User Guide - NetObjects Fusion

Approaches to Page Design
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Approaches to Page Design
In NetObjects Fusion, a container is an object into which you can embed other
objects. A container can be any size and can hold any kind and number of objects.
NetObjects Fusion provides five types of containers you can use to design and lay
out pages:
• The Layout is the body of the page, surrounded on all four sides by the
MasterBorder. Each page has at least one Layout, although you can create
additional layouts as needed. See “Working with Layouts” on page 132.
• Layout Regions are mini-layouts that you can use to subdivide the page. You
can draw and place Layout Regions anywhere on the page, and place any kind
and number of objects—including text boxes or other Layout Regions—within
their borders. See “Working with Layout Regions” on page 134.
• Text boxes are a special class of objects because you can embed other objects
within them. You can also maximize a text box so it fills the entire Layout—in
effect, using a single text box to lay out the entire page. See Chapter 9,
“Working with Text Boxes.”
• Tables serve as containers for objects. If your page design is based on rows or
columns of content—as in a spreadsheet or other tabular arrangement—you can
lay out all or part of your page in tables. You can then lay out your content
within the cells of the table. You can embed any object in a table cell. See
Chapter 17, “Adding Tables.”
• MasterBorders contain objects that repeat on a set of pages. You can place
anything in a MasterBorder that you can place in the Layout, including banners,
pictures, and text. By placing navigation bars in a MasterBorder you can give
pages with the same navigational needs the same navigational structure. See
Chapter 10, “Managing MasterBorders.”
The type of container you choose determines which of the following page design
options you use. You can:
• Position content with pixel-level precision by dragging objects into place. The
position-based approach uses Layouts and Layout Regions as containers and
preserves your position-based layout by generating pages consisting of HTML
and cascading style sheet code.
• Use a text-based approach. With text-based design you can preserve the flow of
content by embedding objects in text boxes or table cells. Text-based page