[Pro] Upgrade to v5: Why a table?

Freeway
1

And, for that matter, “Why a duck?”

If you look at the source for http://luckypro.biz/client/walter/v2, you see a table in div id=“pagetitlecombined”. I suspect this has something to do with my rollover not working. Layer pagetitlecombined was made by Grouping two graphic items, both set to Combine Graphics. I assumed FW5 would output one JPEG, functioning as a layer/div. But now the div is full of Table and multiple GIFs. Help! My obviously not so good technique has been hijacked and is being held for ransom.

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2

Sounds like you didn’t make the graphics as layer items. Freeway will generate a table for all non-layered items.

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3

Yes, I understand that any non-layer items will force a Table. Thanks. All items on this page in Freeway are layers.

You can kind of see that I have a green area with both horizontal and vertical text in it. In FW, the vertical text is a large graphic item. The horizontal “Begin” text is a different graphic item. I grouped them.

This produced one single “item” in my Site/Page Panel. That one single item is set to be a layer, with Absolute positioning. And, there is no HTML Layout visible on the page.

If I make some other items not-layers, I can see HTML Layout appear. But the page as published has no HTML Layout. All first-level items in the Site/Page Panel are layers.

Now, I will enter one caveat. The item “pagetitlecombined” has two sub-items in the Site/Page Panel. But choosing them in the Panel, and looking at the Inspector, gives no way to make them layers. Which is as I had expected: the two items should be combined and output as one JPEG, and it should be the sole occupant of a div, and should be a rollover triggering a slave layer, just like it does in my v3.5 file. FW stumps me again.

Thanks.

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4

Did you set the page output level to HTML 3.2 at any point? That will
force a table layout, but if nothing on the page is set to be a layer,
and HTML 4 or higher page layout will always output positioned DIVs
unless you have actually drawn a table with the table tool.

Walter

On Aug 25, 2009, at 5:10 PM, Bucky Edgett wrote:

Yes, I understand that any non-layer items will force a Table.
Thanks. All items on this page in Freeway are layers.

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5

On 25 Aug 2009, 10:49 pm, waltd wrote:
Did you set the page output level to HTML 3.2 at any point? That will
force a table layout but if nothing on the page is set to be a layer,
Yes, probably at some point in the history of this file all pages were HTML 3.2. But this page is now set to HTML 4.

and HTML 4 or higher page layout will always output positioned DIVs
unless you have actually drawn a table with the table tool.
There is supposed to be a table here. It too is set to be a layer of its own. The page title JPEG is supposed to be a layer, the menu table is supposed to be a layer, and the two of them are supposed to swap based on slave actions.

But the whole page is just a mess. The slave actions don’t work, and the page title JPEG layer contains a table.

I’m reading the source, and see the table contains all the pagetitle GIfs (which are supposed to be JPEGs) from all the pages on the site which use the same slave group name to create the same rollover effect.

So far, I’ve applied a new master, containing my Page Title JPEG / Menu Table Swap routine to about three pages of the site. I used Indigo as the (default) slave group name on the master page, and allowed all three of the pages to which the master was applied to keep the slave group name Indigo. Obviously that completely balled up the function.

I’ve now been back into Freeway 5, and changed the slave group name on two of the three pages. Lo and behold, I have no more extraneous tables. All three pages are written the way I would expect: divs for various objects, and a table in one div only; the div that holds the Menu Table. Hah.

So, what’s causing Freeway to read information about slave groups from other pages? This has something to do with my “Rollover Broken” post. The rollover/layer swapping is still broken, but at least I no longer have tables where there should not be any.

Now the problem becomes a lack of slave group names. I need to have this master page applied to many more pages then there are slave group names available.

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6

I don’t think you mentioned if this is a converted site from earlier version of Freeway, or maybe you did, anyway if you did that could explain the problems. It is not always a clean conversion from old Freeway to new Freeway.

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Thank you, Chuck. Yes, it is a converted file. I guess you mean the conversion explains the fact that there are problems. I’m beginning to wonder why I upgraded. Perhaps I’ll have to try to get some tech support for this mess.

Are converted files often so broken they just can’t be fixed?

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8

Are converted files often so broken they just can’t be fixed?

Ummm…depends on how page was built. But the conversion process form 3.5 to Pro 4 or Pro 5 has never been pain free. There just too many changes in newer Freeway, especially in regards to CSS to not be problematic. It’s unfortunate you have a problem and it might make more sense to start over and redesign the site from fresh.

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9

Thank you, Chuck. I’ve been upgrading software for decades now and have never heard so many excuses being offered or allowances given for such fundamental problems. Well, except maybe for Quark XPress. But that program was essentially broken from the beginning.

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10

I haven’t followed this thread but have and do from time to time encounter
snakes amongst the ladders with Freeway - esp since upgrading from 3 to 4 to
5.
One of the things that may help is to look at the crazy page in item view
and check that the relationship of items to each other is correct - ie that
things are nested or not nested appropriately within or with regard to each
other.

I find that it is very very easy for things to go pear-shaped in Freeway 4/5
without any easy way back - or indeed ways of seeing within the Freeway
interface - what is causing the error. Those who read code often spot these
things in the output and thus get clued into where to correct it in Freeway.

So this makes for a cautious environment - for me at least - that does not
inspire me to creative play - but rather to learn as best I can - not to get
into trouble.

This is mostly down to me as a user - I have not such a great willingness to
attend to and assimilate technical information or indeed spend lifetime in
doing so. I mostly still use the old way of doing things simply because it
just works and I can just do it - and the people I design for are fine with
it that way.

Softpress are not in the same ballpark as Adobe - and are small enough to
retain a sense of relationship with their users that also extends out to the
user community. This is a very supportive list! And they are usually
responsive to requests for help.

Freeway is a particular kind of solution in its own niche and has
considerable advantages for those who like its way of working. It also has
downsides. I would hope that - having implemented the ‘mechanisms’ - of
design into CSS and table layout, Softpress will work on improving the user
experience - particularly in the areas where they see users getting into
confusion.

This list is a feedback mechanism for them also - and they are not merely
driven by corporate interest - they want to be offering really useful tools
to people who want to create web sites.

So yes - I have a sense of relationship - and so have others - that puts up
with stuff that in other software we might not tolerate.

I’ve rambled on a bit. Its a bummer to be expected to remake a site.
Sometimes, a clear recognition and willingness to do so makes for a shortest
course into the clear. Whatever it takes.

all the best
Brian

Bucky Edgett said recently:

Thank you, Chuck. I’ve been upgrading software for decades now and have never
heard so many excuses being offered or allowances given for such fundamental
problems. Well, except maybe for Quark XPress. But that program was
essentially broken from the beginning.

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11

On Aug 27, 2009, at 4:05 AM, Brian Steere wrote:

So this makes for a cautious environment - for me at least - that
does not
inspire me to creative play - but rather to learn as best I can -
not to get
into trouble.

DITTO !!

LLE

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12

Thanks to both who have written in sympathy with an old curmudgeon. Most of my problems with using Freeway --and most of the problems I encounter turn out to BE my problems-- are Freeway’s odd sense of “intelligence.” Or at least, what seems to me to be an odd one.

I’ve learned, over decades of spazzing around with computers, to deeply distrust, loathe and abominate software that tries to anticipate what I might want. Note that my experience goes back to before Macintosh, working on Linotype’s doomed WYSIWYG systems. And includes programming in FileMaker Pro. I know how basically impossible it is to successfully anticipate the true needs of a lot of randomly chosen users.

The Freeway folks have spent so much time trying to create temporary styles, and context-driven palettes, and all kinds of, bless their hearts, helpful systems. To ME, that’s not only a complete waste of time, it’s a hindrance. The temp styles get applied --because I’ve done something thoughtless-- and block the application of edited Permanent styles. The palette tabs switch around and inevitably I have to choose one by hand.

My approach: give me a million palettes. Make them all stupid. Let me keep’em all open on my second monitor all the time and click into the one I need. But that’s just me.

I much prefer dumb software that does a lot of things really well to somewhat limited software that tries to be easy to use. But I’m kind of dumb myself!

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