Xsitepro Templates and Website Design

Xsitepro version 1 and version 2 both work with templates to help you build a website.

The program comes with many templates, however, sooner or latter everyone wants to learn how to make templates for xsitepro. We run into a little bit of a snag since Xsitepro 2.0 has more panels which make up the template. This makes some Xsitepro 2.0 templates incompatible with Xsitepro version 1.0.

There is a nice Xsitepro tutorial in the help section of your xsitepro program and you can see the xsitepro tutorial here….just click on the link.

Let me go through the process of creating a xsitepro template.

1. First imagine a legal pad of paper….and imagine that legal pad is your webpage.
2. Now take the legal page and draw out your webpage.
3. Header across the top
4. Navigation panel on the left side
5. Navigation panel on the right side
6. Body Section in between the 2 Navigation panels
7. Footer Across the Bottom

Ok…you have to use a graphics editor like photoshop to create the website you just designed on the legal pad. NVU is a free version of photoshop and will work just as well or you can use any graphics editor that will allow you to slice the image for use in a website.

After you create an image of the website with your graphics editor, you will slice the image into boxes or panels that will be used in the numbered steps above (version 2 allows for more slices or panels)

Let me backtrack a second. The whole purpose of designing your own template is to have something that looks good and doesn’t look like an out of the box Xsitepro template. So….when designing your webpage in your graphics editor keep in mind the fact that you will be slicing into component parts. Know what those parts are and where they are located. It doesn’t matter if its in Xsitepro 1 or Xsitepro 2.

The awesome difference in Xsitepro 2 is that you have additional panels or boxes to work with. This will allow you more freedom in your design and help eliminate the traditional xsitepro template look.

Finally, save the images and make sure you optimize them first so they load fast.

You can view Video Tutorials on how to make Xsitepro Templates by clicking on any of the links in this sentence.

Digg This Post

Create Squeeze Page with Xsitepro

Xsitepro is an easy to use website builder.

If you can use Microsoft Word…then you can use Xsitepro. Just recently version 2 of Xsitepro has been released which is loaded with features that would make even the most experienced website designer fill with envy.

Squeeze pages are a necessity if you plan on making money online. A squeeze page is simply a short webpage with some information offering a free product of service in exchange for the visitor’s name and email address. You can use Xsitepro to easily create a squeeze page. Here’s a video which describes how to use Xsitepro to create a squeeze page.

How to Create an XSite Pro Squeeze Page

Digg This Post

FTP with Xsitepro

I found a great tutorial for xsitepro ftp and templates.

Configuring the uploading section of Xsitepro is probably the most difficult section of the software to get past for anyone who is fairly new to website editors that combine ftp function. There was a fellow on a forum who asked the following question:

I can’t upload the site through xsitepro’s function, for some reason it just won’t go through.

When I export the site, everything goes fine.

Now I’ve updated the site and uploaded all the exported files (through filezilla) and it’s not 100% as it’s presented in xsitepro.

First of all the header isn’t displaying properly(it shows a previously edited header) and the left panel menu only displays the new links when you click on any link below the “home” homepage.

The new menu links don’t display on the homepage itself, but instead pop up when you click on anything below the “home” start page.

It’s SO frustrating!

I ask myself”why can’t this just work and be simple”!

Does anyone know how to come around this problem or any possible solutions?

I love xsitepro, it’s by far the best design tool, well, easiest and quickest to use, but darn, these kind of formatting issues are so annoying, especially when it looks so good in XsitePro itself.

Since I use Xsitepro quite a bit I thought I’d try to give him some advise as follows:

Xsitepro is perfect for anyone getting started with building websites. Because of it’s simplicity it’s also great for more experienced webmasters that want to crank out some quick websites.

Digg This Post

« Previous Page