Xway has various box ‘types’ – Article, Navigation, aside etc. Do they have different attributes, or is it so a standard style can be given to each, if required?
Also, does Xway have a linking tool for boxes of text?
Thanks
Geoff
Hi Geoff
Xway has various box ‘types’ – Article, Navigation, aside etc. Do they have different attributes, or is it so a standard style can be given to each, if required?
These are semantic elements that were introduced with HTML5. They improve accessibility, and the recommendation is to use them in preference to plain divs as much as possible. There is some discussion in the Xway User Guide, which is based on w3c documentation.
For an analogy, you could think about when you would use as opposed to . Both can be styled to look the same, but (Emphasized in Xway) tells you that text is to be read with emphasis (it is usually italicised), so it’s helpful for screen readers.
[Semantic types also exist in Freeway, but they’re somewhat hidden away.]
Also, does Xway have a linking tool for boxes of text?
Like flowing text between graphic boxes in Freeway? Or something else?
Jeremy
Running text through several HTML boxes. I used the Flow tool in Freeway
Geoff
On 14 Nov 2019, at 11:27, Jeremy Hughes <email@hidden> wrote:
Also, does Xway have a linking tool for boxes of text?
Like flowing text between graphic boxes in Freeway? Or something else?
Jeremy
Hi Geoff,
I forgot that it can also link HTML boxes. The problem is that it doesn’t really flow text on output. It just chops it off in one box and starts again in another. That’s OK if you’re careful to make sure that the text breaks at the end of a paragraph (and not in the middle), but it’s not something that you couldn’t do manually.
The reason that this feature exists in Freeway is because Freeway was developed from a DTP program (UniQorn). We had an internal discussion right at the start of Freeway development about whether we should drop the flow tool, and I was one of the people who argued that we shouldn’t drop it, although I later came to think that I was wrong: it was buggy (we kept having to fix it) and it doesn’t work well with HTML boxes.
However, HTML/CSS now has support for columns in which text flows from one column to another. So it’s possible that we will support that in a future version of Xway.
Jeremy
—
On 14 Nov 2019, at 12:04, Geoff Mullett email@hidden wrote:
Running text through several HTML boxes. I used the Flow tool in Freeway
Geoff
On 14 Nov 2019, at 11:27, Jeremy Hughes email@hidden wrote:
Also, does Xway have a linking tool for boxes of text?
Like flowing text between graphic boxes in Freeway? Or something else?
Jeremy
OK, thanks.
The reason I used Freeway in the 90s was to teach graphic design students, familiar with QuarkXpress, how to build web sites on the same DTP principles. I feel I need to g o back to college myself now!
Geoff
On 14 Nov 2019, at 12:22, Jeremy Hughes email@hidden wrote:
Hi Geoff,
I forgot that it can also link HTML boxes. The problem is that it doesn’t really flow text on output. It just chops it off in one box and starts again in another. That’s OK if you’re careful to make sure that the text breaks at the end of a paragraph (and not in the middle), but it’s not something that you couldn’t do manually.
The reason that this feature exists in Freeway is because Freeway was developed from a DTP program (UniQorn). We had an internal discussion right at the start of Freeway development about whether we should drop the flow tool, and I was one of the people who argued that we shouldn’t drop it, although I later came to think that I was wrong: it was buggy (we kept having to fix it) and it doesn’t work well with HTML boxes.
However, HTML/CSS now has support for columns in which text flows from one column to another. So it’s possible that we will support that in a future version of Xway.
Jeremy
—
On 14 Nov 2019, at 12:04, Geoff Mullett email@hidden wrote:
Running text through several HTML boxes. I used the Flow tool in Freeway
Geoff
On 14 Nov 2019, at 11:27, Jeremy Hughes email@hidden wrote:
Also, does Xway have a linking tool for boxes of text?
Like flowing text between graphic boxes in Freeway? Or something else?
Jeremy
Hi Geoff,
Did you work with Keith Martin?
Jeremy