Software Name: Web Designer
Publisher: Xara
Street Price: $49 US
Discounts: O'Reilly offers CEBUG members a 20% discount. Members should check the CEBUG Mailbox section of this site for more details.
The reviewer has given this software a rating of 5 out of 5 stars!
(After Publication Xara contacted me pointing out some mistakes I had made in some of my observations. These omissions have now been corrected in the review below. 6/18/2009 Irene Kraus)
Those looking for a fast, easy way to create a customized web template and graphic for their site need look any further than Xara’s new Web Designer. Although the number of unique ‘looks’ offered in the program was limited (17), each one can be highly customized by altering the color scheme and – in some cases – photographic elements. The number of themes that can thus be created is almost infinite. If Xara treats this program as it has its Web Style product it is replacing, they can expand upon these stock templates through package sets in the future.
For this reason, I would hope Xara also considers the existing web developer community as a target market. After all, a program like this can easily become part of a ‘visualization’ tool set when working with customers for rapid website prototyping. Through this program, someone can offer them a certain amount of customization in the look of their site but without the high expense someone would pay for a totally unique design.
Unfortunately, I was not able to export a template set to actual files. Testing, through W3C’s online validation tools was not possible. However, Xara’s other programs have shown great improvements in their recent releases in following proper coding standards for web pages. My hope is that they have followed this same pattern in their release for this program.
Not that a certain amount of work to actually use these created web files isn’t necessary! After all, the sample content – although quite useful as a design aid – will need to be removed to make way for the actual content that someone would want to appear there. If someone were to use these theme sets as the basis for a template, skin, or theme for a content management system (CMS); that would have to be done after the files had been exported. There is small built-in FTP client for easy publication of the files to the web, assuming all content can be referenced and included inside the program. One of the big selling points, made by the software company, is that those using the program do not need to know any HTML or JavaScript to publish pages using their program. This is true so long as we're talking about ordinary text and graphics, and - in an even more limited form - videos. Built-in widgets are provided for working with Google Maps, YouTube Movies, Picasa photo albums or slideshows, news feeds (RSS and XML) and many, many more items. Most online photo sharing services provide something of this nature to allow for sharing. I really wish I could report on how well those things work, but as I was not able to actually save a page, I could not see how those things worked.
In conclusion, I would highly recommend Xara’s Web Designer to those looking for a rapid website prototyping visualization aid. Those with some knowledge of HTML and CSS wishing to make their own design will also find it handy. The new editor does allow for the easy import of standard text files and photos, so prep time for static web pages is a snap! Those wanting to incorporate these into a CMS program or include JavaScript coding will need to do that manually and outside of the included editor.
Xara Web Designer - Xara Ltd. www.xara.com Win XP/Vista, 256MB RAM, 150MB HD space; $49 single user copy.
Irene M. Kraus is a writer, custom web design programmer and video tutorial specialist with more than 20 years experience. She heads up Computer Erie Bay User Group (CEBUG) based in Erie County, Ohio, and owns Design Works Internet.
Recent comments