PhotoImpact & FP 2003

[Bill M.]

I am thinking of buying PhotoImpact to use as my image editor primarily to
make rollover buttons for FrontPage 2003. I can't afford PhotoShop and I
guess PI is as good an editor as any.

I saw the earlier post about importing rollovers into FP and am wondering if
this is a terribly difficult thing to do. I saw where Chris Leeds asked the
other poster "is this a whole nav bar or just a single button?"

Will I have to make a seperate rollover button for each page or can FP
somehow make as many as I need using the LinkBar?

 

[Mary]

Bill -- I use Fireworks to create graphics for nav bars or rollover buttons.
I am a novice at graphics and this program does everything for you, even
writes the code, slices up the rollovers, creates the HTML file, etc. It has
a special button for creating FrontPage html. You can create a whole nav bar
in Fireworks and export the html right into your FrontPage web. That's my
suggestion, but I think any graphics program will work just to create the
rollover images and then use javascript to create the rollover.

 

[Bill M.]

Thanks Mary. I am a novice too. When you say "create a whole nav bar" please
tell me what you mean. Is the process similar to creating one in FP but with
Fireworks doing all the rollover effects? I have a site now with 27 pages
and my worry is that I will have to design one button per page, (the color.
size etc.) put the text on it, choose whatever rollover effects I want and
then import into FP. Can I somehow design just one button with the
roll0over, and then FP would make the approiate number of buttons based on
the number of pages in the site?

 

[E. T. Culling]

PhotoImpact will serve you well. It is much less expensive than Fireworks.
eleanor

 

[Bill M.]

Thanks E.T. I am guessing that you use PI then. Can you please answer my
follow up question about the procedure in a 27 page site?

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

Use Photo Impact or any other graphics editor to create your buttons in both
the up and down states (normal and rollover) then export those images in
either gif or jpg format.

Since you are using FrontPage 2003 import the images into your local website
then use the FP 2003 behaviors to create your rollover. There are several
tutorials available including one from Microsoft at
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/assistance/HA010964451033.aspx and another
from Jim Buyens http://www.interlacken.com/winnt/tips/tipshow.aspx?tip=28
more can be found on Google.

Personally I perfer to use CSS instead of javascript and use plain text on a
background image. That way I only need to use two images on the page but
that is not something easy to do just using the FP CSS tools. If you want to
try it there is a tutorial at
http://mvp.wiserways.com/tutorials/rollovers/index.html
--
Cheryl D. Wise
MS FrontPage MVP
http://mvp.wiserways.com
http://starttoweb.com
Online instructor led web design training - Next Session June 26th

 

[Chris Leeds, MVP-FrontPage]

You can't go wrong with PhotoImpact. I've used it since V6.

regarding your second question;
you can just import the images themselves and use FrontPage's interactive
button feature or the "behaviors" pane to do the roll-over.

that's why I was asking the OP if it was just a button or a whole bar. were
it just a button I'd recommend the tact from the above paragraph, if it was
a whole bar, I'd use the FrontPage include feature (cuz I'm a little lazy).


HTH

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP-FrontPage

ContentSeed: great tool for web masters,
a fantastic convenience for site owners.
http://contentseed.com/

 

[Bill M.]

Thanks to everyone who is trying to help me. Here is the part I still don't
understand. Let's say I am using PI as my image editor and want to put the
same rollover button on all 27 pages.

Obviously the text on each button has to be different even though everything
else is the same. Do I have to make 27 buttons in PI or just 1 and then use
FP's Include Page to put the correct text on each button automatically. It
seems to me there is a huge difference in the two procedures.

 

[Chris Leeds, MVP-FrontPage]

aah, in that case you'd want to make a couple of "states" of your button and
simply import them (with no text) and create a modified theme (not so you
can use the theme, but because you can use the navigation bar associated
with said theme) or you can follow Cheryl's advice and use the button
"blanks" in a CSS type nav bar.

HTH

it's not at all hard.

--
Chris Leeds,
Microsoft MVP-FrontPage

ContentSeed: great tool for web masters,
a fantastic convenience for site owners.
http://contentseed.com/
--

 

[Bill M.]

Well, I'm pretty confused but I'll keep trying. I have a friend that is a
programmer. Maybe he can help this novice!

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

You can also use the button blanks in a modified theme by replacing the
button images in the theme with the ones you created.

I'm lazy and would rather use CSS but if the user is more comfortable with
themes it can be done that way as well.

--
Cheryl D. Wise
MS FrontPage MVP
http://mvp.wiserways.com
http://starttoweb.com
Online instructor led web design training - Next Session June 26th

 

[Bill M.]

Please tell me what you mean by "button blanks ". I have never heard that
term.

You can also use the button blanks in a modified theme by replacing the
button images in the theme with the ones you created.

I'm lazy and would rather use CSS but if the user is more comfortable with
themes it can be done that way as well.

--
Cheryl D. Wise
MS FrontPage MVP
http://mvp.wiserways.com
http://starttoweb.com
Online instructor led web design training - Next Session June 26th

 

[E. T. Culling]

Please contact me at (e-mail address removed) and I will work out the answers with
you. Please restate what it is that you need to know.
Eleanor

Please tell me what you mean by "button blanks ". I have never heard that
term.

 

[Cheryl D Wise]

Chris used it and I took it to mean the button image with no text on it.
Then using it as the background in CSS rollovers or as the button image in a
FrontPage theme that FrontPage will then layer your link text on top of.

If you look at the short tutorial I referenced
http://mvp.wiserways.com/tutorials/rollovers/index.html you will see to
'buttons' with no text on them, one for the regular link and the other for a
rollover. Those are the button blanks Chris referred to.

--
Cheryl D. Wise
MS FrontPage MVP
http://mvp.wiserways.com
http://starttoweb.com
Online instructor led web design training - Next Session June 26th

 

[Tom Pepper Willett]

Eleanor:

Curious as to why you munge your email address in your reply, but publish it
into the newsgroup? Kinda defeats the purpose? ;-)

Tom
| Please contact me at (address deleted for E.T. Protection) and I will work
out the answers with
| you. Please restate what it is that you need to know.
| Eleanor
|

 

[Andrew Murray]

all you need to do is make the buttons in PhotoImpact, save them as jpegs,
and import the images into your frontapge web...then apply the rollover
behaviour within frontpage.

 

[E. T. Culling]

Maybe safe as gifs, not jpgs.
ETC

all you need to do is make the buttons in PhotoImpact, save them as jpegs,
and import the images into your frontapge web...then apply the rollover
behaviour within frontpage.

 

[Joe Rohn]

It could be either .gif or .jpg for the buttons. It mostly depends upon the
coloring scheme used and whether or not the buttons are more like clip art
or photographic. While probably in most cases .gif is used for
buttons...there are times when .jpg would be the correct format to use.