Is it possible to make transparent buttons in VSD so that the background shows through? or should I make them in another program and bring them into VSD. Thanks for any advice. Sarah

Sarah,

I am unable to get VSD to work on this old slow computer at work, so I can't play around with VSD to see if it is possible.

I do know that it can be done with a graphics program such as Photo Shop, or my favorite GIMP (free). You can adjust the transparency so that a red button will still be red, but will be see-through, or you can just make a circle (or any shape) and have the inside of the shape completely transparent.

Thanks Bill, think I'll try Photoshop or corel draw and see how that goes. Maybe Xara, Would like to do it with VSD if I can, but, I'll try the other way. Thanks, Sarah

Hi Sarah,
currently VSD doesn't support png images, but that is being fixed in the new version, you can make some transparency buttons in png format and wait til the new version is out.and see what happens.
UPDATE: you could try another way to make your buttons with transparency and it will work in VSD.
another program is Ultra Button

Thanks Bruce, I will make the buttons and wait for the new version of VSD. I tried to make some in corel draw. They work in corel, but I can't get them to stay transparent in VSD. So, I'll just make regular buttons and change them when the new version comes out. thanks for your help. Sarah

Anyone tried using .png images with transparent backgrounds as navigation buttons? I'm trying to set up a navigation bar for a website. But I want a transparent background so it doesn't look like a stodgy navigation bar from the year 1998.

To see what I mean, check out this website, www.loishill.com.

When you place your cursor over a button on her website, the tag-line at the bottom ends with ".php".

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

The site was made in php.

That is indeed a very beautiful, well-designed site!

The use of ".php" file extensions in lieu of ".html", only indicates that the page contains some PHP code. In this case probably "PHP Includes", which are used out of convenience to avoid having to repeat all the (HTML-) code for the several menus that appear identically on all pages. The PHP Includes are defined here: http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_includes.asp
To see the HTML code used for the menu, choose "view source" when right-clicking anywhere on the page. (You will not see the PHP Include code, though, since it has been replaced by the corresponding html code after pre-processing on the server.)

I went with PHP pages plenty of graphics but am swinging away towards simpler is best. That is why I think VSD delivers on that account. The purpose of a web site is to advertise what you have to say or show. According to my stats, as I remove the fancy displays and tricks my bounce figures are reducing and visitors are spending more time on my site. Which in my case they read the adsence adds and I get more revenue.

For instance I had a page showing an image then every 10 seconds refreshing with php picking a random image file from sql database to display on refresh. I replaced it with a straight forward gallery that allows a visitor to choose.

If you ever got into Video editing initially you go for the fancy transitions, well that will annoy an audience.

Its like chocolate add it with caution

Yes you can use png images for your navigation Menu. You can use the add image tool and link them to the proper content or use a HTML box to insert the needed code then add the images to the proper folder in VSD. There's a lot of options for navigation menus. Here's one that I started using JQuery.
http://progrower.coffeecup.com/jquerynav.html