GreerMUG March 2007 Meeting Highlights


Opening Moments
Mike opened by sharing two interesting studies that he read about in a behavioral finance book. Something to do with the way our environment influences our thinking. Which it does. How about that?


MemberDock
Matt had us do a head exercise as part of memberdock - really, you had to be here. One of our current perks is a special discount from SoftPress for Freeway. We have two surveys going on at the memberdock - 1) who is in town for the summer? and 2) who's interested in a beginner's class? Starting next month (April) we're going to have a Beginner's class prior to the main meeting from 6:15 to 6:45. Also, in June, we're going to launch our PhotoSIG hosted by Alex Hyman. That will take the place of our June meeting. Digital Photography is one of our highest rated areas for member interest.

Core Presentation
Our Core Presentation this month is from Matt Chandler.
How many of us know how to do html editing? Ehh, a few of us. Well, this month we're going to take a look at a program that allows you to design websites without learning html and it's called Freeway. There are Pro and Express versions for this application. Because you don't have to know html, Freeway is the same type of app as iWeb or RapidWeaver, but the Pro version lets you go way beyond those two.

Freeway 4 Pro and Express are very similar on the front end. The difference is in the outputting. Pro has more options.

A few things you need to know before you get into the appliacation. Make a drawing of what you are trying to accomplish. Get your files together. Like images and stuff. Once you have a plan, start Freeway.

Let us pause here and mention at this point that Show Notes has cleverly obtained a copy of Matt's secret OmniOutliner file containing his presentation notes which we will now share with the whole wide world. How did Show Notes trick Matt out of his notes? We just asked him for them, AND HE GAVE THEM TO US! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?? Shh, here they are:

Freeway 4 express and Pro are very similar on the front end
The major differences according to the web site are
Multiple output options (HTML 3.2, HTML 4.01, XHTML Transitional and Strict)
Full choice of output encodings available
Link map: overview and maintenance of all the links in your document
Multiple windows open for the same document at once
Snapping palettes for easier workspace management
Complete color and text style management across your entire document
Employ multiple style sheets for each document
Full CSS text styling and CSS Layout
Ability to specify relative and percentage positions and dimensions for
layout items
Specify padding, wrap, margin and border (HTML items only)
separately for each side of an item
You can download a free-trial of the express version from the
web site www.softpress.com—free_trial.php you will have to
fill in the info and then they will e-mail a link to the download.
If you have ever done any web site publishing before there
are a few basic steps you should take before you ever open the app
You should get a basic idea of what you want the page to be.
I always take a blank sheet of paper and do a very ruff
drawing of the page. (See my Drawing)
The other thing that is helpful if if you can collect the media
files you are going to need and if you have any text
documents. Freeway helps with this by automatically inserting
a media folder in the site folder when you create it.
Once we have a plan we are going to open freeway and start
by using a template
There are many built in templates but we will be using the
blank so I can show you how easy it is to design your own
site from the ground up
Select the blank template.
I don't like the default page with so lets change it a bit. lets
make it 800 x 800.
Make sure that the Master Page is Selected
open the inspector which may launch by default
the inspector is intelligent by design and only shows the tabs
that you can use with what you have selected.
Lets change a few things real quick
lets make the page 800 x 800, align it to the center and apply
the back ground we want across the site.
To make a background go to the Page appearance tab in the inspector
Select a color if you want one. If you want to use an image
then you should have that in the folder you made earlier that
has all the media in it. as you will notice freeway makes a
media folder for you under the site directory you made in the
beginning. I suggest copying all your media there.
Now lets title the page. We don't have the money to hire get a
professional Logo made so freeway will help us to make a
text graphic for the banner.
select graphic from the toolbar at the top and draw out some
space. you don't have to worry abut the original size just
make it so we can work on it.
Type in the Text you want and select it so we can head over
to the inspector and format it.
in the inspector pick the text settings area.
Lets pick a good font to work with. I like helvetica. Lets make
e it 80 and make sure it gets centered in the box. and lets put
a shadow on the text of blue
Lets work on the location of the box
Click out side the box to deselect and then click the box again
to work on the item. the text will not be editable at this time if
you need to edit the text just double click on the box.
Lets make sure the box is where we wan it. I think down 50
and over 175 then 70 tall and 600 wide of is good. then head
to the object and clean up the box a bit. You don't need it any
bigger than you have to.
All right we have a title that will be on all pages lets make the
navigation bar
Per our original layout we are going to need 3 tabs home,
blog, and how-to's
Lets make an element of the navigation bar that separates
the screen - draw out a graphical item and lets place it a an
down 50 and over 125 and make it 25 wide and 700 long
and lets color it the apple Grey whic is cccccc in html color.
Lets make another Graphic element Again just draw it out
and we'll work on the format later.
I want to round the conners of the tabs so pic the other
section and tell it to round the conners by 20 pix or so.
lets also put the shadow on it and a boarder.
Lets make the item have a gradient fill.
make sure the item is selected and select the items menu ->
Actions -> fill Master
We need the actions menu so go to window and select actions
Lets make it a liner fill and select some colors to fill it and play
with the sliders to get it where we want it.
Okay Lets put the button in the right place and format it.
Lets place it down 150 and over 20. Lets Make it 125 wide and 175 tall
Double click and lets put in the text
Make sure it is where we want it. And if we cant get it just
right its okay because we are working on the master which
we can change later
Finishing the nave bar is mush easier. We just have to
duplicate the Buttons by going to item and select duplicate.
we need 2 and have then vertically by 175
Lets title the Tabs Correctly
Lets finish the format by brining the area to the front by
selecting and right click and select Bring to front
Okay lets create the other pages so we can link to them
To do this lest jump down to the page area and create and name
Select new page from the menu and ask it to create 2 pages
To title them we need to option click on the name and rename
Now lets select them as links
Back to the master page
select home and then drag the "HOME" to the small globe on
the bottom of the page and repeat for the other 2 tabs
Now that we have the Master set lets work on making each page different
on the home page lets add a picture and some text.
first we need to make sure that the page name is correct and
in the inspector change it to index.html
to add our text just draw out a html box
then since i already have my text written i can just import the
text by going to file->import text and point to the document.
Lets put on a bit of formating
Now lets put in a picture near the bottom.
For that all we need to do is go to the finder and get the pic file
then drag it over to the page


That's the presentation! Thanks, Matt Chandler!

If you want to read Show Notes attempts at keeping up with Matt plus Questions and Answers, then read on!

A template window opens. Templates are same for Express or Pro. Matt starts with the blank template. Matt doesn't like the default layout, so he begins by changing the layout and size of the page. He selects the Master page so all the changes will be applied to all the pages.
Using an Inspector-like window Matt sets pixel width, background color and other options.

Matt doesn't have the moo-lah to pay somepne to do a professional logo, so he does a simple one for us. Anyone can do this.
To make a graphic item: Draw out a text box and type your info. Change fonts, size, etc. to get it the way you want. You can change the background of the box, too. When it is published, Freeway changes it to a .gif file.

Like other great Mac apps, the Inspector is dynamic and knows what area of the app you're in. It changes accordingly.

Matt's text box now says New Mac User. He adds a shadow. Now we need just a little more formating. Once we publish this text box heading, it'll be a .gif file.

Dreamweaver lets you type html code. iWeb does Tabs for you. Freeway requires a little more from the user - more than iWeb, less than Dreamweaver.
Now we're making Tabs for the navigation bar. Choose another graphic item and format. Matt now shows us an example of the Action menus. The Actions menu gives many options. One of which is Fill.

Now Matt has to create our other navigation tabs. But why repeat all those steps? Let's just duplicate and create some more!
Tabs at this point are just graphical items, now we need to make them hyperlinks so they become true navigation tabs.
Freeway's easy way: use the option key and click on it.

Good housekeeping: In the Inspector, the home site that it suggests needs to be renamed to index.html so your page will come up when someone visits your website.

Freeway makes adding and designing easy and fun. Text can be imported.

Do you already have some text typed up? Freeway can import it! Why spend time re-typing? Thanks, Freeway!

Images? Drag and drop, it's a Mac! Command-Click on the image to move it around inside the frame.

Member question: do you need to re-size a picture first?
Answer: you can. It helps to re-size HUGE pictures before you start working with them.

Matt feels like Freeway is a good hybrid of What-you-see-is-what-you-get and something like Dreamweaver where you have to know the code. Matt's brother (a professional web designer) looked at the code that Freeway generates behind the scenes and thought it did a good job.

One thing that was a liitle cumbersome is the Publish command. When you click "Publish Site" it generates the code and drops it in the folder. Doesn't generate until then.

Freeway's built-in ftp window helps you publish your site.

There is a learning curve to Freeway. Fortunately, Matt googled around and found a tutorial (small fee $25), but it was a good tutorial that helped Matt a lot.


Questions and Answers
Q: Is there something in Freeway that will create a tree of the website?
Answer: Yes, in Pro, there's a tree feature.

Q: Did your brother compare it to Dreamweaver?
A: Yes, he used it for a little bit. (Brother does heavy web stuff.) What did he think? It is good for a novice (compared to a Dreamweaver). Is it professional? Yes, it is professional. Also, he said, it's hard to edit the actual html code - Freeway doesn't make it easy. Freeway stores your website in its own proprietary file format. Like RapidWeaver.

Once you edit the html, if you go back to Freeway and republish, Freeway will overwrite what you did in the html text editor.

Q: At a cafe, with two iBooks, a G4 can't see the wireless network, but a G3 can, what's up?
A: Hmmmm, we're not sure. Same version of OS, same preferences? Matt believes so. Member thinks it sounds like a preferences thing, or it could be an older version of an Airport Express. Older versions had shorter range.

Give-away
Tonight's give-away is a copy of Freeway 4 Express.
Brenda wins!!


SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT!
Check out Tim's blog at TimothyGodby.com. A cool Mac blog - it coolness begs for your interaction. Tim has done a great job pulling together lots of news and stories of interest to the Mac community. Check out the latest today!


Preview
Next month, our Beginner's SIG begins at 6:15pm. Our next meeting is Tuesday, April 24th.
In May, our Core Presentation will be iRemember - cool scrapbooking software.