Importing V7 to V8 without backup file?

[yoda84]

Hey guys,
i've joined a company to develop their Actinic Catalog site further, but hte previous developer has left without leaving a backup of the current site or a copy of v7 of Catalog on the system.

The only copy of the site we have is hosted on our webserver, is there anyway i can download a complete copy of the site and get V8 of Catalog to recognise it so i can continue where the previous developer left of?

I renamed the original SITE1 folder to SITE1_BACKUP and tried copying the whole site (from our web server) into a folder named Site1 inside the Catalogs "SITES" directory. When i try to run the Catalog program, i'm presented witha screen that tells me "Unable to locate the database for the selected file".

any ideas?
cheers
Darren

[jont]

It is not possible to retrieve anything other than images and you can copy and paste text. Everything else is pretty much lost as it is compiled from the database during upload.

If the site is still live how are you retrieving orders?

[yoda84]

hi jont,
cheers for the reply. As for receiving orders, im looking into that now, im thinking that the Catalog software is running in another office that I havent been told about. I'll look into this afternoon.

Im a little confused about taking payments, if you check our site (www.schoolofcolor.com) you'll see that we apparantly use the shared SSL of Actinic, but the company wants to be able to accept phone orders and enter them into a Virtual Terminal (PDQ'ish) program on the computer.

Do you think WorldPay or Protx would be suitable, if so how easy is it to set up the link between WorldPay/Protx and he transactions on the site? (we already have a merchant account).

Thanks
Darren

[Bruce]

Yoda84,

I renamed the original SITE1 folder to SITE1_BACKUP and tried copying the whole site (from our web server) into a folder named Site1 inside the Catalogs "SITES" directory. When i try to run the Catalog program, i'm presented with a screen that tells me "Unable to locate the database for the selected file".

That folder you renamed is the actual site folder and needs to be called 'Site1' as it contains the Database, the templates, the images and what not else you use on your online store.

Do you think WorldPay or Protx would be suitable, if so how easy is it to set up the link between WorldPay/Protx and he transactions on the site? (we already have a merchant account).

Setting these up are pretty straightforward, a search on the forum for either payment service provider will provide a lot of threads discussing them.

Kind regards,

[yoda84]

hi,
I have now renamed the SITE1_BACKUP to SITE1 and all is working as like a fresh install. I now have a complete file & directory structure from the companies web server, is it possible to copy the contents from the webserver, into the SITE1 directory and get it to import the data of my existing LIVE site? (www.schoolofcolor.com).

I want to add a digital download option to many of the books, but dont want to re-create the whole site. Our other office has the actinic software and obviously a complete copy of the site (for updating & taking orders). What exactly do i need them to send me so I too can use my PC to update the site and take orders.

Thanks again
Darren

[Bruce]

Darren,

You cannot upload and download at the same time from 2 locations, the way to do it would be to 'Update' from one location, while the other downloads and processes orders.

In order to make it simple to copy an entire store from one installation of Actinic to another, there is a built in 'snapshot' feature. A snapshot saves all relevant files and settings into one easily portable file. These 'site files' use an extension of *.acd.

To take a backup of a site go to 'File | Snapshot | Export Site'. This will then guide you through a wizard to help you save all the relevant settings for your currently active site into one file.

This can then be implemented onto a second machine by going to 'File | Snapshot | Import Site' on the second machine.

Uploading on One Machine and Downloading on Another
Through checking either one of the 'Allow on this PC' options (under 'Business Settings | Options') you can specify whether a particular machine is used just for 'Catalog Maintenance' or just for 'Order Processing'. This means that one PC can just be used to maintain and upload a store to the web site whilst the other machine can be used solely for order processing from that catalogue.

Kind regards,

[yoda84]

Hi Bruce!
thanks for that! thats excellent. i'll get onto it now. Should I ask for just a site backup, or should I ask for all the JPG/GIF etc files or will they all be included in the .acd file?

thanks
Darren aka yoda84

[Bruce]

If all the site images are in the 'Site1' folder then they will be included in the snapshot. Images that are stored external to the 'Site1' folder will come in with the snapshot but will be in a folder called 'NOT_CATALOG'. In this folder you will find the folder / file structure as on the originating machine, you will have to manually restore the files to the paths as referenced in Actinic for them to appear.

Kind regards,

[yoda84]

great!
thinking about it, if there are any jpgs that arent in the SITE1 folder, there is obviously a copy of the files located on teh web server at the moment so i could copy those over....makes sense...here's hoping i can get the digital download working now!

thanks for the speedy reply.
yoda84

[chris ashdown]

Before doing anything on the computer that is downloading the orders, I suggest you make a backup of the whole of site 1 and place it somewhere safe

The site 1 folder may be called something else i.e. the name of the site but anyway will be under the files "SITES"

Then make a snapsjhot of that file on the same computer and when completed transfer it to your own computer run actinic and go to snapshot import snapshot, that should give you a working copy of the system