WebDesigner or Xtreme 4?

[akubbeng]

Hi Doane,

I've sent you a Personal Message (PM).

[philt]

Looks like your question has been answered pretty well. I'll just add that I have Xtreme4 and XWD now too, which I got just three or four weeks ago. IMO if you want to do a bit of web work and your budget is limited, pick up XWD. I was skeptical at first, but once I started working with it a bit I became a convert. It is amazingly good. You can produce very good stuff easily and suprisingly quickly. For the price, it's a true bargain. Just try it.

[doane]

Thanks, Phil:

When you make a website, do you use the templates and alter them in WD, or do you tend to come up with a lot of original graphics and make your own design?

I guess what I'm asking is do you like WD because it has a lot of templates and canned objects you can use, or do you like it because it is more intuitive and easier and faster to use then doing things in XX4?

I like software that has a fast learning curve, doesn't tie you down to their style when creating things, and lets you do things fast. It's one of the reasons I've hung in there with NetObjects Fusion over the years, since the first beta version back in 1995 and up to v7, but after that they got too expensive and I didn't think the upgrades were worth the money. For very large site designs NOF does have a lot of customizable advantages over XWD, but for many other designs, XWD looks very promising and looks like it has some other advantages.

Appreciate your feedback.

[pauland]

I'm not Phil, but anyway..

I used NOF way, way back and also briefly MS Frontpage. NOF was/is great for putting together sites, but had issues as you say. One of the things about NOF and frontpage was that because of the templates/themes supplied it could be very easy to spot sites made with them simply because the themes and general structure would be seen used over and over gain. I left NOF and Frontpage behind years ago for a variety of reasons and just used Dreamweaver.

In answer to your question about using templates or dedicated graphics, I think the answer is "yes" to both. People will sometimes use and customise themes and sometimes produce original stuff from scratch.

As a Xtreme 4 user I have been critical of the web direction that that software took (at the expense of general illustration improvements) but do understand why people liked it and did give it a whirl but never really did anything with it for website creation.

When XWD came out there was quite a buzz and I gave the trial a whirl and liked the focussed nature of the product and in many ways it's more refined than the web generation in Xtreme. The forums have already debated some of the limitations of using XWD/Xtreme particularly in comparison with HTML web editors, but it's excellent at what it does and like any tool has limitations and quirks so it's not the "silver bullet" web tool that so many people want it to be.

At the intro price for Xtreme 4 users, it's pretty much a no-brainer and I have used it for designs I wouldn't have thought of tackling with software such as dreamweaver - basically a price sensitive customer with a design using flowing text - something that would be much more difficullt in traditional HTML software. In that context I have produced these designs quickly and cheaply and could not have done that without XWD/Xtreme. XWD has certainly repaid it's purchase cost.

In comparison with my experience with NOF, XWD is not a tool that has anything like the sophistication of NOF for whole-site development (enforcing regularity of structure and navigation, navigation maps, etc.). [edit: I would say in comparison, XWDs approach to site pages is rather clunky]

Not sure if that's helpful or not.

Paul

[Soquili]

I like Web Designer because it is easy to learn and easy to create a functioning website quickly.

I don't see anything wrong with the templates but I doubt I would use one for creating a site for myself. The freedom to create something you see with your mind's eye is more appealing to me.

A sample: Bill's site It may not be a professional looking site but it looks the way I saw it in my mind.

[bwood]

Hi Bill

I'm new to XWD - so I love what you've done with it. Nice and simple and congratulations on the great drawings.

kindest regards
another Bill - Bill Wood in Canada

[Soquili]

Hi Bill,

Welcome to Talkgraphics.

Thanks for your kind comments.

[doane]

Paul: Thanks for responding. NOF comes with many templates for sites and styles of unified buttons, bars etc. But so does just about every other web authoring tool I know of, including DreamWeaver and FrontPage. Any of them, including XaraWD look canned when you use them. What I really like about NOF is the ease of use to create graphic dominated sites easily and with so much freedom of precise placement, etc. I think it is much easier to use then DreamWeaver and can do just as much and more. I also think it has more flexibility then FrontPage.

I never got into using templates because, just like you, I like to create custom designs myself. At the most I will use very simplified canned buttons and bars. NOF has great organization ability and unity across huge websites and yet you can have custom pages as well and precise placement of graphic objects.

What intrigued me about XaraWD was the vector rescaling ability and ease of text flowing placement, etc. I don't expect it to have the power of NOF, but I think it has other advantages that would be good for smaller site design, etc.

I'm going to try it out this weekend and see.

Thanks again,

[doane]

I like Web Designer because it is easy to learn and easy to create a functioning website quickly.

I don't see anything wrong with the templates but I doubt I would use one for creating a site for myself. The freedom to create something you see with your mind's eye is more appealing to me.

A sample: Bill's site It may not be a professional looking site but it looks the way I saw it in my mind.

Nice one, Bill!

[ss-kalm]

I'm going to try it out this weekend and see......

Please let us know how you get on with it.