Soft Groups are a new option found in the Arrange menu. Soft Groups can
group objects on several layers. In the case of the roll over button shown
here, both the MouseOff and MouseOver states have been soft grouped. The
benefit of this is if you change the text on one layer, it automatically
changes on the other layer or layers (this button also has a MouseDown
stage). You only have to link a soft group once and the changes are
automatically applied to all soft grouped layers.
Repeating Objects One of the really breakthrough features in Xara Web Designer is called
Repeating Objects. A repeating object can be copied and pasted onto any page of your
website. When you make a change to any instance of the Repeating Object, and select
Arrange > Update Repeating Objects, all instances of this change are made to all instances
of that object.
For example, say you create a button bar. Each button a unique Repeating Object (I’ll
explain how in a moment). After you get your website finished you decide that Puce is not
the color you really wanted for your buttons. And Times Roman is dated looking. So you
select one of your Repeating Object buttons and change the color from Puce to Sage Green.
And you change the font to Georgia Bold. With the modified button selected, click Update
Repeating Objects from the Arrange menu and all instances of that button are changed to
the same color (or fill) and font. You can also change a link and even the copy.
Here’s how:
1. Create your repeating
object. In this case a button
called HOME
2. Press the yellow New
Names tag on the Infobar.
3. Name your repeating
object. The name must begin
with the word Repeating and a
colon, then the unique name.
In this example
Repeating:Button Home
4. Press Add. Place this
button on any or all
appropriate patges.
If you modify your Repeating Object Button, with the modified Repeating Object selected:
5. Select Update Repeating Objects from the Arrange menu. The changes will be made to all
instances of the button.
The repeating object to be updated cannot appear on the same page, and it should appear in
the same place on all other pages. Repeating objects can be a soft group. You can modify any
of the instances, not just the original object. Just make sure the modified object is selected
before you Update Repeating Objects.
Templates, Pre-Designed Buttons and Other Objects For those
of you who would rather let someone else do the design work,
you can find a collection of professionally designed templates,
buttons banners, and other goodies in the Design Gallery (the
same icon as the Clip Art Gallery in Xara Xtreme). Also
included are various Stretchy Buttons. These are buttons that automatically stretch if the
text exceeds the width of the button. The templates come in a variety of styles for a variety
of uses both professional and whatever the opposite of professional is.
When you select a pre-designed template, a set of related colors appears in the left hand
side of the Color Line (the color palette at the bottom of the page). These colors allow you
to create new objects to work with the color scheme.
This entire
Workbook has
been created
with Xara
Web Designer.
Click icon
for more
information
