For as long as anyone can remember, no Xara web design product has been useful for designing template pages for use with/in common Content Management Systems (CMS) because web pages created by Xara web design products will not vertically auto-resize in the browser (and "in the browser" is the operative phrase, here), as the content increases or decreases.
Remember that a CMS template page must have markers inserted into the places on the page where the CMS is allowed to place text; and said text is placed by said CMS, and as it grows or shrinks, the length of the page needs to grow and/or shrink in the browser with it. Even back when everyone used tables to create body copy areas on the page, it was very easy to code said tables so that they grew or shrank in the browser as content was added or removed.
I realize that there's a script available here which, by hook or by crook, can make it happen; but, of course, that's a workaround, and good computer usage practices abhor workarounds. Plus, it's common for third-party scripts of that type to break as the product-in-chief with which said scripts are supposed to work is updated/upgraded, and so those who rely on said scripts must wait for their original makers to update said scripts to keep-up with the product-in-chief updates.
I further realize that there's a member here who sells (for no small amount of money, I might add) a CMS that allegedly works seamlessly with Xara web design products. However, I hate to think that that's the only choice available; that anyone who wishes to use Xara web design products with CMS systems is limited to how that particular CMS maker envisions proper CMS functionality, and so, then, the features which he decides to include or not include in his CMS. Some of the best CMS's out there are open-source; and some are quite feature rich and operationally creative... generally better, frankly, than the one sold (for too high a price) by the member here (no offense intended, of course).
That Xara has summarily ignored, through version after version of its web design products, the critical need for the web pages produced by said web design products to vertically auto-resize, in the browser, as content increases/decreases, so that said web design products may be used to create template pages for use in common CMS systems, is unconscionable, given how virtually the entire professional web design world is now routinely delivering web sites to clients with CMS systems built right into them.
I keep making "in the browser" bold, here, because I see on this web page...
http://www.xara.com/us/products/designer/whatsnew/
...on the "Designer Pro X" tab...
...as the first item under the "Web Authoring / Web Publishing" heading...
...that "Automatic object positioning & smart page resizing" is now a (new) feature of Designer Pro X (v8). However, it's not clear whether said "smart page resizing" happens only when in the Xara web design product (as shown in the video), or if said "smart page resizing" also happens in the browser, outside of any Xara web design product.
If it only happens when inside the Xara web design product, then said web design products remain useless for purposes of creating web page templates for use in common content management systems.
Does anyone know if the vertical auto-resizing happens just inside Xara, or if the pages it creates will finally also vertically auto-resize outside of Xara, in the browser, too?
If the answer is that it only happens when in Xara, but still not in the browser, then what is it going to take for Xara to finally get a clue? When is this august body of users finally going to put the pressure on Xara to catch-up with the times? The market now requires that new web site builds include the site owner's ability to make additions, deletions, corrections, etc. by himself/herself, without calling upon the services of the web designer. Depriving the site owner of that capability holds him/her hostage to the continued expensive services of the site designer... which is (and never has been) the right and honorable way for the site designer to make a buck.
The CMS is what allows the site owner to maintain at least the content (but, of course, not the design) of his/her own web site; and in pretty much every universe except this one (the Xara one), web designers all both know and embrace that... and would just laugh at any web design product which in any way limits their ability to deliver it.
Of course, if it turns out that the new "smart page resizing" happens both while inside Xara, and also outside Xara in the browser, then that immediately-previous two-paragraph rant of mine was wasted energy; and I hereby retract it, and apologize for it. But, in case it's not obvious, I'm frustrated with Xara that it has taken until now for it to happen at least inside Xara; and if it's not now also happening outside Xara, in the browser, then my frustration continues! And if it's not happening in the browser, too, then shame on this group for not insisting, long ago, that it does. What's the point of having Xara's ear in these forums if its membership never insists that Xara implement at least the essentials? And/or if Xara never listens?
So, does anyone know? Does vertical auto-resizing finally happen outside Xara, too? In the browser?
Or is Xara still living in the '90s on this issue? And, if so, then that, despite my having emailed Xara's president back in version 6, I think, and explaining the critical need for this feature; and pointing him at industry article after article after article explaining said critical need; and so, then, his just summarily ignoring it through at least one additional version, possibly two (depending on what you folks, here, tell me, in reply to this posting, about whether vertical auto-resizing in the browser now finally exists).
Comments, anyone? Criticism? Ridicule? I'm open to any of it.
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