Publishing Program In Xara Designer Pro X9

[PeteS]

This is a deal breaker for me. For backup purposes, I like to have all the files saved on my computer in a separate folder for each of my websites. I also keep other items that are not included in .xar file (PDFs, etc.) in this same folder. I'll be switching back to XDPro9. What is the procedure for requesting refund on XDPro9X?

As Jon says you still have the Export Website option on the File menu, however backing up your .xar file is far more important than backing up your exported HTML files.

If your hard drive failed for example and you needed to restore things, you can easily generate the exported HTML again by opening your .xar file and exporting it.

[jonazen]

As Jon says you still have the Export Website option on the File menu, however backing up your .xar file is far more important than backing up your exported HTML files.

If your hard drive failed for example and you needed to restore things, you can easily generate the exported HTML again by opening your .xar file and exporting it.

I couldn't agree more! This has been a classic issue in the software world pretty much since the dawn of the industry. You can always export the Xara-generated code again -- if you have the source (.xar) file. It's amazing how many large institutions are actually running high stakes production systems using "object code" (executables) for which they can no longer locate the correct source code. It's all well and good - as long as you never have to make any changes -- and we know how often that happens!

Zee - it does sound like another work step - but with a bit of thoughtful workflow design, it can be perfectly convenient. DPX9 will remember the last location you saved your .xar file to, and will also remember the last place you exported the site to, so you won't have to specify these each time as long as you don't change locations. That makes it just a couple of clicks to 1) save your changes and 2) export a copy of the working site. Additionally, if you use the publish function, it will work the same way -- and you can save publishing profiles for later reuse, so you won't have to type in remote server FTP credentials again (as often, at least).

I've been a big fan of what I think of as "real" file managers rather they depending on Windows Explorer (windoze exploder?). My favorite for many years has been "Directory Opus" (see: http://www.gpsoft.com.au/ ). At the moment, I only use it to keep multiple views of my file directories open and visible, making it easy to drag and drop source, generated code, etc from one directory to another. As most modern file managers will do these days, it can also act as a very capable FTP client, opening file manager windows to your remote site that you can navigate as if they were local directories on your workstation. That makes it trivial to drag and drop code to/from remote servers as well. The one downside of this is that this would transfer all files to the remote server - whether or not they were modified, while DPX9 (and WDP9) are smart enough to only push changed files when you use the "publish" function, which can be a significant time saver.

Directory Opus (or, "Dopus", as its fans have taken to calling it) also has an advanced scripting facility. I haven't played with it yet - but you could, for example, have a one-click button that would copy all the various saved and exported files to backup directories, local staging directories and remote FTP sites.

Long-winded - yes - but my point is simply that you can design a streamlined workflow for yourself that makes it routine and painless to work this way. For me - the payoff is being able to use DPX9 to easily generate pixel-perfect output that would otherwise take quite a bit of effort and time in a code-intensive toolset.

[zee]

Pete & Jon,
You have convinced me. Thanks!

[Big Frank]

you could just use a free backup program to autorun every night saving all your files to a backup drive

i use acronis on my main workhorse
but i use cobian backup on the others as its free very configurable and it just work
it will also backup to a remote ftp location
(i believe they now call this the cloud
another trendy buzzword i find immensely annoying)

[zee]

Frank, thanks for the info!