Page 45 - Xara Web Designer Premium

Getting Started 45

To save your website, that is the HTML and associated files for publishing to the
web, use the "FILE" > "EXPORT WEBSITE" menu option or click this button on the top
bar.

This saves a .htm file for each page and a folder alongside these which contains all the
graphic files that make up your website.

When you export a website, all the pages are exported together, and each page
unnamed has _1, _2 ... appended to the end of the name you give when you export. The
_FILES folder contains all the graphics and other files that go to make up your website.
You can name each page individually if you wish using the PAGE tab of the WEB
PROPERTIES dialog or using the PAGE & LAYER GALLERY (on page 447).

The default name given to your website is index.htm as this is the usual name for the first
page of a website.

You can preview your saved website in any web browser, by dragging the index.htm (or
any .htm) file from your Windows File Explorer onto a browser window.
Automatic backups

The BACKUPS tab of the "UTILITIES" > "OPTIONS" dialog allows you to turn the automatic
backup facility on and off. This facility saves a copy of all your modified open documents
at regular intervals. It’s recommended that you work with this backup option turned on, so
your work is saved regularly. You can also choose whether you are prompted about
unsaved documents when closing the program, or if instead all open documents should
be backed up and restored for you when you next start up.
See the Document Handling chapter (on page 77) for full details about these facilities.

Groups

You can group together any selection of objects on the page. Groups act much like a
single object, in that you can drag them around the page, resize and rotate them as if
they were one object. Many of the items in the template designs from the ONLINE
CONTENT CATALOG such as buttons, text panels, and photo objects are grouped items.

For example, you can draw a simple button from scratch by drawing a rectangle with the
RECTANGLE TOOL (on page 155), and then placing a text label on top of this with the TEXT
TOOL. These are separate objects and you can move them around independently in the
SELECTOR TOOL. But if you select both in the SELECTOR TOOL (you can lasso drag around
to enclose them both, or hold "Shift" and click on additional objects) and right click and
choose GROUP (or press "Ctrl + G" or use the menu "ARRANGE" > "GROUP"), these now
become a grouped object (Hint: The status line at the bottom always tells you what is
selected). Now when you drag, resize, rotate this object, all component parts of the group
are moved and transformed as if they are one object. You can also duplicate/clone
(Ctrl+K) objects within photo groups - the cloned object then appears as the topmost
object in the Photo Group (look in the Page and Layer Gallery (on page 447) to verify!)