I need help saving a page for upload

[Gary Tayman]

Yes, I'm having a problem and need help.

First some background: I heard about Web Designer Premium and bought it. I liked the results, and wrote several pages for my website using it.

Then I was given an offer for Pro, and I now have Xara Web Designer Pro 16x.

To be honest I think I should have stuck with Premium, as now BOTH are in my computer, and it seems the pages I wrote in Premium are not quite compatible with Pro.

I might also add that Xara seems to want me to build one website with several pages. I can't do this; some of my pages are written in Sharepoint and I don't want to edit them, some are in yet other formats, and some are built online. So I want to write a page and upload only that page under that page name. I export website and then use CoreFTP to upload the file and its supporting file folder.

Now -- I wrote an Index page and uploaded it. Then I wrote several other pages and uploaded them. It seems I had to change the name somewhere, as otherwise it kept trying to export it as Index. I changed the name and it prompted me with Are you Sure? Yes.

Over the summer I've been extremely busy, and the only thing I've done with Xara Pro is update my index page, and have done so many times. But I finally also have written ONE NEW PAGE. ONE. ONE. ONE PAGE. It took months. Now I'm ready to upload, and I'm having fits. First off it keeps trying to export it as Index. If I change the name it won't let me do it. I want to change the name to DVC. Second, it includes tables from the Context catalog. It includes fonts which give me the error that they are not supported and I must download them. Uh, how? Third, and this is the big one, I'm getting messages that say my license expires in two days and I have to buy an upgrade for "only" $129.00. WHAT? I bought this program already, twice, and I can't even upload ONE PAGE, and now I have to buy another one?

Don't get me wrong; I like the look and the operation of the program, well most of it. But for heaven's sake, can't I post just ONE page before having to buy it all again? If the answer is no, then MY obvious answer is no. Can somebody please help?

[gwpriester]

Another Gary!

There really should not be any compatibility issues between Designer Pro X or Pro+ and Web Designer Premium.

Xara is not really a program to do one page at a time. This is the crux of your problem. You are trying to get it to work in a way it was not meant to work.

You can rename a page and save it (see attached) but this is not going to help really because Xara puts a variety of files in a folder pagename_html_files and looks in that folder for images and other related files.

My advice is commit yourself to doing this the right way, at least the right way for Xara.

Build your site from scratch so everything is in one document and not a page here and a page there. It's a lot of work but everything will work together and in the end I think you will be happier.

You can use File > Import from Web Address to import a page at a time into Xara. This will only import the visible content however, but it will bring the elements of the page into Xara so you can apply them to your new site.

[Acorn]

I'm getting messages that say my license expires in two days and I have to buy an upgrade for "only" $129.00.

Gary, don't upgrade. What then happens is you lose access to Xara's on-line content. This is not a problem if you have downloaded the assets already. If not, open the Local Designs gallery and right-click on the text of each blue folder and pick Download All. Some will take quite a time but you then have them forever.

You can't call it "DVC" - lowercase only. On publish you will get dvc.htm and a dvc_htm_files folder. You rename a page through Web Properties > Page > Page filename. Press the Help button:

Page filename: Use this field to set the name you'd like to be used for this page when it is exported. So if you want the page to be exported as "home.htm", set this field to "home".
It's usual to make the first page of a website "index.htm" or "home.htm", because if a visitor specifies a URL consisting of just a domain name with no page name (eg. "www.xara.com") this is usually automatically mapped by the web server to the index.htm page if it is present. Note that characters entered in this field are automatically converted to lower case and accented characters and some non-alphanumeric characters are not allowed. This is to reduce the chances of compatibility problems with different web servers when you publish your website.

Why would SmartTables from the Content Catalogue be a problem unless you are then trying to edit them with an earlier version?

There should be no issue with Fonts either.

Anything written in Premium will port nicely into ProX. You may see a prompt about how text is handled now in browsers. Decline to change it if you think it is an issue.

Good luck.

Acorn

[Gary Tayman]

Thanks, both of you for your responses.

So it appears I can move smoothly between Premium and Pro? Then I think I have my answer. Go Premium.

Between the programs it appears now the files are scattered among several folders, and the entire thing is a blathering mess. I think my first step from here might be to look at every file in Premium, making sure they're good, and simply getting rid of Pro entirely. I can upgrade Premium with a price that's a bit more down to earth.

You can rename a page and save it (see attached) but this is not going to help really because Xara puts a variety of files in a folder pagename_html_files and looks in that folder for images and other related files.

As long as the folder name matches the page name, I can upload the folder and upload the page using CoreFTP. I've been doing this already. I've been to that attached page but I don't recall seeing both a titel and a page name. I'll check again. Does the file folder correspond to the file name or the page title?

The only thing I saw in Pro that isn't in Premium is the one-touch photo enhancements. I have Photoshop and can make the photo the way I want before inserting it. O'll try and go back to Premium.

If I still have font trouble I'll post in another thread.

Thanks!

[Acorn]

Gary

So it appears I can move smoothly between Premium and Pro? Then I think I have my answer. Go Premium.

No the answer is in the fine print. If you have SmartTables with a Use with Version then an early XDA (Premium) will not handle them. You have not said which version of Premium you have. If fairly old, keep it alongside your newer version as there are changes in the UI that might throw you.

I can upgrade Premium with a price that's a bit more down to earth.

That is sound as earlier files in Premium and your current ProX will all work.

I don't recall seeing both a titel and a page name. I'll check again. Does the file folder correspond to the file name or the page title?

Web Properties > Page > Page filename and Web Properties > Page > Page title.

Acorn

[Gary Tayman]

What I have is Web Designer Premium 16. If I push the button to upgrade, i guess it will be whatever the current version is. The new page I wrote works and looks fine, but I still get the message about fonts that are not installed, namely Open Sans. I'll ask here, what do I do, go to some website and download them?

Also something curious. I have an Index.html and an index.html.web. I guess the .web version is what has been uploaded on the site itself, but curious there are two of these, the non .web is a little older.

[Gary Tayman]

Okay, I've upgraded to Xara Premium 17. I uninstalled the others. I din't know how to describe it; it's like a breath of fresh air! It all seems to work more smoothly and it indeed reads my pages just fine.

Something else -- the fonts messages are gone!

In my new page, the tables gor messed up a bit. It looks like the page size is narrower -- seems there was something where Pro offers different page sizes and Premium does not. If I can change this in Premium let me know, but to be honest I don't mind the narrower page that much. I resized the tables and made other adjustments and they look great.

The only thing I haven't done is check the names and export website for upload. I'll go through that in the morning.

And yes, as said earlier I want to write the pages individually Part of the site is an e-commerce store, built online on my server. Other pages, like an order form, I tried Xara and they just didn't work as well as with the old format.But I've done other pages one at a time and they work.

Thanks again for your prompt help!

[Acorn]

Also something curious. I have an Index.html and an index.html.web. I guess the .web version is what has been uploaded on the site itself, but curious there are two of these, the non .web is a little older.

Gary, you see to have gooten into a bind over what is design and what is published. Your .WEB file is the design and has no place in a published site.

However, based on what you have described so far, I suspect a little of "try this and see" has happened over the months and years.

You could have an index.html (not Index.html) page because you typed that in as the Page filename. Another application could have generated Index.html but not a Xara one.
Equally, you could have typed in index.html.web as the Page filename. I hope not.

I think you really need an audit and a clear out to be truly on top of things. Perhaps we could barter for my assistance?

Regardless, do remember to use Download All with your new version. It will save you grief down the line.

Acorn

[Gary Tayman]

Thanks again, and I appreciate all the great help!

I've got the new version of Premium. It runs SO much more smoothly than Pro -- can't explain, it just does.

I've got my page names corrected, I've exported, uploaded, and it's all working as I've wanted it to. HUGE improvement!

There are a few minor glitches, for example with a resizing of tables some of the text runs outside the boxes -- I've corrected and uploaded the corrections, but it still shows. I think Sirelock is involved and I'll simply wait a day or two. Things like that. Yes indeed as time goes on I'm going to remove some obsolete files and folders, both from my computer and on the site itself, once I'm certain they're indeed obsolete.

I appreciate the assistance and I'm MUCH happier now! Thanks again!