Hi just thought I would throw this out to the community and ask whether there is anyone in South Ireland that is here?
Pity Lynda.com did not do a series of tutorials, they are world class teachers. Learned everything from them, Two complex software packages and two complex related subjects under a year. I can read instruction manuals till I’m blue in the face but when you have a specific question, bang - you’re stumped and you waste hours trying to find an answer.
So is there anyone in South of Ireland here please?
Hi Chris,
What problems are you having? There are almost always knowledgeable people here who can help.
Regards,
Tim.
On 3 Dec 2010, at 19:43, Chris Watts wrote:
Hi just thought I would throw this out to the community and ask whether there is anyone in South Ireland that is here?
Pity Lynda.com did not do a series of tutorials, they are world class teachers. Learned everything from them, Two complex software packages and two complex related subjects under a year. I can read instruction manuals till I’m blue in the face but when you have a specific question, bang - you’re stumped and you waste hours trying to find an answer.
So is there anyone in South of Ireland here please?
Hi there Tim, how are you? Thanks. It’s ok copying the video, but then you are so full of ideas that you get yourself into a right royal pickle. I had this problem with handcoding which is why I opted for wysiwyg, and well, I seem unfortunately to have hit the same situations again.
Question: Ok, keeping it simple, I have set the background colour, I set a backgound image at 700x700px to fill the web-page dimensions. I set a graphic object on top of background image within the confines of the 700px dimension. When window is re-sized the graphic object(s) float around like dead fish in a tank of water. It is not tidy, they need to stay fixed and resize with the backgound image, not the backgound colour of course as this makes no difference. I know the answer is sooo simple that is why I am frustrated.
Hi Chris,
First off are you using Freeway Express or Pro. Both offer the similar features for page backgrounds but Pro has the ability to create layered objects which, reading your description, sounds like you are using.
As for the background image make sure that the image is placed on the page using the Inspector palette (available from the Window menu). With nothing selected on your page select the Page Appearance tab (paintbrush icon) in the Inspector. Here you can set the page colour and background image as well as choose how the image tiles (if at all) in the background. Have a play with these settings and you will soon see how you can make a simple image repeat either across, down the page or over the entire area quite easily.
If you get stuck upload something to a web server and share the link to it here and I’ll take a closer look.
Regards,
Tim.
On 3 Dec 2010, at 20:57, Chris Watts wrote:
Ok, keeping it simple, I have set the background colour, I set a backgound image at 700x700px to fill the web-page dimensions. I set a graphic object on top of background image within the confines of the 700px dimension. When window is re-sized the graphic object(s) float around like dead fish in a tank of water. It is not tidy, they need to stay fixed and resize with the backgound image, not the backgound colour of course as this makes no difference. I know the answer is sooo simple that is why I am frustrated.
Hi Tim, let me re-explain if I may - thanks. I have done and re-done the tutorial video three times. I have played around with the inspector palette really quite a lot.
OK, because the tutorial video deals only with a background colour, when you resize the window the objects on the page seem to stay fixed and the backgound does not move (optical illusion because the colour well covers everything.
However, after having inserted a backgound colour, then through the inspector palett-backgound-select, I select my backgound graphic which I plonk centre-top and it is 700 x 700px to fit my backgound dimensions of also 700 x 700px.
Now when you view in a browser and re-size the window eventually any objects on top of this graphic will re-position themselves NOT relative to their original position to the backgound image when the page is at full view in a browser, it is about at 2/3 rds of the way that everything starts to shift. A common problem with newbies in handcoding as I re-call, I also am still a newbie. One needs the page contents to stay relative to their original position to the backgound image at full size, so that when the browser window is resized down past a certain point (say to quite small) the objects simply dissappear from view as the scroll bars kick in, not float around like loose meteorites.
Sorry tim, I don’t have any way of doing that. I have no access to all these techno goodies that a lot of people have. Stumped. I will just have to soldier on till I stumble across something accidently and then shout Oh that’s how it’s done.
When a webpage has a backgound image you want whatever is placed on top of that backgound image to stay fixed at the spot where you placed it no matter how small you re-size a browser window, and so naturally at a certain point the scroll bars kick in. I have never seen a wbpage where a backgoundimage moves independantly of the contents placed on top of it when resized. Is this a short coming of Freeway Express?
Inspector panel: You click on the appearance tab on the page panel and you can set the backgound colour and then you can also set an image by clicking on “image” in that panel and choosing “select”, obviously bring up the file to select from.
However when you select simply colour, that is always filling the browser window no matter the size.
If I edit the backgound image in photoshop to be say 1024 px wide and then import this as a backgound within the inspector panel and then put anything on top such as a single graphics item or a hyperlink, when I resize the window the background image is fixed, but the objects all float relative to the window size and not relative to the background image.
I can accept what you say if it is true. Every web site in the world behaves like what I am trying to achieve, it’s normal practise, I can not believe that freeway express is encumbered with such an awful limitation so that you may be forced to go to PRO? That’s impossible. I would be so shocked at that. The objects on top of any background image placed in freeway must remain relative and fixed at the place where they were placed and when the window is resized they should not be left hanging around in the browser window while the backgound dissappears (like it is supposed to) when one minimises the browser window. Why is this such a blasted headache? Sorry, it is so frustrating.
Hi Chris.
i think, correct me if i’m wrong, that you are using a trial version of express?? ( your said… i’m in express now)
If you would consider in buying the programm, spent a few euro on the screencast or Dan Jasker. He has a few great tutorials on the Freeway basics.
and no… unfortunatly … not in south Ireland… not even in Ireland… now i sob…
Hi Dave and Eugenie, first Dave, thanks Dave, a big thankyou that you went tothat trouble to demonstrate the situation. that is exactly what I am on about. The first layout rather than the seond. Ironically the second website can be attractive sometimes in rare situations. No, the point is I will try what you suggest in Express. If I can not do it then I can accept that as a limitation of express, which is far easier to swallow than it being a limitation of my motor neuron data storage synaptic junctions in my brain. I hear that it is -24 in some parts of Scotland, hope you are keeping warm. Your help is greatly appreciated Dave.
Eugenie, yes I have seen the tutorials and am interested in a few. But i needed to find out what express was capable of before purchasing. I really needed to be sure of its possibilities and the resources that were availbale before committing myself. As it is I am looking at the pro and if anything will be going for the pro. But if I can’t master at least the basics of express then I would be wasting my time with pro. Thankyou for your tip about the tutorials though. They are priced reasonably I think. Oh, where are you then? USA?
Sorry Dave I will take your pages into firebug and examine the css and html to see where the differences are, because I am so curious to know. Have you firebug?
Ok Dave, Firstly I tried to place both a graphic and then another html item on top of the html image - everything goes haywire - no surprises there. Anyway i took your examples into firebug and immediately saw the huge difference between the two. It seems that freeway express is incapable of providing a normal full background image. That really it allows only the colours unfortunately so I am presuming that you created both examples in freeway PRO?
Darn it, rotten luck eh? I was going for PRO anyway, so that does not matter.
But the first good example you gave me specifies clearly a backgound image hyperlinked to the URL, as it should be. Then within this
there is another
with a position of absolute and 0px on top and left. Quite different to the bad example where the backgound image is specified as a colour? and the image is contained within that
as a
. So please tell me that you created what I needed in PRO.
That’s simply not the case. Create a new document in Express. Create a
JPEG image at 700px square at 72ppi in another application. In the
first page of your Express document, click on the page somewhere, then
on the paintbrush icon in the Inspector. Use the Background Image
picker to choose the image you created. You can also set the position
and tiling of that image once you’ve chosen it.
This is a background image. Freeway Express lets you set one on the
page itself; Freeway Pro lets you set one on nearly any HTML box on
the page as well as the page.
It is critical for you to understand that “draw a graphics box, fill
it with an image, and send it to back” is canonically NOT a background
image. It’s a foreground image – a part of your page content – and
it sits above the background, whether that is a solid color or a
combination of a solid color and a background image.
You can do some very clever things using a background image floating
above the background color. The color always appears “behind” the
background image, so if you set both a color and an image for your
background, you can create some layered effects, and if you use a
solid color in your background image that matches up to the background
color, you can disguise the edge where image ends and color picks up,
or accentuate the difference with a shadow or border to “lift up” the
image above the color.
Walter
On Dec 4, 2010, at 9:50 AM, Chris Watts wrote:
Anyway i took your examples into firebug and immediately saw the
huge difference between the two. It seems that freeway express is
incapable of providing a normal full background image.
I am so sorry, I should have worded it better. I was unfortunately writing within the context of Dave’s two example welcome pages that he created for me to see, so that he could be sure of what I was speaking about he had understood. It was very kind of him.
I have created backgound images and full ones to cover say 700 x 700 and the colour set behind it, this is fine and simple to do and yes you can get some good effects. But it appears that express does not allow another image to be placed on top that remains fixed and relative to the exact position on the backgound image when resizing the browser window. daves examples demonstrate what I have been trying to figure out for two days now. Bytheway I have never used the ‘send to back feature’ yet, I only just saw it.
Have you looked at the align settings for the page and the background?
For example, set your background to align: center and the page to
alight: center. The objects you place on the page will remain aligned
to the background image as the window is resized.
There are Actions for Pro that let you set a foreground image as the
page background and forces that image to resize to remain fully within
the browser window regardless of the dimensions.
Walter
On Dec 4, 2010, at 10:37 AM, Chris Watts wrote:
But it appears that express does not allow another image to be
placed on top that remains fixed and relative to the exact position
on the backgound image when resizing the browser window.