Adding New Sidebars

[Eggchaser]

Hi,

I'm trying to add new left sidebars to the Silver theme so that I have product headings and their variations listed rather than the main 'Product Section' heading followed by the main sections listed. Example:

<h1>Product 1</h1>
<ul>
<li>Product 1 variation 1</li>
<li>Product 1 variation 2</li>
<li>Product 1 variation 3</li>
</ul>

then new list:

<h1>Product 2</h1>
<ul>
<li>Product 2 variation 1</li>
<li>Product 2 variation 2</li>
<li>Product 2 variation 3</li>
</ul>

etc.

Each h1 heading will link to a main page, and each li will link to a product sub page. Am I in need of a reality check or is this possible?

Cheers in advance.

[Duncan Rounding]

You might want top look at installing an add-in from Drillpine for this. See the Accordian and Collapso menus here: http://drillpine.biz/actinicstuff/index.html

Also note that you shouldn't have more than one h1 tag on a page.

[Eggchaser]

Also note that you shouldn't have more than one h1 tag on a page.

Cheers Duncan,

Sunday mornings and mild hangovers are likely to produce the odd SEO faux pas...

[Eggchaser]

The Drillpine menus are very good, no doubt I'll be using them in future but I'm looking to have all the list items open.

I've noticed on looking at the v10 showcase that some sites simply remove the default lists and hard code their own. Is it really as simple as that?

[Duncan Rounding]

Yes you can do that if you wish. The obvious drawback is that if you add a new, or change a, section then you will have to modify your code though but if you're ok with that then no problem.

[leehack]

I think you will find most if not all showcase sites do not manually control menus, instead they will be using cleverly coded menus using actinic's power in this area. If you understand html, css and blocks, you can code pretty much anything you like.

[Eggchaser]

I think you will find most if not all showcase sites do not manually control menus, instead they will be using cleverly coded menus using actinic's power in this area.

Am I not seeing manually controlled menus in these showcase sites:

http://www.4little1s.com/
http://www.elitegolfwear.com/designe...-clothing.html
http://www.douglasreadshoes.co.uk/

and a few more?

Either way I'll give the blocks a go, probably something I'm going to need in future.

[leehack]

I don't see anything on any of your examples that would require manual maintenance, all of those can be done automatically, using blocks, variables, html and css.

[Eggchaser]

I don't see anything on any of your examples that would require manual maintenance, all of those can be done automatically, using blocks, variables, html and css.

I know they can be done automatically, my question is are they using Actinic's power in those examples?

I don't see any attributes in the listing HTML that suggest they are. Do you?

[leehack]

If they aren't - then they should be.

If they are - as the actinic block just produces normal html, I fail to see how you will ever be able to tell.

[Eggchaser]

I think you will find most if not all showcase sites do not manually control menus

If they are - as the actinic block just produces normal html, I fail to see how you will ever be able to tell.

I'm really not sure if you're trying to be helpful here.

[leehack]

You're asking a question that is impossible to answer, the actinic block produces perfectly standard html, just the same as manually coding a list should do. So when you look at the underlying html, it's impossible to know whether an auto menu or not, but that answer is irrelevant anyway, you should always have an automatic department menu, unless impossible, which in your case it is not.

It's like me asking you did i create the following code or did actinic and i copy pasted it:

<ul>
<li>list 1</li>
<li>list 2</li>
<li>list 3</li>
</ul>

Both methods produce identical code, so it's impossible to know.