We've been comparing Visual Designer with MS's Publisher 2k7. In the end, we purchased Visual Designer, which in our test pages, produced more cross browser compatible code than Publisher. But site management is a bit more difficult with VD - specifically pushing out template changes to existing pages (think changes to headers). Is there a best practice guide on site development that speaks to template design and deploying changes to existing sites? I suspect, I may be missing an element of Visual Designer's workflow.

Thanks,
Garrett

Garrett,
You can change the background of the entire site with a few clicks. If that's what you're looking for use Settings, then select Standard Settings for New Pages. In there you can select page width, background, etc. Creating a new background image with the header embedded would allow simple changes to the entire site.
If you just want to change the header though, I believe you will have to do that on every page.

I've recently started building entire page formats within a graphics editor and making the basic background and fixed elements into a single .JPG or .PNG file for use as a background. It reduces the overall number of files in your uploaded VSD folder by a staggering amount and as far as I can tell doesn't affect users pageload times in any way. This also gives you consistent and seamless page transitions.

It sounds like that's what you're after. I design the basic page using VSD and when I reach the final draft I condense/reconstruct as much of the graphics as will be necessary for each page into a single image using a graphics editor and assign that as my background image. I usually have two to three similar backgrounds with minor changes within the page elements to accommodate a "variety" of pages that utilize differing active flash components.

I'd suggest using Paint.NET, it's FREE and has very sophisticated graphics capabilities. I won't say the learning curve is EASY because the help files can be a little vague as it's the product of a programming class and has been developed by largely student contribution I think. The help dialogue is not flawed but also not written by a technical writer/editor so I think in many cases the dialogue assumes you have prior knowledge of other working elements within the applications processes which in my case means they're explaining something outside my level of competence.

Thanks, Tim & Michael. I hadn't thought of using the background - that's a creative solution for cementing fixed elements. Very cool.

I'm currently using the Paint.net program as well. If you choose to use it refer to the video tutorials if you have any questions. Keep in mind that you'll have to install many plug ins to keep up with the tutorials. paintnet.com

Rich