Conversion of Photoshop to HTML

Supahesky: I re-read what you wrote again, and I agree with your and back up my position.

You said: "After all, there are more than one way to code a design, and thinking about which will do it the most effectively, the most efficiently, and etc etc is an important part of the webdesign."

You are right: not all slice-and-export type decisions are fully inevitable. And a tool like PhotoWebber may not be able to always choose the very best way. And a blanket reference to this work as "monkey work" is incorrect.

But it sometimes feels that way. I've spent long hours cutting and slicing up Photoshop designs. Had to do a bunch of this back in the Photoshop 4 days. It was this frustration that made us write PhotoWebber in the first place.

Anyway, no offense was ever intended.

Yours,

Chris Perkins
Media Lab, Inc.

Hey cperkins :

What is this PhotoWebber thing more like? I mean I was checking it out and it I actually downloaded the free trial version which watermarks all images. But it seems pretty interesting.

I just haven't had too much time to play with it. My coding skills are being worked on, but I just wanted to know how or what the role of PhotoWebber is.

It seems like a WYSIWYG but then that's not the claim it makes. I was just wondering if you had some insight to share before I try to figure it all out. Any info would be great, thanks for your time.

Cheers

Are there any corporate pages that have used PhotoWebber? Or any other really nice pages that have? I want to look at the source and see what it does. This is the first time I have heard about this and I am interested. So I'd like to see some sites made with it. :D

tom

zerimar: I don't have a simple answer to your questions. I could write pages. PhotoWebber uses layer names to denote functionality (_r for rollover, _p for popup, _m for menu). Once it knows what the interactive layers are then it can automatically figure out slicing etc for your HTML. Users that are in a hurry (for client comps, etc.) just import the file, build, and they are done.

But, to really do the task of conversion correctly you'll want more, and providing the "more" is where PhotoWebber starts to get big. It might seem like a WYSIWYG tool, but its not (try adding a form). PhotoWebber will let you choose where the GIF files should be placed in the file hierarchy, choose formats for them (JPEG, PNG), set compression. It will let you use Photoshop text as HTML text or a graphic, use CSS or tables, etc. You can add or convert layers to placeholders, into which you can dump whatever HTML you want, etc. These are all things that one might want to do when converting from Photoshop to HTML, and thus PhotoWebber provides for them.

But it still does the slicing/output automatically.

After that, you take the file into DreamWeaver/Notepad/emacs, and go to town. A lot of designers output the "base page" with PhotoWebber, maybe adding some empty placeholders, and then use DreamWeaver to make the resulting page into a template and go from there.

I don't know if that answers your questions.


trhaynes: I'll have to get back to you on Monday or Tuesday when the office is open. There used to be links to customer examples on our site, but I'm not sure if they are still there.


I need to get back to work. I've got a ton of code I'm supposed to finish up this weekend and it won't write itself. If anyone has questions you can email them to [email]help@medialab.com[/email], or to me specifically: [email]cperkins@medialab.com[/email]

Thanks,

Chris

Hey trhaynes:

I found this link to their sample page. Maybe you've checked it out but you can preview some of the work they have. Just click right here.

They even requested permission from pank to use one of his interfaces. Check it out and see what you think.

Cheers!

But it sometimes feels that way. I've spent long hours cutting and slicing up Photoshop designs. Had to do a bunch of this back in the Photoshop 4 days. It was this frustration that made us write PhotoWebber in the first place.

I definitely know the feeling. In general, I finish the desing, give myself a few days to breathe, and then set aside a whole day - yes, a whole day - to code it. pain in the ass? oh yeah, but anyway, it's what you gotta do.

And i understand why you'd make a program like that. But if you say now that it can slice and make a page in css.. well, you've piqued my interest