WEB Design Software?

[Vinylman]

I am looking at a product called XARA®ExtremePRO. Has anyone here used the web design feature of this software to design and publish their web site?

The design side of the software is truly easy to work with, but since I have ZERO experience with web design and creating a web site, can anyone give me some pointers?
Thanks!

If we get any good response to this perhaps it could become a mini Tutorial??

[jiarby]

Never used Xara, I am a Dreamweaver guy.

[Kevin-SignVOX]

Dreamweaver and Wordpress. Very simple to use and easy to integrate changes/upgrades. Never heard of Xara....I've always been leary of those software packages that do more than what they specialize in.

[Vinylman]

Thanks for the feed back.
I am just looking at xara® as an alternative, and it is simple and VERY powerful.
I am looking to see if others have given it a fair shake.

[Fred Weiss]

I tried some of their web design tools way back when and found that they were limited with proprietary roadblocks limiting access. It would appear to have changed at this point. It's interesting to note however that their website was not designed with any Xara software.

Anyone with direct experience with Xara Extreme is invited and encouraged to review the product HERE (http://www.signs101.com/reviewpost/showproduct.php?product=86&cat=34) in our Product Reviews section.

[Grafix USA]

Dreamweaver if you want to create completely custom. The most recent version has a lot of automated stuff. If you want something to put up a nice site with no coding knowledge needed, try www.squarespace.com.

[imagep]

Dreamweaver here. I haved tried several alternatives and found that they were basically toys for someone who just wanted to have a web site, but did not have the need for functionality or extreme personalization.

[luggnut]

if you are good with photoshop then sitegrinder is a good choice. it runs from the photoshop automate menu and builds your site with out doing coding. i use it and really like it. has a little bit of a learning curve but if you already use PS a lot it is no big deal.

[Vinylman]

GREAT feedback!
My goal is in the next few weeks, to totally redo an existing web site that my friend Mike {mentioned in another thread} was using for his business.
I have taken over the operation of Mikes' business as he has come to the end of his battle with Cancer. In order to assist his family I need to make changes to the web site so that his personal information is replaced with my own. There are other changes that will need to take place in the next few weeks in order to make for an orderly transition, and that requires that I get up to speed with creating and revising the web site.

I am in over my head here, but I have made a commitment to the family, and I will fulfill that commitment.

[jzorn]

I have used Microsoft Frontpage, and lately Microsoft Publisher 2003. I have the latest Dreamweaver but it seems strange to me and I can't seem to get anything designed. I guess I'll have to go the tech school and get me some book learning.

[astro8]

Anyone with direct experience with Xara Extreme is invited and encouraged to review the product HERE (http://www.signs101.com/reviewpost/showproduct.php?product=86&cat=34) in our Product Reviews section.

I'm doing one soon Fred (had years of experience with Xara all versions, but I don't use it for website publishing) along with a lot of other stuff..

[Cadmn]

any one got a forum like ours 101 for webdesign?

[Wags]

I am going to use Rapidweaver. It is made for Macs so naturally this is what I chose. It seems pretty straightforward and has lots of plugins to make design much easier than learning lots of code. Hope to have it up soon.

[asd]

i am not an expert with xara extreme, but here is something created with that software nothing fancy just the basic to show some of my work, in a few more days I will probably get something with much more cotent I am a newbie at this.

http://www.arrowsigns1.com/index.htm

[GraphixCALC]

I've been using Netobjects Fusion for a while and like it okay. I'm not a very skilled website designer, but it seems fairly easy to use and plenty capable at the same time.

Here are two of my sites built with it.

www.graphixtreme.com
www.graphixcalc.com

[Replicator]

I've been using Allaire Homesite for years, then Macromedia bought it and called it something else, then Adobe bought it and killed it !

Still using the original version and love it . . .

[signmeup]

I have had Xara since it first came out. It's very intuitive software. Here is a site I made with it.

http://www.showpiecesigns.com/index.htm

It's going to be replaced soon with a better site when I get time based on feed back from this site. It was very easy to do. Xara has no way to edit the html code and I tried to open one of my pages in composer but had no luck. If you use Xara for your site, you have to use Xara for your site if you get my drift.
One thing I like is it sets up "theme colours" as you make your site and you can change the colour of your entire by editing the theme colours. It comes with lots of templates but you can start from scratch if you like. It aslo does a good job with text. The repell text around objects is great. Try the free download version. Support is very good also.

[Edserv]

Wordpress is the direction we're heading, but I have a working understanding and knowledge of Net Objects Fusion. I tried Dream Weaver but quit. It was too hard for me! But our main designer has been selling me on going to WP. I still like Net Objects!
Good luck,
Chris

[Bly]

I'm no expert, basically a web page hack.
Dreamweaver is the industry standard.
It came with Adobe Creative Suite so that's what I use.

[signmeup]

I'm no expert, basically a web page hack.
Dreamweaver is the industry standard.
It came with Adobe Creative Suite so that's what I use.
I agree with edserv....Adobi stuff is hard for me to use too. It's a shame Adobi is the industry standard for just about everything.....Adobi sucks at user friendly.

[signmeup]

Anyone out there know if you can edit the html in a Xara made website with other software? I don't really need to but it freaks me out a bit.

[signmeup]

I used to use Netscape Composer. It still comes free in Seamonkey. If you knew a little bit about html you could probably make a decent site with it too.
This site was made with it. www.signme-up.com Nothing to write home about but it's a working site and it was easy.

[chatterbox]

If you want to make a nice website, you can look into Joomla.com open scripting.

If you want to do free and cheesy, check out www.Weebly.com and several other variants.

Joomla.com is great open-source scripting to make a nice site.

Mine was done on it.

[speedmedia]

A friend of mine just brought this to my attention... Looks pretty neat. He said it is wicked easy to use. I am going to play with it.

http://www.squarespace.com/

Thanks,
Kurt

[artist4christ]

I use dreamweaver, most of the other softwares embed too much uneeded code. It all depends on your skill level and what you want the software to do for you.

[surf city]

I used webeasy, I was going for something really quick so I could get something on the web. Has some tweaking and is still under construction.