Interesting... I wondered why no one had responded to my post - I failed to noticed that it was separated out into a different thread. Perhaps a note in the original thread pointing to this one would have been helpful!
I, also, find it ridiculous to say that VSD is intended only for non-technical users and therefore cannot and should not contain more advanced functionality. That is a cop out if I've ever heard one.
I use VSD because I am a DESIGNER. I have been designing for over 25 years. I started with software like Aldus PageMaker and Harvard Graphics (anyone else remember those???). There's no market for printed materials anymore, so now I do web sites. The problem is, I am not a programmer, and I have never been able to make a web site hand-programmed that looked at all like what I envisioned in my head. Although I know HTML, I find it challenging to use. I do not know CSS, DHTML, PHP, ASP, or any of those, nor do I have any interest in learning.
I am a DESIGNER. All I want to do is DESIGN. I love VSD because it allows me to design for the web the same way I used to design for print - visually and creatively. I can't do that with HTML editor.
But what I was trying to say is, way the heck back in 1991, Aldus PageMaker had master pages. So did Corel Draw. So did Adobe PageMaker after Adobe bought it. So did Quark. And Illustrator. Heck, even Microsoft Publisher has master pages. So why not VSD?
And the copy and paste thing for each page doesn't work so well, in my opinion. For one thing, if I create my menu buttons in Photoshop that's ok, I can copy and paste all I want. But if I use VSD to create the menu buttons, every time I cut and paste into a new page, VSD sees those buttons as a NEW IMAGE. I created a web site that was about 20 pages. Each page had 6 menu buttons. When I uploaded the site I couldn't figure out why it took so long - until I looked at the web server and realized that it created and saved 120 images to represent my 6 menu buttons - 6 buttons per page, 20 pages. Why it couldn't just save 6 images and use the same image file on every page I don't know - but I know it had something to do with the cutting and pasting. It doesn't happen if I create those images in Photoshop and add them - but let's face it, part of VSD's convenience is the draw tools, so why shouldn't I be able to use them???
I love VSD and do not want to stop using it. I, too, would be willing to pay more for a pro version. But I really think there is some very basic functionality that is missing. VSD is designed to work like a desktop publishing software - so why is something as basic as master pages missing?
