Featured Products on Home Page

[graphicz]

I have found a few bits of threads on this but nothing that really explains things. Whilst one can use the 'best sellers' or 'new products' list to make a featured products list by selecting and locking products, my client wants all three (Best, New and Featured all in home page boxes and not hard coded.).

Is it possible to 'copy' the 'best seller' system and rename it as 'featured products' and have it manageable in the marketing tab like the other two???

Or make a new layout type, selector and layout that can be incorporated in a brochure page fragment?

Thank you.

[graphicz]

How about something along the lines of:
Make a 'Featured' variable, true/false with place of setting of product so that the panel name 'featured' appears in each product. I now need some product layout for the home page that will display products via a blockif when said variable is true, or am I way off beam?

[leehack]

Custom fragment list layout and a custom fragment layout (don't forget the link tab on the fragment) will do this for you, i do it on most of my sites. You then have new products, best sellers and whatever else takes your fancy. If you are not using the full 20 products in either of the lists, you can break them up using the listindex variable and specify certain numbers are to go in certain lists ie 1-6=best sellers, 7-12=featured products and 13-18=special offers as an example, you are then using one list to manage three and it is just split up by the ranges. All you have to do is put the right number of products in and have them in the right order.

There are endless possibilities in this area if you understand blockifs and the list layouts. Here's a typical example - http://www.clubhousegolf.co.uk/ , 6 different marketing lists (all from the 2 actinic make available) and custom fragments in the central column, so 7 in total on that page.

[graphicz]

Thanks Lee, that got me going nicely!

If I might summarise, we are using the ability to split the Best Sellers Lists and New Products Lists to make new lists that can be used for Featured Items, Hot Deals etc etc.

1. In Design Library go to Best Sellers List and copy the Home Page Best Sellers List, renaming it Home Page Featured Sellers List (or whatever.)
Double click on it and in the box that opens click on 'Click here to edit list setings'. In Overall design change <h2 class="clearall">Copy Best Selling Items</h2> to <h2 class="clearall">Featured Selling Items</h2> (or whatever)

2. Still in Best Sellers List copy the Selector BestSellersList and rename it FeaturedSellersList (or whatever.) Double click on it, go to the 'values' tab, and remove everything on the right except Home Page Featured Sellers List.

3. In Design Library go to Best Sellers List Entries. Copy Mini Best Seller Layout and rename it Mini Best Seller Layout (Copy) (or whatever). Copy BestSellerItem Selector and rename it Copy BestSellerItem(Copy). Double click on it and in the values tab remove everything on the right except Mini Best Seller Layout (Copy)

4. In Actinic go to the marketing tab, best sellers, change the number of products in the list to 20, and populate the first six with products, ticking the lock boxes.

5. In Design View click on 'Best Selling Items' to bring up in the lower pane Layout Code - Home Best Sellers List. Click the upside down 'V' bottom left to get to Layout Code - Standard Brochure Page Bulk. Underneath Home Page Best Sellers List, but before its closing /block tag insert variable (click the blue circle with the white V at the top) BestSellerList(Copy) and Apply and OK.

We are now going to refer to Gabriel Crowe's excellent Tutorial on blockifs: http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=35127

6. Open the layout Mini Best Seller Layout and right at the top insert this blockif:

<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22ListIndex%22%20%2f%3e%20%3c%3d%203" >

Right at the end put

</actinic:block>

This tells the layout only to display items 1-3 in the Best Sellers List.

7. open the layout Mini Best Seller Layout (Copy) and right at the top insert this blockif:

<actinic:block if="%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22ListIndex%22%20%2f%3e%20%3e%3d%204%20AND%20%3cactinic%3avariable%20name%3d%22ListIndex%22%20%2f%3e%20%3c%3d%206" >

Right at the end put

</actinic:block>

This tells the layout only to display items 4-6 in the Best Sellers List.

And Bob (or rather Lee and Gabriel) is your uncle!

Please correct any errors in my summary, I hope it helps someone!

[graphicz]

Forgot a step!

Open your layout Home Page Featured Sellers List that we prepared earlier.

Delete Mini Best Seller Layout

Insert Layout (Blue circle White V) BestSellerItem(Copy)

[jont]

The existing knowledge base article http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=45350 shows how to display only a range of products from a given marketing list.