I would like to have a white centered page, with a tiled image background that stretches to whatever browser size is being viewed. The “What’s New in Freeway Pro 6” PDF describes information about measurements, but I see nothing about this and can’t find exactly my answer in the discussions.
I’m working with the CSS blue button turned on, but am flummoxed over how best to make the settings for the window and browser background appropriate to achieve this. Have spent several frustrating hours with it.
Can someone step me through the process, including whatever height or percentages should be applied to the whole thing? Would very, very much appreciate it.
If I was you, I’d set the page background with a pattern that can repeat - in the inspector click on the paintbrush icon (second along), select an image and set tile to ‘both’ (or whatever meets your needs) and if you need the background to scroll or stay static. The image will always ‘fill’ the browser window no matter how big due to tilling.
Set Align to center in the inspector for the page, and draw a white box the size of your page (or whatever size you wish). This should help you achieve what you need.
If the background image is not of the type that can tile (a photo for instance), then making that scale with the page is a different kettle of fish, but quite simple - let me know if this is what you require.
If I was you, I’d have a look through the main manuals on the Softpress site:
And there’s some useful tutorials on the Softpress site too.
Its frustrating at this stage these manuals are still geared toward FW5 but thats an issue for another day! They are still more helpful than the ‘whats new in FW6 guide’ which is not really a manual.
So, Neil, I simply pay no attention to that “windows” panel? I ask because you’re referring to instructions for just the page panel.
Also, in the past I have drawn a white box, but (a) when I try to select things later, it becomes an annoyance because really it’s just another item. Still, if I go that route, in the measurements area, do I set that white page item height or width to . . . what? Flexible? Percent? The size of the page will vary from page to page.
See, this is what puzzles me. I want to do this in whatever way is most compatible with version 6 and the version 5 manual doesn’t have both page and windows panels. That’s why I’m confused.
Any other guidance? (I do have the FW5 manual; it just doesn’t touch on many of the new items in 6 and unfortunately neither does the “What’s New In FW6” document.
P.S. If I don’t get back to you quickly it’s because for some reason this forum stubbornly refuses to send me emails letting me know someone has responded, even though I have the “ping me” button turned on.
You will need to specify the page dimensions first. In order for the page-background not to automatically cover the whole width of the browser window you need to specify a certain width, like 1024px. As soon as you choose for (for instance) 100% or a huge width like 1920px or more it’s likely you never will see the pattern that you apply to the window background.
So …
set the page width to 1024px
make sure the page is set to center
apply settings for the page background (white for background color)
apply settings for the window background (a repeating pattern for instance)
if you refer to the Regents Park Project (???), you anyway have to fill the window-background (which will mean the browser-window) with the pattern tiled horizontal and vertical and set the page-background to none (2nd tab with pen in inspector).
The “page background” is anyway something that doesn’t really exist. It is the first (invisible) div Freeway puts in (#PageDiv) and is now reachable. It is favorably comparable to the “workspace” you put your items on. So as Richard already pointed out you set the page-width (#PageDiv) to 988px (… for whatever reason in this example - I’d recommend 980px btw) and center this in the 1st Tab in inspector.
The “content” stuff are (fixed width and height) boxes filled with white and a CSS3 shadow applied to it.
Howsoever:
The point is simple:
FIXED values in ALL your cases (is the equivalent to FW lower 6).
Flexible and Percentage ONLY if you start to deal with inflow items. (BTW: No time to learn Box-In-Box Model is NOT an argument - maybe an excuse, but a bad one).
And a last one (which is more related to the “showcase” thread):
The slider in use here is the coin-slider. This can be integrated into Freeway (as nearly everything) but not the WYSIWYG way. It requires a lil bit of code-fiddling but not much honestly.
Richard? Thank you for the tips, which I shall try this afternoon. Thomas? I shall sort through your suggestions as well. I’m very grateful to you both for your specific thoughts.
One thing to note: I am NOT going to merely recreate what you see now on regentsparkboca.com. What I do will be very different.
Also, I’ve been told that 960 px wide is today’s current optimal page width (and that’s what I’ve been doing in the last few years), but I gather 980 to 1024 is now better suited to today’s market?
As for time not being a valid excuse for going into inline, well, in addition to having to create websites with a lot of content for three facilities pretty quick, I also do all of the company’s social media, videos, ad writing, etc. So yes, actually, time is very tight for me to spend time on a learning curve. I don’t have a team. it’s just me. So although I’m not saying I don’t want to get into inline strategies, I am saying now is not the most practical time.
No doubt I’ll be back with you gentlemen at some point. I really do appreciate your step-by-step guidance.
Yeahhh - 960gs is of course the “ideal” page-width.
But 960 means:
940px for the editorial content, 20px in between for the items (the grid) but only 10 to the left and 10 to the right.
So I add the missing 10+10 (to have a constant grid) to the page width and end up in 980px (BUT ONLY IN FREEWAY TERMS SPOKEN). So it is more a technical issue in Freeway probably.
Just add 10px padding left and right to your outer container. Then you can keep the math the same with respect to width.
Walter
On Jun 3, 2013, at 9:41 AM, Thomas Kimmich wrote:
So I add the missing 10+10 (to have a constant grid) to the page width and end up in 980px (BUT ONLY IN FREEWAY TERMS SPOKEN). So it is more a technical issue in Freeway probably.
10px (for me personal) on the left and right side is too less and not logical as long as all other distances within the grid is 20px (especially for pages like this one I once did and never ended :-):
Well, I guess I’m going to stay with the 980 px width since I don’t typically run things to the edges, anyway.
However, in the case of the new CSS menu bar, I DO want that bar stretched edge to edge. I’d actually even like it tucked up way to the top edge of the page.
But why will it NOT stretch evenly side to side even though in the width it says 980? I want the bar to completely fill the page width and I’ve fiddled with every minute setting I can think of. It must have to do with one of those new measurement settings that I don’t fully understand. Please take a look at the link below. See the white on either side of the menu bar? Why can’t I make it play nice?
Really, I’m just getting pretty frustrated. Once I get the core of this site down, I’ll be fine. It’s just this opening stuff — and I know how critical that is.