About This Article •
Well folks, as it usually is the case for a mystic, another break-through dropped in my lap today. I found an easier way to include things on the pages today. It’s still a very tedious process - it’s not automated - but it’s a bit easier than my previous method. I should be able to [...]
August 23, 2007 5:29 PM
aquapro, crimsonpro, iweb, layout, theme
« Where Can I Get The Extra Matching Images For The 2.0 Version Of My Theme?
Well folks, as it usually is the case for a mystic, another break-through dropped in my lap today. I found an easier way to include things on the pages today. It’s still a very tedious process - it’s not automated - but it’s a bit easier than my previous method. I should be able to get AquaPRO out this evening which will sport a better set of page layouts than I’ve been able to create for 2.0 themes.
An FYI about AquaPRO and CrimsonPRO - the 1.0 versions are still free and will remain free. They’re in the free stuff download area to which you all have access. But the 2.0 versions for both those themes will be paid-for like the other 2.0 themes.
Sneak peak at the AquaPRO Welcome page :)
BAH! I totally forgot that all those things have to be swappable! Ugh… I may have to recind my amazing discovery for the day.
I guess you could have a choice. I might have to take some time to explain this, but here’s the short version.
Every theme in the Apple collection has eight pages and on those eight pages, there are common elements. For example, each page has a text box tagged as “header” and each one has a text box tagged “title”. When you swap themes on your site, iWeb recognizes those common elements and understands what to do with them. That’s how swapping works - it just applies the new styles to the elements it knows are on the page.
However, when you start adding things to your pages, or you edit the styles of the objects that were already on the page, you might have already noticed that when you swap the theme, iWeb retains those objects you created and the styles that you changed.
So back to my little discovery… in the picture above, you can see I kept the “header” text box - that says AquaPRO. I also kept the “title” which says Welcome and the “body” text which is right under the title. However, I added two shapes, two additional titles, a second body text and I duplicated one of the pictures.
iWeb is going to have a hissy fit!
LOL. I actually don’t know what will happen, but I suspect that none of that will swap with the theme. I’ll test it out here and report back.
But here’s the choice… you can choose the layouts and not have the nice swapping feature (which if you add stuff to your pages, you lose anyway) or you can stick with the swapping feature and forego alternative layouts.
Just think about it. I’m not even certain yet I can pull any of that off, but I’ll know in about another hour.
Just a quick note to say that I’ve finished wapping my site to Mystics Aqua and it went pretty well. Is there a way to swap the whole site at once, or not? I could only do it page by page - my site is small, so it wasn’t too bad, but for a large site it is a bit of work. Ah well.
Anyway, if you want to take a look at it…
http://www.randomdoorways.com
-Ron
Well, I was wondering if you were just going to give away your hard work on the CrimsonPRO or not. And I’m glad you’re not!!
I’ve been waiting for the update and have been keeping track of the headaches you’ve had. I wouldn’t expect to see the 2.0 update for free and would insist on some sort of payment to you even if you were giving it away. These things are too hard to do for free and I know I don’t have the time, skill, or patience to do them. I’m very grateful that you have all three in abundance!
I used CrimsonPRO version 1.0 as the backbone to our martial arts school website upgrade and it looks great. If you’re interested, check it out at http://www.wmakicks.com
Thanks so much, Suzanne! You’re wonderful!!
Kevin
Ron my god that themes looks awesome with your Greek photos :-O That was really a treat to see.
Say, you and I are going to have a problem I think… I’m planning to make scrapbook style themes for iWeb! It might drive you nutzoid seeing as you love to do that kind of art. Gorgeous work!
Kevin thanks for all your support. I appreciate that. CrimsonPRO should be a quick create once AquaPRO is done. The new versions are so much better. The images are highly optimized and look better, the code is clean. The navigation bar is way better! Those really are nice themes… AquaPRO was the first theme I created.
Your site looks awesome - I think you’ll appreciate the update a lot! Cheers - I’m off to bed - I’m really beat tonight.
Suz,
I don’t see why we would have a problem - it just means that I’ll have to buy another theme from you!!!! I like Mystics a lot and was thinking of using the different colors (once the collection is available) for different parts of my site (travel photos in Aqua, blog in Sage, art photos in Orange??, etc.), but I may decide that your scrapbook theme is the way to go - can’t wait to see it! And with theme swapping a relatively painless, who says I can’t have both - just at different times!
-Ron
Ron, I love your photos and your artwork. Suzanne is right, the colors with the Mystics theme is awesome!
As far as whole site theme switching question, that is not possible. You do have to change it one page at a time.
Suzanne, I too am looking forward to seeing a “scrapbook” style theme.
Oh my lord you guys, I have tons of scrapbook style stuff I was building about six months ago - lettering, papers, embellishments… all in digital format. I just haven’t had a chance to turn that stuff into a theme! I’ll create a letter kit for the Mystics theme and you guys can check them out - they’re way cool :) Give me a bit and I’ll upload it to the folder.
NO WAY!!
You guys won’t believe this… but all the stuff I put on the page swapped!! I don’t even believe it. I have no idea how that’s happening.
This AquaPRO is going to have to be experimental here for the first round because I’m not sure how I’m doing this LOL.
Did it actually swap, or did the “extra” stuff just float on the page? I have had some items that just end up floating after the template is swapped. Other times the items just disappeared. No rhyme or reason.
When you have the templates posted, I will start testing them… can’t wait!!
- evidently, I don’t have a life ;-D
Then entire set of objects on the page swapped :-O
The reason some swap and some do not is because you have changed something about the objects that swapped. At least this is my understanding so far. For example, if you change the hyperlink colors of a link in a text box, those hyperlink colors will not update/swap to the colors of the new theme you swap to because iWeb assumes you picked those new colors and do not want to lose them.
This, I’m sure was a tough decision for Apple, because they likely assumed you’d start with a theme, make some changes and then “try on” other themes to see what you like better. Ultimately, you’d swap back to your first choice and Apple had to ask, “Is the user going to want those links set back to the new colors they chose?” Probably… so the rule went into place that if you alter some aspect of the style, those changes “stick” regardless if you swap the theme or not.
I’m sure each object has its own rules though. I think picture frames might not have that rule I just described. You might set a different frame on a picture in Theme 1, but swapping to Theme 2 will actually update the frame for the new theme. Not sure, haven’t tested all that.
For AquaPRO however, all this new stuff is swapping completely for unaltered objects (meaning I have not changed anything on the page yet). Cool
Hi,
I’had horrible experiencies with new iWeb and compatibility with IE 6.
Daily I must explain - “you must instal Firefox……..etc”
Soft which ignore 80% people in my country is bad. Maybe in near future comes “iWeb plugin for export toIE” or update 2.0.2. with export to Youtobe and IE.
But I NEED PUBLISH WEB PAGES NOW!!! And now is iWeb’08 really incopatible.
Here is my experience with very good result:
1. I want to work with iLife ‘08 programs, but no with iWeb’08 - I must downgrade to iWeb’06
2. I ZIP iWeb’08 and archive all DOMAINS
3. I uninstal ‘08 and install ‘06
4. ‘06 works really very good without problems - AND IS IE COMPATIBLE!!!
5. I unzip iWeb ‘08 and now I have:
TWO iWEB - ‘06 and ‘08 running at simultaneously - I may copy objects, text, photos etc.
THIS IS FANTASTIC - becouse I work with 11mystics templates and this is for ‘06.
I’M REALLY HAPPY AGAIN - everythings go very good - I PUBLISH MY WEB PAGES FROM ‘06 - Every friends sad - Yes, its very good!!!
I had a strange feeling when I downgrade…….Apple big software producer and make this big mistakes…………but I believe for future improvements this fatal errors.
THIS IS only one serious way how may I work good pages at this moment.
Go to my website, look to WEB GALLERY from some Blogs, and WRITE ME about your oppinion!
AND TEST IT IN EXPLORER 6 and 7!!!
Thanks for every answers!
http://www.yamahacb.cz
http://gallery.mac.com/yamahacb
Blacky
Hello Blacky,
It sounds like you have had nothing but trouble :( Later, I will view your pages in the other browsers and tell you how they look.
I advise everyone to rebuild their pages using a 2.0 theme if they plan to use 2.0. I will have theh AquaPRO theme ready soon and that will help you.
Suzanne, if I understand - YOU WILL MAKE AQUAPRO theme 2.0 and it WILL BE - Explorer 6 compatible?
May I again use my iWeb’08?
You will improve Apple mistakes?
If yes - you will be my best web hero!
I wish you maximum invency and optimizm!!!
Thanks from all
Blacky
And thanks for your interest view my pages on different browsers.
I’m waiting your oppinion.
Blacky
Well, the theme has little to do with whether something is going to look right in IE6 or not. And iWeb has no control over IE’s problems. iWeb writes W3C standard code - it’s creating correct code and it has no way of knowing what any browser can or can’t do - all browsers have the responsiblity to mind the W3C standards like everyone else. If they don’t, then you have what we call IE.
I wrote a long explanation about this in another thread which you should read. It explains why iWeb is NOT to blame for sites that don’t look right in IE. It’s impossible to guarantee because there is no outside access to the stylesheet where a human could apply hacks for IE or any other browser. You might see access to the stylesheet in a future release.
Sorry, but other softs like Rapidweaver or Sandvox everywhere write “This product is IE compatible……..” and they test it and improve them.
I’m a big fan of iWeb - its the best web soft for me, everything is very intuitive a with nice design.
But I’wish to see “Aqua Pro iWeb 2.0 IE compatible”
Thanks, Blacky
Rapidweaver, Dreamweaver, Sandvox, blah blah blah… none of them have hardly anything to do with whether the site is compatible in IE - the theme author has EVERYTHING to do with that.
In those applications, the theme author writes ALL the code. Hence, the theme author is inserting hacks for you, NOT the application. A human KNOWS which browsers are broken today and which aren’t.
In iWeb, iWeb writes all the code - it was designed for total web site illiterate people so they don’t have to know code - IT’S A FEATURE! But when you ask a machine to write code for you, it has no way to know which browser is broken at this given point in time and which isn’t so its only choice is to write W3C compliant code - W3C is THE standard.
Gah - some days I just want to beat my head against my iPod dock!
Please view my test site in IE6 and explain to us exactly how iWeb has generated code that it cannot render?
If you want a site with non-test content, view the Bay Area Macintosh User Group site.!!
How about some Swedish in IE6??? Jimmy renders just fine.
View the source on any of those sites and you will see those are full-blow iWeb-generated sites - navigation and all. It’s just entirely incorrect for anyone to make the statement that iWeb does not generate proper code for IE. It does.
If your legacy site looks bad, rebuild it with a 2.0 theme and get back to happy. Complain about having to rebuild the site, but don’t make claims that simply aren’t true.
Yes, thanks for explanation and examples………….
This is feature of iWeb’08 - but, do you believe in 3′rd plugin or special feature - “Export to IE?” in future update of iWeb?
Is impossible ignore this fact when 80% people own IE6 or 7.
Have you some informations about Apple feature of iWeb improvements and optimalization?
Pavel, you seem to assume there’s some magic, absolute way to make something work in IE. There isn’t. I’m not going to give you the answer you want to hear because it would be entirely incorrect to assume there’s some magical way to create hacks for broken browsers at any given point in time.
Look at it this way, what if iWeb has a hack in place for IE, or Firefox… let’s use Firefox for example. Firefox, in the latest version, there’s a bug that does not recognize the CSS property “overflow”. In my RapidWeaver theme, Tabouli, I use the overflow properity on my navigation menu tabs to hide any text that doesn’t fit on the tab. If I didn’t do this, the tabs get all messed up.
But in Firefox, the overflow property has not been recognized - a bug on their part - so I inserted a hack into my theme to force Firefox to display the tabs as I intended despite the fact that it can’t do this itself.
Now in all the other web design applications, you have control like that. I, as the theme designer, have the ability to insert a hack because I know that problem exists in Firefox. If Apple puts that same hack into iWeb, then iWeb will fix that problem for Firefox too.
But let’s say Firefox FIXES the problem. They release a new version of the browser and finally it works as it should. Well guess what happens to my theme for Rapidweaver? IT BREAKS. Why? Because I have a hack in there telling it to do something it doesn’t need to do anymore!
So I go into my theme and I UNDO the hack since I don’t need it anymore… blah blah blah… such is the life of a site designer. But what about iWeb? Now iWeb has a hack in the application that doesn’t need to be there and all these sites are BROKEN because Apple has a hack for Firefox that no longer is necessary.
What do you suppose all those iWeb people are going to do? Do you think they’ll yell at Firefox? Um no… they’re going to yell at Apple because iWeb doesn’t produce code that works in Firefox.
Can you see the problem here?
This is why no application that generates ALL the code can insert hacks for broken browsers. The minute the browser company fixes the browser, then the web site creation application doesn’t work.
It’s horribly expensive to go through a production release of an application so you will never see Apple or anyone else insert hacks into their applications that are dependent on mutable problems in someone else’s software. The only way to successfully manage hacks is by having a human insert and remove them on the fly, for any given site.
Hacks are required to make themes appear uniform across browsers. Hacks are required to manage spacing within and around text boxes. Hacks are required to position objects on the page uniformly across browsers. There are so many hacks out there, there’s no easy way to manage them and the change daily.
Okay, I don’t think I can explain this any better. So that’s enough of that. If you want to discuss all that with Apple, please visit the Apple iWeb forums and discuss it there. I don’t want to belabor this issue here where it’s not an issue, particularly in a thread that’s unrelated.