HELP! Upgrade - Starting a Design From Scratch

[ianmcairns]

I have 8.0.3 installed. When I import my V7 site into V8 it is a complete mess.

But hey I don't mind putting lots of work in if I can get a fresh start along the way. So, how can I start my old site V7 in a clean V8 template (the default trial site provided)?

In other words I'd like to import the content (1,500 products) of my existing site into a clean template but without carrying over any of the old design.

Incidentally I've spent a lot of time tring to get my old site looking OK in V8, including trying to find out how you edit in Dreamweaver like I used to - I'm beginning to get a bad feeling about this!

[Mike Hughes]

take a snapshot of your V7 site and then import it into V8.0.3. You should be given the option to just import the orders into a default layout.

Mike

[RuralWeb]

[QUOTE] including trying to find out how you edit in Dreamweaver like I used to QUOTE] The answer is that you cannot work like you did with V7. I have found the best option is to import the site snapshot apply a clean theme, adjust the colours, buttons etc and then create a new design in DW and register it as an outer layer. I know others do it differently and a search will show you other ways. There is also a thread about upgrading going at the moment which you may find interesting.http://community.actinic.com/showthr...6&goto=newpost

[pinbrook]

Any ideas how to acheive a clean layout, if you have already imported into 8, and then decided the upgrade insn't going to work, and then want a clean layout.

I've found in this instance that simply changing theme doesn't completely knock out all the old code. Tracey said there was a revert ALL to factory layout, as I was doing the revert to factory layout for each and every layout.

Has anyone found/used this yet?

[RuralWeb]

Any ideas how to acheive a clean layout

Ive been doing this and generally it has been working BUT you need to check carefully that the theme has applied before you register a new outer layer. If you find an error after registering an outer layer then its game over

[ianmcairns]

Thanks, but..

Thanks to everyone who posted a reply - there's obviously some research I need to do.

Can I say I first tried importing a V7 snapshot and it looks completey different in V8.

Then I tried applying a fresh theme to my V7/V8 mashup and this doesn't work properly - it converts some things but not others.

The term 'outer layer' is new to me and, needless to say, does not appear in the V8 help file.

I have to agree with others that this all looks like being a lot of unecessary work for some fairly small benefit.

[cdicken]

Can I say I first tried importing a V7 snapshot and it looks completey different in V8.

How did it look different? Had the primary template been affected or was it just the products?

Then I tried applying a fresh theme to my V7/V8 mashup and this doesn't work properly - it converts some things but not others.

Themes in v8 work a bit differently than v7 in that they just replace the outer layout rather than replacing everything. If you want to start from scratch, a better bet would be to re-import the snapshot again and then tick 'Yes' when it asks you whether you want to start with the default v8 design.

The term 'outer layer' is new to me and, needless to say, does not appear in the V8 help file.

I think Malcolm meant to write 'Outer Layout' which is the new term for Primary templates. They are also know as 'Overall Layouts' - and you will find a whole section on these in the main help by going to the section called 'Overall Page Layouts'

I have to agree with others that this all looks like being a lot of unecessary work for some fairly small benefit.

THe main benefits are:

• Ability to list related items
• Ability to list best sellers and new products
• Ability to generate mailing lists of customers based on orders received
• Greatly increased design flexibility

I've done a few sites in v8 now, and there are several things I really like that I couldn't do in v7 such as allowing clients to enter specifications for a product as custom property values (now known as 'user-definable variables') and then Actinic automatically includes the formatting into the design to display this information correctly.