Operation Manual

44 Developing Sites and Pages
Absolute URLs
Since frames divide a web page into panes which each display their own
HTML document, you need to make sure that each part of the frame is
referenced using absolute URLs. This means that when a visitor bookmarks
the page on your site, the page within the frame will also be bookmarked. To
use Absolute URLs, you will need to set a Site Base URL—the part of the URL
common to all pages, e.g. https://www.serif.co.uk/URL/example/. WebPlus
will use this to create the rest of the URL.
Using layout aids
Layout guides are visual guide lines that help you position layout elements,
either "by eye" or with snapping turned on. When the
snapping feature is
turned on, objects you create, move, or resize will jump to align with nearby,
visible layout guides. WebPlus provides a variety of layout guides to assist you:
page margins, row/column guides and ruler guides.
• Page margin settings are fundamental to your layout, and usually are
among the first choices you'll make after starting a site from scratch.
Narrow margins around the perimeter are a good starting point for clean
page design. The page margins are shown as a blue box which is actually
four guide lines—for top, bottom, left, and right—indicating the
underlying page margin settings. If you like, you can set the margins to
match your current printer settings.
• Row and column guidesact as an underlying layout aid, separating your
page into multiple rows or columns shown with dashed blue guide lines.
• Ruler guides are free-floating "sticky" red guide lines that are great for
aligning objects vertically or horizontally.
Unlike frame margins and columns, these layout guides don't
control where frame text flows. Rather, they serve as visual aids
that help you match your frame layout to the desired column
layout. Usually the frame column width matches the underlying
page column guides, but sometimes (for example in multiple-
column layouts) the frame column will take up two, or even three,
of the page columns.