This Newbie Is Lost - Help

[Yambobo]

For the past 18 years I have built hundreds of websites using WebStudio, which has now been discontinued. Just purchased Xara Web Designer Premium and I am completely lost. I've spent almost 50 hours playing with program, reading all 541 pages of the manual, reading tutorials, searching FAQs and watching videos… and while there is a lot of instruction on using various features, none of the resources answer basic questions I have like these. (None of the Themes will be useful for me, so I'm building from scratch.)

(1) In WebStudio I had a Master Page, where I would put the logo, header, navigation links, copyright notice and other items that I wanted to appear on all pages in the site. Then on each page I would fill in the content specific to that page… I can't find anything like that in Xara?

(2) In Xara the first page is named "Index". Is this the home page? Can it be renamed something else without messing things up?

(3) I selected "show page size" so I can see the actual outline of the page… however I have to scroll down about a foot to get to that box. The page outline starts at "0" on the ruler, leaving 750 px above the page outline. Is there some way to adjust settings so that the page outline is actually at the top of the screen? Can I adjust things so that all the white space outside of the page size is eliminated… so that actual page size fills the available space?

(4) Which page size should I use to have the widest compatibility?

[gwpriester]

Welcome to TalkGraphics

I can answer a few of these.

1. No master pages. Not that we have not asked. But you can right-click an object and select Repeating > Repeat on All Pages. This places the same object on all pages in the same place. You can right click on any of these and Repeating > Stop Repeating and select from all or just this instance.

2. Your home page should be called index (by default it will export as index.htm). Browsers look for and automatically load a file called index. The page name and the page title are two very different things. So your home page Title should be explicit as to what your site is called and is about.

3. Page Options > Grid & Ruler > Coordinates Position

4. Any size you want. But while you can go as wide as you want (set up a custom page size or drag the bottom and the right side of the page to visually change the page width and length.

[Yambobo]

Thanks, unfortunately things are going from bad to worse. Nothing is intuitive and the manual instructions don't work for many issues.

For example... I inserted a photo. When I try to drag it into the position I want it creates multiple copies of the photo as I drag. I also want to place the photo 8px from the top and 8px from the bottom. I tried changing that in the toolbar and pressing enter. Did nothing. I tried to drag it into that position and it won't let me get that close. (Tried the same with a rectangle and same result) *** Finally was able to nudge it into position using the small arrows next to the "position X & Y" section of toolbar. Still can't stop it from creating multiple copies. SMH

[Egg Bramhill]

For example... I inserted a photo. When I try to drag it into the position I want it creates multiple copies of the photo as I drag.

This is normal if you Right-Drag. It shouldn't happen with a Left-Drag operation. Can you confirm you're only using Left-Drag operations?

[Egg Bramhill]

I also want to place the photo 8px from the top and 8px from the bottom. I tried changing that in the toolbar and pressing enter. Did nothing. I tried to drag it into that position and it won't let me get that close. (Tried the same with a rectangle and same result) ***

Sound like you've got a "Snap To" set. Goto Windows and ensure Snap To Grid Guides & Objects is unticked (Unchecked)

If you still have issues please post your xar/web file

Oh, and apologies, welcome to TG.