara Designer Pro 7 to build the website and then integrate it into Wordpress, but am not sure how much of the design can be integrated (i.e., buttons, drop-downs, rollovers, zooms in and out, etc.). Is there anyone out there using Xara to create designs for Wordpress sites? If so, how are you going about integrating your Xara designs into Wordpress? I might be asking for too much here, and if I am, please ignore my ignorance and maybe just point me in the right direction if you can.

Thanks so much!

Candee

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics Candee

Xara is perfect for creating website graphics and websites as well. The principal benefit in my opinion is you can do everything in one program.

Our head moderator/administrator is a WordPress user and I will see if I can get her to comment on your question. I know that she works in both programs.

[Barbara B]

Hi Cindy,


If your question is can your use Xara Designer Pro 7 to build a WordPress site - the answer is yes and no. Yes you can create the graphics for the site, you can "sketch" out the layout, but you can't transfer any of the code that Xara writes or functionality it builds in.

When you use Xara to work out the design for a site that will not ultimately be published from Xara, you have a tremendous advantage. You are creating your final graphics as you prototype and many of the graphics will be vector based so it will be easy to create color, size, shape variations as you design or in the future.

You asked about buttons, drop-downs, rollovers, zooms in and out, etc. No, you can't use the ones Xara made, or use Xara widgets. But WordPress itself or through your pick of thousands of WP widgets you can get the same kind of effects.

For Example: Xara's Cloud Xoom or Nivo Slider or Twitter widgets have WP equivalents.
Buttons can be created using WP widgets or you can hand code them.
Automatic dropdown menus are standard with WP - if you want different ones or you want to change how they look you need to use WP widgets or your own coding.

To make this a bit more concrete:

XaraXone.com is a Wordpress site.

For example, Gary created a design in Xara of how he wanted the front page to look. He created the different button stages, the paper tears, the patterns, the artwork. He used Xara to create the logo. I've attached screen caps of an early - almost finished front page design.

Then it was up to me to transfer this design to WP. What I was able to "take" from Xara was the specifications - the colors, type, how text was styled and positioned, where on the page different elements fell and of course the graphics themselves -- the logo, the tears, the other artwork.

What I couldn't take was any of the code or the functionality.

I first looked for a good WP template framework to supply the foundation for the XaraXone WP template. I used Justin Tadlock's Hybrid Core based theme Prototype as a jumping off place to supply all the WP workings while I supplied a new "skin" and custom page. layouts. If you take a look at Prototype (I've posted a screen cap below) you won't see any resemblance on the surface to XaraXone, but it is there mostly on a WP programing level.

I had to recreate that using WP's templating system and tools and intermediate to advanced knowledge of CSS, HTML and a smattering of jQuery or javascript.

For example the XaraXone menus use the standard WP menu engine, but look the way they do because of the Xara created graphics and the CSS coding that I wrote.

Hope this helps.

[wfcentral]

Candeeh,

before anyone bashes me for saying this... I have been using Xara since the FIRST version - and have bought every version since then... including version 8. I can't imagine not having Xara in my bag of tricks.

However, when I am working on a clients website it goes like this...

If the following items are met I use Xara
- client says they will NEVER be editing the content themselves
- client will never need content edited on a moments notice when I am away from my Xara loaded computer
- client has a lot of interactive features they want (mouse-over, pop-up)
- I want to create something fast and/or creative

If instead the list looks more like this
- client asks for Wordpress
- client wants features that wordpress widgets work best for
- client wants to edit content on site

Then, I reach for Artisteer. This is software that will allow you to create a pretty slick template for a wordpress site in minutes. I prefer this over buying wordpress templates because I can control EVERY aspect of the design (button size, color, gradients, etc) and it exports out as a wordpress theme ready to upload.

[handrawn]

no-ones going to ban you for giving honest advice

[Soquili]

Because this thread topic is about web design I have moved this thread to the Xara Web Design Chat forum.

[mvssysprog]

wfcentral... a quick question....

You mentioned in your post that if the client wanted to do their own editing, that you would use Artisteer. Would you please elaborate? I'm very new to web creation, and Xara seems fairly easy to edit and replace photos.

Thanks in advance...Dave

[gwpriester]

Dave - Xara does not have the ability to let a client edit the website.

xtom has a product that he claims can do this(XT-CMS - A CMS that works with Xara - Xara + CMS Demo) I cannot vouch for this because I have never used it (I tell clients you do not buy a dog if you like to bark) but try out the demo and see if this does what you need.

[speedyp]

I'd like to add my 2 cents worth re: wordpress / Xara.

I started off building all my sites with Xara about 6 years ago. As a "non coder" I loved the way you can just drag and drop everything onto your page & get it looking exactly the way you want.

However, as a previous poster suggested, a robust CMS is a real must have these days. Clients need basic elements like a news blog, and to be able to easily update their own content at will, without having to install and learn Xara (or pay someone like me to do it for them).

Wordpress was quite challenging at first (even installing it was a test), but 6 months in, I've been able to recreate pretty much anything I could do in Xara. I've had to learn some very basic CSS skills along the way, but IMHO it is well worth the effort and I feel my sites are better for it.

I do still reach for Xara for quickly sketching out the look of a site, and it's still my first choice for creating website graphics (never got on with photoshop), but I now do all my actual site building with Artisteer & Wordpress. For those wondering about Wordpress, Artisteer is the closest thing I've found as a WYSIWYG method of working with wordpress. I'm also using an add-on called Templateer which expands the options even further.

By the way, it IS possible to integrate Xara web code into a Wordpress site, by inserting it as html in a wordpress page or "widget". I achieved this recently by designing some custom navigation in Xara & then importing it into WP. But it's a lot of hassle, re-linking your style sheets & urls. And as someone else remarked, the code ends up looking like a dog's dinner (even though it actually works ).

Don't mean to upset anyone here. Xara's a fantastic program & I like to keep an eye on it as it develops, but I design websites for a living, and I feel Wordpress is a more attractive option.

[candeeh]

Hi Barbara,

Thank you so much for the greatly detailed explanation. I have been playing with Xara since the very first version, have bought each upgrade when it came out, and used it to create designs for four other web sites, but I was not sure with the new version, if any of the great functionality that has been built into the new version (Designer Pro X -v8). This is awesome information!

Thank you again!