Making your own Webstyle Templates

[WolfMoonHP]

There are some beautiful templates for the nav bar buttons in Webstyle 4. My personal favorite is the Celtic theme. But I want to be able to design my own on/off buttons, tops and bottoms, etc. Basically, I want to learn how to make my own themes. I'm sure that with the power of the Xara software packages, there must be a way, but I haven't figured it out yet.

[Availor]

As for my personal experience, since I do not use Webstyle, is that the program lets you make a quick and simple web design without any knowledge of HTML. Of course that comes with a cost, which is that you cannot totaly customize everything. (Let's say you wanted to add javasrcipt or flash - you can't).

You are required to use a web authoring tool like DreamWeaver or FrontPage.
First of all, if you are into celtics (I like this style as well), check the link HERE. I'm sure you will find many more interesting ideas.

Secondly, you can make your own buttons and use any kind of web authoring tools (like those I mentioned before). They have built in scripts for buttons and menues. If you do not have a web authoring application you can download a free one HERE , I think you might find more useful things in HERE as well.

P.S. If you wish to customize and existing Webstyle template, you can search for the images that were created by Webstyle, and replace them with your own. Lets say there is an image of a car which is named car_1.gif you place your own image, exactly the same size and name it with the same name, car_1.gif so when the browser loads your page it will search for this image, but instead of displaying the original image it will display yours. I call it a bit of a cheating

Good Luck

[WolfMoonHP]

Thanks for the suggestions...the Celtic site you recommended is beautiful, and one I had not seen before. The CoffeeCup recommendation is a good one. I already use some of their stuff. But the quick and easy "cheat" you suggested is probably the best suggestion of all! I couldn't help noticing that the template files in Webstyle are in a .wix format, and I have no clue what software creates this type of file.

[Availor]

I meant only the picture files which are jpeg or gif, I don't know what wix files are, I guess those are of webstyle.

[stlewis]

Just helping out...

ONE day this will be a feature of Xtreme. At the moment the Webstyle templates cannot be added to other than by buying them from Xara.

The closest current option is choose a template for a good layout and then make replacement graphics in Xtreme - exporting as gif or jpg to replace the ones from the template.

[WolfMoonHP]

Thanks for the information...I can't wait for the additional capability in Xtreme to be able to create the template files. For some reason, I have more fun creating decorative elements than in actually using them. I have compiled a collection of a couple thousand bars, corners, dividers, buttons, etc., and keep adding to them regularly...I think it may be an illness...LOL
Up till now, I've been creating all of them in bit-map programs such as Paint Shop Pro, but I'm starting to use Xara regularly.