Artisteer? anyone?

[brent]

I was just wondering if anyone has been able and has a proven method of using Artisteer CMS template designer with WebsiteBaker. WebsiteBaker is a wonderful CMS but I think its main shortfall, at least for me, is the ability to easily create menus/submenus dynamically. I've created templates and have been able to easily populate content, etc. For me its difficult to use programs like DHTML Menu and Allweb menus to create menus that will work dynamically with WSB. Artisteer makes some great looking designs but so far is useless when trying to link menus/sub menus with WSB.  Works great with Joomla, but Joomla has a difficult overblown backend for most end users compared to the intuitive one that WSB has.

I've been using WSB for a couple of years, I'm not a big time coder, so I don't have the answer, but with a simple way of creating the menus and applying it for use with Artisteer or a menu generator of some kind would make all the difference. For me, being productive is being able to provide the client with an attractive design without having to spend hours and hours trying to figure out something that should be fairly simple to do, and then getting the product to the customer. Once again, WSB is a great CMS, but I think needs some help  with dynamic menu creation.

[Stefek]

Artisteer won't work good with WB.
And the HTML Artisteer outputs is really crappy.

Menues have to be coded with show_menu/2 anyway.

I can't enourage anyone to use this product.

It's easier to learn HTML from the bottom as to get sites created with Artisteer.

Kind Regards,
Stefek

[mr-fan]

hi,

if you look at the great "overview" from the artisteer page...... 

4. You don't need to learn Photoshop, CSS, HTML and other Web technologies to create great looking designs, including images and buttons.

and then also at the same time........

8. Learn how to create professional HTML and CSS code.

and.....my favorite......

10.
If you don't have the time, hire your kids to create great looking web design for you.

i don't wanna a page created by kid's....and i don't think customers did not, too?

regards martin

[brent]

Hey guys I think you are great,
but I'm not here to argue or insult anyone and I have not done so. The bottom line is, this product produces great results with other CMS. It may not be perfect, but neither is anything else created by humans which includes WSB. WSB is a great product, but it also has its faults. The bottom line is what the customer wants. Most customers are not technicians and are not concerned with whether or not the beautiful and functional website is created by manually written perfect code (it never is anyway), or if it was created with Dreamweaver, Expression, FrontPage, and numerous others. They want their site to work and look good with most browsers even if there may be some slight draw backs in achieving this.
 
Sometimes we have to stop thinking like programmers alone and consider the audience and the final product. Does it do the job? Does it suit the customer's needs? Did the tool although not perfect, used to create the product, produce the desired results in minimal time and at minimal costs? I'm sure the shirt on my back may not pass the stitch test if I have a so called professional inspect it, but it looks decent on my back and serves the purpose. I don't even know what brand sewing machine was used to create it or if it was sewed by hand, but it does the job.

We can sit for years and criticize each other's methods of coding or tool that was used to create a product but that does not produce results that work for everyone. So if this Artisteer tool serves the purpose of rendering the proper results for the customer and the web designer, it really should not matter to someone else. If it does not work with WSB I can certainly live with that and move on, but it does not make Artisteer or WSB undesirable products.

I still would appreciate any constructive help, Thanks!

[StudioVerlag]

Artisteer 
A big s***

[albatros]

The bottom line is, this product produces great results with other CMS.

Hi,

I know a little bit about A.-templates for Joomla. They are ok for people, who don't whant to learn anything about css, xhtml etc. And, very important, they are ok if you take them as they are. But if you whant to change anything later on, it is absolutely horrible.

Another point. It is a commercial product. That means, people pay for it. But looking for help and support, many of them don't get any help by Aristeer and they whant to get it buy supporters in other forums. And now we are at the beginning of my posting again.  

Why should a developer/coder/supporter in a WB-forum force this. She/he must be crazy!

regards

Uwe

[brent]

The bottom line is, this product produces great results with other CMS.

Why should a developer/coder/supporter in a WB-forum force this. She/he must be crazy!

Nobody is forcing anything. I saw a pracrtical use for a product and wondered if it was possible, that's all. But all I get is this is garbage, etc. Real immature responses because you don't care for a product.  Thanks anyhow, I won't force this down your throats anymore.

[mr-fan]

Thanks anyhow, I won't force this down your throats anymore.

hi brent,

don't be displeased!

noone want you refuse!

you just asked - and get some answers....

it is fact - WB is not perfect - but perfectly easy to use for a CMS -

and it is a fact - that everyone that will get a functional/clean/beautyfull and dynamical !important website....
must have a knowledge of html/css and certainly a little bit php to get a result that works real good!

==ok== if you combine this two fact's you will get the key:

1. artisteer is for     a) customers that don't wanna pay a desinger/coder for his work
                            b) webdesigners/coder that are make fast and tacky work for stingy customers and they build up no 
                                relationships in a long term view....
                            c) people that are don't wanna learn something but can something....

it is a kind of taste if you use it or not!

you can use every tool for WB templates!

to change a html/css bluprint to a WB template is a questions about some hours (for me as i'm not a pro  )

the tricky thing is the dynamic menu:

For me its difficult to use programs like DHTML Menu and Allweb menus to create menus that will work dynamically with WSB.

this is something to learn, too - f*** always learning - no time for work and sparetime.....

no just kidding - showmenu2 function is not so hard to get it...and this forum is full with advice and help for this issue!

but - don't be amazed if you ask someone for a product that is more a business rival than a tool...since it is created more for normal users and customers as for desingers and coders....just my minds

regards martin
(i'm not a prodesinger or coder - this is more a real vested hobby than work - so don't apply my words on a assay balance (german adage))

[myownserver]

Hey Brent,
I'm not sure what you're knowledge level is, but if you want to team up on this, I'll work with you to try and figure out what it'd take to convert an Artisteer template to WSB.

I'm by no means bias to any software that makes life easier.  And since it's the design people see, not the code, I could care less how "ugly" the html is.  And I can learn every web design language out there and it won't help me create good looking website templates, because I flat out suck at graphical and layout design.  So something like Artisteer comes as a HUGE help since I can get the design really close to something I like, then tweak it into what I actually want.  It saves TONS of time than hand-coding it, although yes, the code is a bit of a pain, but easy enough to modify once you've used it a time or two.

The bias remarks just make me rather use one of the CMS programs that it DOES work with, because it creates turn-key templates for them.  But Most of them are far more "heavier" than what I'm looking for in a CMS, which restrict my ability to freely build a dynamic content site on a framework that allows easy management of it's content.  Drupal is probably the best one I've seen yet in the heavier department, but it's still way too much for the simpler needs I'm looking for.

Anyways, I'll spend some time looking into it and seeing if converting an Artisteer template can be done fairly easily, which it should considering the amount of detail put into the template documentation.  That's been one of my main determining factors for choosing a CMS . . . the template system.  I want the ability to easily generate a theme without spending too much time on creating the theme, but still offering the ability to easily change designs for multiple layouts.

Kudos to all of you who have nothing better to do than hand-code every single line of code.  For me, I've got a life that involves a wife, child, and other people and I'd rather spend time with them than making sure I've "hand-coded" everything I'm using for the sake of bragging rights or whatever reason you care for that.  If it looks good, who really cares?

[brent]

Hi  myownserver,
I understand the problem well. I'm too busy as well with family and a job to spend countless hours to spend on something that may be so called "clean" but not very appealing or productive unless you have those graphic art skills, which I don't. I was looking for the right balance between productivity and creativity. Many people like the product and it yields decent results with other CMS. The problem is that some of the other CMS like Joomla are too complicated on the backend for the average client. WSB is lightweight and intuitive to end users. If there was some way to get Artisteer to work with WSB, I think there would be less complaints after seeing the results. There'll always be those folks who get the satisfaction out of handcoding everything and that's alright, but its not productive for everyone to do it that way. I'm a Delphi programmer, so some of this is different and confusing to me as it is another language. I've tested the product on both Firefox and Internet Explorer, and a couple other browsers, the results appeared exactly the same and they load fast. So I don't know what the big deal is, the client could care less as long as it does this at a minimum.

The menus are where I would have the most problem, I'm able to get content and most everything else to work. If you are anyone else is willing to take a stab at it, it would be great. I really would prefer not to use Joomla or Drupal. Thanks for at least sounding positive.

[kweitzel]

You can always create a "normal" HTML Template and then convert it to WB. The conversion is well documented (although a bit outdated) on the helpsite.

cheers

Klaus

[brent]

You can always create a "normal" HTML Template and then convert it to WB. The conversion is well documented (although a bit outdated) on the helpsite.

Thaanks,
That's the route I'd like to take. It's just the menus/submenus that are giving me a headache.

[mr-fan]

hi brent,

there is no such big magic with SM2 - if you've normal menü's -

some links that may can help to learn SM2:

https://forum.WebsiteBaker.org/index.php/topic,14735.msg93269.html#msg93269
(it's a german threat but a very good starting point _the second example_ that adds classes to the menü that you can take and change with CSS)

http://code.jellycan.com/sm2test/
interesting site with some basic settings to see some examples...

http://code.jellycan.com/files/show_menu2-README.txt
sadly the only existing full description of all the parameters and usage...

regards martin


btw: for speed up the workflow you can use CSS frameworks, too.....
but the grafic skills you will need everytime...

[Hans]

Maybe this helps too.

Create the most simple version of SM2, so, without classes.
Then wrap it in a  code like this:

Code: [Select]

<div class="navigation">SM2 code</div>
Then in your CSS use this for a vertical menu

Code: [Select]

#navigation {
 width: 200px;
}
#navigation ul {
 list-style: none;
 margin: 0;
 padding: 0;
}
#navigation li {
 border-bottom: 1px solid #ED9F9F;
}
#navigation li a:link, #navigation li a:visited  {
 font-size: 90%;
 display: block;
 padding: 0.4em 0 0.4em 0.5em;
 border-left: 12px solid #711515;
 border-right: 1px solid #711515;
 background-color: #B51032;
 color: #FFFFFF;
 text-decoration: none;
}


or this for a horizontal menu:

Code: [Select]

#navigation {  
 font-size: 90%;  
}  
#navigation ul {  
 list-style: none;  
 margin: 0;  
 padding: 0;  
 padding-top: 1em;  
}  
#navigation li {  
 display: inline;  
}  
#navigation a:link, #navigation a:visited {  
 padding: 0.4em 1em 0.4em 1em;  
 color: #FFFFFF;  
 background-color: #B51032;  
 text-decoration: none;  
 border: 1px solid #711515;  
}  
#navigation a:hover {  
 color: #FFFFFF;  
 background-color: #711515;  
}

(Much more with more sophisticated options on http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/navigation-using-css/1 (also the source of the examples given).

Now use the Firebug add-on in Firefox https://addons.mozilla.org/nl/firefox/addon/1843
By hovering over the layout you can find the element you want to change the style for.
SM2 gives the styles that are connected with them so you only have to add them to your style-sheet (see attached image):

An example:

Code: [Select]

#navigation .menu-current a {
font-weight: bold;
color: #FFc937;
}

#navigation .menu-parent a  {
color: #FFc937;
}

EDIT: added an example.
Hans

[gelöscht durch Administrator]

[jkel]

I created a script which converts the page.html from Artisteer to the template index.php of WB.

English: http://www.jkel.org/pages/en/php-scripts/art2wb.php
German: http://www.jkel.org/pages/de/php-scripts/art2wb.php

I made the design of the jkel.org page with Artisteer and used art2wb for creating the template out of it.
As you can see, even the menu on the top works (via showmenu2, but I needed some time to figure this out).

[PurpleEdge]

Wow! Congratulations, this is an excellent tool!

I have Artisteer and it has taken me months to get a page designed with it looking respectable, without all the extra stuff that Artisteer includes when creating a page design. I actually re-cut the images to try and simplify the css a bit.

The benefit of Artisteer is that it can create attractive designs very quickly and very flexibly.
The main drawback is very complex layout of divs and css - complex, but well structured, unlike many drag and drop design tools which produce unusable css.

I think your tool will save heaps of time next time I need to create a template from an Artisteer page.

Thank you!