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Xara Webstyle 3

Add the professional touch to your web page graphics

I’ve long been a fan of  Xara’s Webstyle as it caters for people like me – I can cobble together a web site but I can’t draw or design graphics for a toffee. Webstyle provides a range of web page ‘furniture’ such as logos, buttons, bullets and navigation bars that can be dropped straight on to your web pages.  Instant quality images!

How Does it Work?

Unlike earlier versions, Webstyle 3 integrates fully with both Dreamweaver and FrontPage and can be called up via the relevant application’s menus. You can also run it standalone if needed.

Webstyle isn’t just a collection of clipart. Instead, you choose a category such as buttons and then choose a basic style from the graphically presented list. These are stored as vector graphics so you can resize them without any loss of quality. You can adjust different settings such as the colour or shadow to customise it to suit your needs. When you are happy, you can save the image as a bitmap which is then placed on your page.

The more complex features such as navigation bars automatically insert any extra HTML or JavaScript that is needed in to your page. Earlier versions required that you did this via cut & paste, often with some manual adjustments being needed.

Version 3 includes more templates – some 1,400 in total. Xara claims more modern designs but to be honest, they looked like more of the same to me. A more interesting feature is that the navigation bars can now include cascading DHTML menus which makes life much easier when creating interactive page navigation.  Another useful addition is the ability to generate thumbnails from photos and have Webstyle create the necessary code to link the smaller image to the full size one.

What I’m less sure about is the inclusion of some simple image/photo editing tools. I don’t think this sits comfortably with Webstyle’s core function and smacks of a desperate need to add features. I suppose market demands that a new version of a product is issued every year to keep it ‘fresh’ and it can’t be easy when your software is already doing a fine job. Another part I’m less that sure about is the company logo generator. I can’t imagine a real company using this as the chances of someone else using the same one has to be pretty high.

In Use

To use Webstyle, you choose a broad category such as banner ad which takes you to the editing screen where you choose the basic look from a visual list. From here you do the tweaking to mould the graphic to your exact need.

The Start Screen

Down the left hand side is a list of attributes such as texture. Each attribute brings up a dialog box underneath that allows you to fiddle away with the different settings. Some are more complex that others but the exceptionally friendly online help is at your command. As well as the basic help, you can call up the ‘Tell me More’ function which lets you choose a task you want to be led through.

Editing a cascading menu

When you have finished, you simply save the image as a bitmap and the job is done. For really uninspired people (i.e. me), you can choose Theme Sets which provide a complete pre-drawn set of graphics and menus with a common look.

For an even snappier looking title, there is a basic 3D heading creator but unless done sympathetically, 3D headings can look a bit duff these days.

A feature which I tend to misuse is the banner-ad generator. This creates animated GIFs from a wide variety of templates for people to use to advertise their site. I find they’re also quite good to use on the site itself to advertise new features or to link to certain sections.

Conclusion

There are some useful new features in version 3 but I’m not sure they are worth the upgrade fee from version 2. I’m also a bit concerned about the direction Webstyle seems to be going in with the image editor function. Xara – if you’re listening, stick to Webstyle’s core competency and leave image editing to dedicated image editing tools. For first time buyers, the UK price of around £50-55 depending on the exchange rates puts it above the impulse buy category. If you think you’re going to use it though, Xara have a 30day demo version available at www.xara.com/downloads/webstyle  which may well convince you it is money well spent.

Iain Laskey

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