Babysitting required!

[oldhasbeen]

Hi All

I need somebody who knows actinic like the back of their hand and can do template tweaks to spend perhaps a few hours with me (paid, of course!) on sorting a few bits out (either remotely or by email). Unfortunately (well fortunately I suppose) I'm just too busy to sit down and really learn how to get actinic to do what I need and it's holding a few crucial projects up (plus I'm always in fear of breaking something and then not being able to fix it!).

It's all stuff that the right person can probably do in their sleep but I have to keep putting off for the golden day of "when I get time" - which aint gonna happen!

Is there a kind soul out there who would be interested in this, or is it just too small a job? TA! Helen (presumably pm me if interested).

[george]

Oops.

Jeez, I thought you were wanting a night out!

[oldhasbeen]

Are you offering?!

Seriously though - just need to do some design/layout changes and not sure whether this might involve paying somebody for tweaks which hopefully should be quite simple or whether a "theme" change might be required (which is big and scary!). Also just need and bit of advice/guidance on functionality which despite trawling forum/AUG I can't find answers to (well nothing that's not in techie speak!).

[wjcampbe]

Helen,

If you make a list of the little jobs, and post it, we can see whether it is something that can be tackled one item at a time here, or if it is more commercial.

You will not get anyone to take the job on without knowing what they are letting themselves in for, and so if you don't have a list you will need one anyway.

If you don't want to post the list, PM to me and I will give you my best opinion.

[george]

I agree with the Egypt fella, you might just be surprised how your list may be accomplished by the help from the learned people on here.

[oldhasbeen]

Hi fellas - thanks for responding.

Well it's a bit of a rag bag of stuff - the main one being whether I can get away with template tweaks or might need a theme change.

My site has been built and upgraded back from v.4 cat to v.6 cat to v.7 business so I don't know if a theme change could be disastrous and it's not something I'd like to tackle. I've been looking at the smart theme (or tweaks to achieve this look).

I'm working on getting customer accounts set up at the moment and using my test account, once you're logged in it looks a right mess!

Ideally I'd like logo at top, single row of nav buttons then to break the shop page into a menu column on left - sections/products on right (don't want a right menu column).

The menu would be for the main shop section headings only - don't want cascading menus as these would go on forever - just a better way of customers being able to navigate back to the main sections without having to keep clicking "back" or using the breadcrumb trail (which most don't know what it's for anyway).

At the top of the menu, I'd like a proper customer login box - not a redirect to another page. I've seen this on another act bus site so know it can be done.

So really I'm open to design change suggestions and anything else that might be of use - and ultimately somebody who I can pay to achieve it.

That's a starter for 10

[george]

Madam.

Do you have a spare pc? Reason I ask is that its easy to instal Actinic, import a snapshot, then change the theme, just to see what happens. That keeps any messing about well away from yer singing and dancing catalog at the moment and you'd also see what changes you'd need to do. You might be surprised actually.

Thing is with the Smart theme there is quite a bit of adjustment info within the forum now, resizing the sideboxes, altering the section list, etc, so there's quite a bit you can do now. Yes, suppose its good to have an individual looking site, but surely just as good to have a busy looking one that works.

I've been looking that changing mine. Maybe the theme, or maybe just the colours, but I suppose I struggle to find a vision of what I can change it to while improving the 'site at the same time.

Remember there is also a cheeky wee mode from Sir Norman that can open or close the sub-section lists too. Thats also on my agenda for looking at. As well as having a look at the in fashion W3C/Bobby/Accessability criteria.

And since you're so keen to pay, that'll be £100 plus a set of goalposts please.

[oldhasbeen]

Sir

One has considered this option. I'm not looking to achieve a major design overhaul - as you say, a busy site that works is the ultimate aim. Fortunately we seem to have achieved this already hence my lack of time in being able to twiddle around with actinic for any stretch of time.

Most of what I'm trying to achieve now is to add more functionality and to make the layout easier to navigate and use while keeping the overall look pretty much the same (can't make too many changes at once cos it overwhelms the punters).

So while your worthy suggestion of setting this up on a second pc to have a play with is most welcome, one would rather pay somebody who knows what they're doing to achieve the finished results quickly and easily - from past painful experience, I know if I try and do it, it'll all go pear shaped or I'll get stuck on something and there is will sit on the back burner ad infinitum (just like the other hundreds of things that I'm still trying to get round to doing).

Payment so far can be arranged for your kind advice, but remuneration will be in backpacks and empty shortbread tins (plus I'll throw in our Chrimbo tree as a bonus!).