I began my adventure into website design using Yahoo!'s SiteBuilder software, a program that is comparable to Coffee Cups's VSD. I liked the software; however, I stopped using it because it was limited to designing sites that could only be hosted by Yahoo!. Since hosting by Yahoo! was too much of a restriction for my needs, I switched to Coffee Cup software, and I am glad I made the change. There were, however, two major features included in Yahoo!'s SiteBuilder (which is offered by Yahoo! at not cost) that I would like to see in a future version of VSD:

1. Table designer: I find Yahoo!'s table designer to be much easier and much faster to use than the grids, horizontal, and vertical guides included in VSD. I believe the addition of a table designer to VSD would be a major improvement.
2. Form Components: Yahoo!'s software also includes three basic form compnents that can be added to a page from within the visual development software. The three components include (a) a blank form, (b) a contact us form, and (c) a feedback form. These templates are easily editable and modifiable to conform to specific needs of a client. Using these form components from within the visual design software was much easier and faster than my experience using Coffee Cup's Web Form Builder where you must use two programs, copy code from one program to the other, and perform two uploads, one from each program.

I make reference to the Yahoo! SiteBuilder software only because that has been my only other experience, and the two features I mentioned above, were functional and very easy to use.

John, always good to hear from you! I do believe that VSD is compatible with CC Form program. All you have to do is create your form and then enter the html with the html tool. I don't own VSD, but I am sure I have seen it used that way before.

Hi Eric,

It's good to hear from you too! Your earlier advice regarding SSI was great a boon for me. Thank you, again.

Yes, I have CC Web Form Builder, and I have used it with success with VSD. My suggestion was merely based on the fact that the Yahoo! software had forms built in to their visual development tool precluding one from needing to open another piece of software, cut and paste code, and perform multiple uploads. The Yahoo! product was much more seamless and easier to use than the CC products. That's my 2 cents worth!

The forms themselves are almost trivial to create, you can just poke in some code in an HTML box in VSD and have most commonly-used forms in minutes. The kicker is the PHP behind the scenes that processes what you put into the forms. That's a big part of what Form Builder brings to the table.

Yea, I think its a good idea, but i can tell you the reason they don't do it, is for the same reason they do not do it in the html editor. Namely, if all these extra features existed collectively in these editors, then they would lose money on their other products like form builder, etc.

You know how it goes.

I take your point about having to open two programs but you only need upload the once. Just save your form to the project folder you are working on and that will put all the form files in your project folder to upload with your project. Then just copy and paste your form code into VSD using either the html or flash tool. Too easy!