Web Studio 4.0 Newsletter

There's great news in this newsletter.

We've released Service Pack 3 for Web Studio 4.0. This release is free to 4.0 owners. It includes 30+ new features and enhancements. Service Pack 3 continues our commitment to provide additional value and free support to our valued customers.

Many of the changes are a direct result of input from customers. A few of the features are a result of research and development done by our forum members! Djmixman created the Centering Sites feature, and a whole crowd of people are responsible for the Moving Text in Netscape solution. Unfortunately, too many to mention here, but we all owe a big thanks to everyone!

Web Studio 4.0 Service Pack 3 is Available Now!

We at Back to the Beach Software are excited to announce the third service pack release for Web Studio 4.0 and the 9th release of Web Studio overall! This release includes over 30 new features, enhancements, and fixes. Here's a quick peek:

Centering Sites in Browsers
This is probably the single most requested feature of all time! Unfortunately, it took quite a while for a solution that worked with all sites and browsers to be developed. Thanks to many people on our online forum, Web Studio now has this feature. Just go into the Website Properties dialog, click "center pages in browser" and your done. Just upload your site and your pages will be centered no matter how wide the browser window is! Thanks forum!!

Moving Text in Netscape and FireFox
Again, with the help of the forum Web Studio now automatically handles the needs of FireFox and Netscape relative to their habit of moving text around your pages. It is all handled automatically now, with no need for you to do anything!

Limited User Support
Windows XP has two types of users: Administrators and Limited Users. A limited user is one who doesn't have complete access to the files and folders on the computer. This keeps the kids (or other rascals) from doing damage to the computer. Many programs wouldn't work correctly for Limited Users, Web Studio now works correctly. This is important to schools, families, and organizations that must limit access to their computers.

Create HTML Email in Web Studio
You can now create those cool looking emails you see that have not only text, but graphics, links, Flash, etc. With Web Studio you simply create a page, add whatever you want to it, and we mean anything, and choose "Save this Page as an HTML Email." Web Studio will then create an HTML file for you to put in your email program, upload all of the page's files to your website hosting, and create all of the appropriate links to make it all work. Your job is to then import the HTML file it created into your email and send it to your customers, newsletter subscribers, etc. This newsletter, by the way, was created entirely in Web Studio and uses the new HTML Email feature!

Attaching Files to a Website
This feature hasn't been requested at all, but many people have needed it and they didn't even know it. You can now attach any files to your website and they will be uploaded automatically by Web Studio. This comes in real handy when you are trying to add content and/or features from other programs and those programs have files that have to be part of the website. A good example is a popup menu program. They usually have javascript and data files that have to be uploaded to the site to work. They also have to have various links that can be very confusing to create. Now you just go to the "Attached Files" tab in the Website Properties dialog, add all the files you need and upload. The links are simply the names of the files you uploaded, couldn't be easier!

Service Pack 3 is a free download for all Web Studio 4.0 owners. Just click here to download the installer. Once you've downloaded the installer, just run it and it will install the Service Pack 3 upgrade. None of your files will be affected in any way.

Center Object Vertically: You could always center object horizontally, now you can vertically was well.

Change File Types for All Files in a Site: You could always specify the type of an individual file for a page, now you can specify the type of file for all pages at once.

Convert Protected Graphics to Normal Graphics: You could always convert normal graphics to Protected Graphics. In many cases you wanted to change the Protected Graphics back to normal ones. Now you can. You can change one graphic or a selection of graphics.

Help with Lost Project Files: When you attempt to open a Project and Web Studio can't find it, it will not tell you where the file was located the last time you opened it. It will also give you the steps necessary to find your file.

Non-Web-Safe Fonts Turn Into Graphics: Web Studio always converted the fonts color-coded-red into graphics automatically. Now it does so for the yellow (orange on some monitors) fonts with new websites. You can turn this on or off with the Website Properties dialog Advanced page for your existing site.

Home Page Name Help: Many people named their home pages "index.html." This is actually the correct name for the FILE that contains the home page's html, but not for the page itself. If you attempt to re-name your page "index" or "index.html" you'll get a message telling you how to proceed.

Page Names and File Names: You can add any character to the name of a page, but there are certain characters that can't be added to links and file names. Now Web Studio will not allow periods or quotes in page names. This won't affect existing sites or pages, only new or renamed ones.

Help Changing Home Pages: We find that quite a few people accidentally change their home page to not be their home page. It happens when they're clicking around the menus, having fun, but inadvertently choose the Home Page command from the menu. This immediately makes the site have no home page at all. This causes various problems that are hard to detect. Now Web Studio will present a dialog asking if you really want to have no Home Page.

Add Anchor to Object: There is a strange bug in Windows that makes some people's computers not display the "Add Anchor to Object" item in the Site Links list in the Links gallery. There is now a check box in the Edit menu's Program Preferences dialog that forces Windows to display the item.

Title Tag: We've had customers tell us they wanted the Title tag to be the first tag in the HTML files. Apparently some search engines like to see it first. Now, the Title Tag is automatically placed as the first tag in the file.

Important Fixes: The spelling checker works great now; the Download Time/Size tab in the Page Properties dialog works now; adding templates to the Templates gallery works now; objects that had zero height or width have no affect on your site now; Protected Graphics that were moved but then located during Preview now remember their new location. Click here to view the Service Pack 3 Release Notes for more info on everything new in SP3!