Xara Designer Pro 7 and Wordpress

[pauland]

Just be aware that Artisteer is a completely differrent kind of design program - it is built on templates. You essentially choose a template then customise it, rather than build a design from scratch.

Nothing wrong with that, but don't expect the design freedom that Xara gives you. Because the templates are already made to suit various CMS, then naturally it's a convenient way to build a website compatible with those systems.

[BertH]

I also use Artisteer only if I need a WordPress site. In Artisteer it's also possible to create a static website but it doesn't even come close to Xara. Xara gives you more freedom to create a static website.

[Albacore]

CanDeeh if I were in your shoes I would take so time to learn Wordpress. After a few weeks it becomes a lot easier to use and configure and there is so much available in the way of Tutorials, Vid's and Templates that you can use as a learning method. It takes a bit of time for you to understand the control panel and the way it works and also some people find it hard to get it running on their machine through Xamp or programmes of similar nature and setting up admin. for php.

[Cloud]

As someone who runs a business creating websites for clients I come across all sorts of demands from customers and this is what I have learnt

• 90% of clients who say that they need a site they can update themselves do so on very rare occasions, perhaps once a month so I offer them a maintenance package which comes in less (including the site design) at a slightly lower cost then a cms site

• People who want to have a blog have been pointed by us to a microblogging platform such as using a twitter widget to display tweets and the majority have seen that this is the more up to date option if not then we create the site in web designer and then create a separate directory for a wordpress installation (customised as much as possible to blend with the rest of the site) so that they can have a blog (we do this on very rate occasions)

• There is very little that wordpress can do in terms of design which cannot be done in web designer using placeholders for 'flashy' elements

If a client really wants a full cms then we outsource the project to a partner who is an advanced user of wordpress.

You simply cannot expect any one piece of software to do everything, wordpress only works so well because of all the plugins but in terms of ease of use and speed of site creation nothing, and not even artisteer come any where as close as xara web designer.