Hi Everyone,

I've read the "working with text in VSD" article, very good info. I was wondering however, if it is ok to place text on top of an HTML box? Eric Rohloff has been kind enough to help direct me to some cool web effects via his site and I'm playing around with combing several items. In particularly, I've created a stationary background, with a white box with slight opacity to it so that the stationary background image shows through slightly. I'd then like to place a text box on top of the HTML box for copy. Do the same rules apply to HTML boxes as with images (per the "working with text in VSD" article)?

Thanks,
Ryan

Ryan, I've had some problems with text boxes overlapping html boxes (the dreaded 'improper argument' warning, then everything freezes).

In your example above, which item is in an html box? Is it the translucent white box?
If the text doesn't need to change frequently, I'd do this in Photoshop (or something similar). create the box, set the transparency, add the text layer and save for web–as a .png file. (Also save the layered PS file if text edits will be needed sometimes).

Combining the text and image prevents any weird browser issues from ruining the effect

Hi Paintbrush,

The text was going to be inside the HTML box. I did think of your suggestion, creating in Photoshop as an entire image, but then, I was worried about search engines not being able to search my site pages. I did just read about alternate text however. Sounds like that would solve the problem perhaps? Is this the right approach to take for search engines?

One more question -- if the VSD site shows up fine in the browsers on my computer via clicking the "Preview" button within VSD and viewing in different browsers (right now IE9, but tommorrow I will be downloading several others for testing), can I assume that the actual site will work fine as well once it is actually posted online? Is there actually any difference when viewed locally through the preview button and when it's posted live?

Thanks for the help Paintbrush!

Ryan

I've never noticed a difference from preview to live site, but I preview in all those browsers.
Usually, if all the text looks just fine in FF, Chrome, Safari and Opera; it will be slightly off in IE9 (line breaks in different places). Sometimes I end up with some odd looking text arrangements within VSD to make sure things display OK on the live site.

Do you have a lot of text you want to do this with? For just a paragraph or two, I wouldn't worry about it being part of an image or Advanced Text (go to Object Properties and type in some alternate text, just as you would for any other image).

I've got one site where the pages appear to be slightly transparent (white over a floral background). I took the image for the browser background (in Photoshop), added a layer over it the size of the webpage, filled it with white and set it to about 80% opacity. Cropped that and saved it as a jpeg file. In VSD I set it as the page background. It gives the illusion of the background showing through the page, but images, text and html boxes can be placed with no problems. You might want to try this if you have several paragraphs so they can remain as actual text.

I just realized I have an html box over a VSD-created shape on another site. I grouped them to make sure nothing would shift in IE, and it works fine. But... the shape/box isn't transparent, so I can't say for sure if it would work OK or not.

Maybe it's time for some experimenting . I would save everything so far, then add a new blank page and try some things out there. Figure out what will work —or not, and then just delete that page.

Let us know what you come up with

Not sure if this is relevant But have you tried making a solid object, and typing in the text as button text ?

I found this works as i can have a picture as the solid object and type the text through it, no browser issues at all then.

Paintbrush -- so good to know that previewing and live don't show differences. I think you are right on, I'm just going to have to install a few more broswers (which I'm about to do) and do some testing. If everything shows up fine there then I guess I'm good to go! I'll definitely post my site on this forum for feedback.

Viv@Jewelcraft -- that's a great idea, but the problem is that i was trying for an object with some opacity and I can't do that with a button (that i know of).

Thanks everyone,
Ryan

If a Text box placed over an html box gives you problems you should be able to write some more HTML for the text right into the HTML box and give it some CSS styling.

That's a great point Eric, that didn't even occur to me! I guess I'm not at the point yet in my knowledge of thinking in that way (I'm very visual). I just downloaded and installed Firefox and Chrome for testing. I'll try out some different things and see what happens! Thanks,

Ryan

You dont need a button, use your oblong object and select the VSD object tool
Then type your text in as button text using the object tool

Hi Viv@Jewelcraft,

Very cool, that works! Is there a way to get the object to have opacity? Other than using the image tool of course (which is the way I was doing it before.

Thanks!
Ryan