Miscellaneous

This section contains information on some of WebDesign's more advanced features as well as details on how to customize some of WebDesign's features that can not be set within the preferences dialog. It also contains the WebDesign FAQs which is highly recommended to be read over before using WebDesign.

• WebDesign Includes
• Language Extensions
• Auto-recover documents
• Creating Image Maps
• WebDesign technotes
• WebDesign FAQ's
• Designed with WebDesign

WebDesign Includes

When working on a web site you will come across many situations where multiple pages will include the exact same code. Instead of making you duplicate your code over and over again, WebDesign allows you to include files within your document so that all similar text can come from one file on your site. This will not only allow for less code to maintain, but it also allows one file to be edited which will affect every single page in your web site. By using WebDesign Includes you can easily keep your document smaller while editing, update your entire web site by modifying one document as well reduce the amount of time it takes to fix problems with your web site.

WebDesign includes are entered within HTML comments. This will prevent the include statements from having any affect on the way your web page is displayed in a web browser.

To include a file within your document you simply use the following syntax;

<!-- wd_include file="filename"--> <!-- /wd_include file="filename"-->

You can also include a document by going to the 'Insert' menu and selecting 'WebDesign Include...'. A select file dialog will appear allowing you to select a document that you would like to include in your web page. WebDesign will automatically generate the appropriate include syntax for you.

Include statements are case sensitive and must be typed exactly as shown above. The file name is also case sensitive. Any text written inbetween the include statements will not be included in the saved file and won't show up in a web browser.

If your document has been previously saved, WebDesign will look for a folder named 'Includes' within the same directory as the saved file. If no folder is found, WebDesign will make its way up the hierarchy looking for a folder named 'Includes'. If it still can not locate the 'Includes' folder or the appropriate included file, It will look in the 'Includes' folder contained in the same folder as the WebDesign application.

If your document has not been saved, WebDesign will simply look for the included file within the 'Includes' folder contained in the same folder as the WebDesign application.

WebDesign includes are for local use only. You do not need to upload the includes folder to your FTP sever.

When you update a file that is included in another document, all documents that include that file must be updated as well. Fortunately WebDesign can automate this process for you.

You can update the included files in a single file, a folder or an entire site from within WebDesign. You can either select 'Update Includes' from the 'Insert' menu or use the Site Manager's Update Includes toolbar button.

Of course WebDesign includes can be used anywhere you like, there are some situations where using includes can be a great help to web site development. The following are great examples of where includes can be very beneficial;

• The header or footer of a web page
• Including scripts such as javascript, PHP etc...
• Copyright info
• Navigation buttons
• Logos or images that you want to update constantly
• A link back to your home page
• Pages created within other editors

Language Extensions

With many different syntax rules and keywords in the multitude of web languages, it is difficult to remember the proper rules for coding. WebDesign's Langauge Extensions remove the need to memorize the specific syntax and proper format of the supported languages. Language Extensions provides a list of the entire or most commonly used syntax for a specific language and allows you to automatically insert the code into your document.

To open the Langauge Extensions window go to Window->Language Extensions. The Language Extensions window provides a menu at the top of the window with the supported languages. Selecting a language will list the keywords/code available. To enter the code into your document, either double click one of the items in the list or drag and drop an item into your document.

If you find it difficult to remember certain aspects of a language that you commonly use, you can create your own language extensions. See the WebDesign technotes in the Miscellaneous section of the WebDesign Manual for further details

Auto-recover documents

To prevent the loss of any data incase a system crash or WebDesign unexpectantly quits, WebDesign provides an auto-recover feature which will ensure that you do not lose your documents.

You can enable the auto-recover feature by enabling the option in the 'Application' tab of the Preferences dialog. As well, you can specify how often WebDesign should save your document to a temporary file anywhere from every 2 minutes to 30 minutes.

If WebDesign should happen to quit unexpectantly for any reason, your documents will be recovered the next time you launch WebDesign. You can choose to recover the documents or just delete them. If you choose to recover the documents, WebDesign will open the temporary file allowing you to either save it over the real document, or in another location.

Creating Image Maps

It is sometimes an inconvenience to have to split up an image into many smaller images just to allow certain parts to link to seperate pages. Not only do you have to split the image up correctly, but it has to be reconstructing using complex tables within your web page. To solve this problem, an image map should be used which allows different sections of a single image to be linked to different web pages.

WebDesign provides a visual Image Map maker which allows you to quickly and easily create complex image maps and insert them into your web page.

To create an image map, open the Image Wizard either by dragging it from the tools pallette or by selecting the Image wizard from the Insert menu. Select the image on your hard drive and then click the 'Use Image Map' button.

Your image will be opened in a new window along with three other windows which allow you to control the properties and create new boundries for your image. You can create square or circle boundries for your image by selecting the appropriate shape in the upper right hand window. Add boundries by dragging your mouse over the parts of the images that should be linked to other documents.

You can edit the properties for the defined boundries by selecting the shape in the shapes window. The properties will be shown in the Attributes window.

WebDesign Technotes

WebDesign allows you to create custom keyword files that WebDesign will load when it is launched and use to color the specified keywords. These custom keyword files allow you customize WebDesign's syntax coloring abilities and add syntax coloring support for languages not directly supported by WebDesign. For example, by default, WebDesign provides syntax coloring for PHP, ASP and JavaScript through the use of keyword files.

Keyword files are simply text files which WebDesign loads and parses when it is launched. The format of a keyword file is as follows;

keyword/red,green,blue
keyword2/red,green,blue

The amount of red, green and blue are specified by integers ranging from 0-255. Each value is separated by a comma (,).

To let WebDesign know about your custom keyword files, place the keyword files in the 'Keywords' folder within the 'Support Folder'. If there is no 'Keywords' folder you can create one. The keyword files can be given any name, however, it is recommended that you keep the names short so that they will show up correctly in WebDesign's preferences dialog.

WebDesign's Language Extensions allow access to the appropriate syntax/keywords of any support web language. If you need access to languages not supported by WebDesign, you can create your own Langauge Extensions

WebDesign Language Extensions can be created directly in WebDesign. Language Extensions are simple text files which follow a certain format. The Language Extension format looks like this;

HEADING TO APPEAR IN BOLD
Image Tag*°*<img src="">*°*updatetags*°*2
Link*°*<a href=""></a>*°*updatetags*°*4

A header, which appears in bold, can just be written as shown with no other properties. A keyword, which can be entered into the a document, must be written in the format above. The last two parameters are optional. The first paramater is the text which the user should see in the list. The second paramater is the text to be entered into the document. The third paramater specifies whether or not WebDesign should update the syntax coloring and the fourth paramter is the location of the insertion point counting backwords from the end of the string.

Designed with WebDesign

Help support WebDesign by getting the word out about quality web sites designed using the WebDesign authoring package. As a registered user of WebDesign feel free to place one of the following images on your web sites developed using WebDesign. You can find these images in the 'Goodies' folder;

<img src="wd1.gif" height="69" width="155" border="0">	<img src="wd2.jpg" height="69" width="155" border="0">	<img src="wd3.jpg" height="69" width="155" border="0">