Friday, June 06, 2008

Using SiteGrinder Web Sites Are No Longer Difficult To Create

By David Peters

Trying to create a website from scratch to match one created by programs such as Photoshop is no easy task. Photoshop, and programs like it, are designed to give total freedom to the designer. However, the web itself is comprised of many confusing languages and standards that place other concerns ahead of preserving visual design integrity.

This situation has understandably intimidated many users who are good at Photoshop but don't want to spend months or years learning the gory details of the internet such as XHTML, CSS, javascript, etc.

SiteGrinder 2 is a program that can easily turn Adobe Photoshop into an easy-to-use and powerful design and production tool for websites. While the sole purpose of SiteGrinder is not aimed at the web programmer beginner, a designer with knowledge of SiteGrinder who has no prior web experience can use only their Photoshop skills to go from concept to deployment of a professional, standards-compliant site in mere hours with no slicing or programming skills needed.

SiteGrinder can create graphics, text, and interactivity by using modern web standard technologies. It also takes into account many requirements like cross-platform browser compatibility, all without the user being aware of the background programming needed.

You are comfortable with Photoshop and SiteGrinder knows CSS, HTML, and web image formats. You create special layers, such as buttons, by adding "hints" to the layer names.

Few things such as "button", "rollover", and "popup" are required to create interactivity in your site. Once you've added a few hints you can open SiteGrinder and build your page with one mouse-click.

The nice thing about this system is that it works the way you do, which turns web design into a uniquely satisfying activity. You can enable your web site's functionality as you design it, and easily test it in a web browser whenever you feel like it.

This flexible program even allows you to make major last minute design changes, such as selecting a new background image, without headaches! SiteGrinder

You may be wondering how SiteGrinder can create many web pages from a single Photoshop document. The answer is simple really, Photoshop has a little-known but amazing tool called the "layer comps palette". This palette enables you to save and name a variety of document states, including the position and visibility of every layer.

All you have to do is make the document look the way a page on your site should and then make a layer comp. Then set up the next page and repeat. SiteGrinder will use those comps to decide what to include on the web pages it produces. Even cooler: if your layer comp names match your button names then SiteGrinder will link them automatically. You don't even have to provide URLs!

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