Web Designer hard to understand

[Egg Bramhill]

Starmo, your reply is starting to get off topic regarding the OP's question/statement with some of your specific points. All software reqires a large learning curve, basically because the software is complex and continues getting more complex with each new update.

... in my case I am spending hours, and I do mean hours, learning how it works ...

Please don't hesitate to ask on TG, you'll normally get a quick responce.

I cannot publish one page of my site, I have to do the whole site, these are just two examples.

That is true but Xara has the ability to just publish recently changed content, so it doesn't need to republish the whole site each time you publish.

I suddenly started getting 'FTP error: The timeout has been reached' whenever I try to publish

I can't comment re this issue, it may well be your server or your internet providers problem, not specifically Xara's

As for support, yes it's a Monday to Friday support as far as I'm aware.

Remember you can always Export your Xara site to your local drive and then use an FTP program like Filezilla to upload it to your server. I normally find using Xara's publish function errors are of my making, not the software.

CMS options are no silver bullet either, the learning curve is probably even greater

[handrawn]

I think I can hear Wordpress calling...

well, as with the visa issue stated by the OP, that is entirely up to you - since all the regular members here are not employed by Xara but are just giving our time and help free it's unlikely to concern us either way beyond enthusiasm - but we will help

I like wordpress; I don't build sites anymore, but I keep up to date - if you want wordpress help I can point you in the right direction [which is not this forum, obviously]

[actionit]

Xara is hardly difficult to learn. If you watch just one of the build a website video tutorials you can have something up and running in no time. Forget the frames sites, they're long gone.

[Cloud]

I remember what a godsend xara webdesigner was when I first stepped foot into the industry, having used adobe products for decades I had some problems to begin with but kept at it, you should never expect to learn a new piece of software in hours or even days, it takes time and lots and lots of practice with anything in life and certainly with software. I mainly use other software now but there is nothing on the market which gives the freedom of design with such ease, I tried all wysiwyg software before going with xara and know for sure that it was the easiest to achieve what I wanted from it. I am not putting down anyone's skills but I have taught a complete novice in design how to create a site in xara in less than a day. I have seen some people ask the world of the software but you have to realise that not all software can do everything, I have seen people say that wordress can achieve anything but then most ecommerce sites are created using magento, simply because it is better for that. Frames in sites were primarily used for speed when people were still on dial-up but this is 2016 and people have high speed broadband so that old approach is not necessary anymore. Whatever software you choose in the end will have a learning curve and may not be what you wanted, this is where trials come in.

[roly]

Very well said Cloud.

Ciao

Roly

[gwpriester]

So, RoadToad (are you still with us?), did we answer your question? One of the greatest features of Xara is TalkGraphics. Most of the members are very helpful.