Newbie help - add product group list

[noelweston]

Hi folks - hope someone can point me in the right direction.

I've got my first Actinic site up and running, based around the smart layout/theme.

What I need to do now is add a list of special offers to the site, that can be controlled at product level. So I can select a few products, mark them as special offers and reduce the price (or apply a discount) to them. This list of special offers would change every week or so.

What I need to do then is display a list of the current special offer products on the site in a box under the "cart details" box on the right hand side. This would ideally be a brief list, with just a product name and possibly price, linking through to the full product details.

I've had a look around, but have no idea at all how to proceed with this.
Can anyone either outline what steps I need to go through in newbie terms for me, or else point me in the direction of some documentation that will give me that information ?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Noel Weston

[jont]

Welcome to the forum.

You have 2 automated lists built into Actinic ... under Marketing there are Best Sellers and New Arrivals ... these lists can be allowed to operate on their own or you can manipulate them by locking products in the list.

You can edit the name of the list as this is coming from a header tag within the list setup itself ... so for example ... you could use the Best Sellers list with products you want to promote fixed in place, rename to "special offer" and position the layout as you require beneath the cart info box.

The list can be set to use the compact side bar listing to have just a brief description and then an automatic link back to the full product.

HTH

[noelweston]

Jonty - thanks for the response. Sorry for my delay coming back to you ; another crisis leapt up this week and had to be dealt with.

If possible, I'd like to leave the best sellers / new products lists alone. I'm fine with html, javascript, databases, ASP etc. - just new to Actinic. How else could I start with creating a compact side bar listing of a specific group of products ?

I feel like I'm missing something obvious and simple, but just not sure where to look. I know I can create a product group within the "Marketing" area and assign products to it, either individually priced (which my client would prefer) or else with a group-assigned discount. The bit I can't do is then create the listing of the contents of this group.

Can you give me any other ideas / pointers, or am I (a) going about this the wrong way), or (b) trying to do something nigh-on impossible ?

Thanks for any help !

[Bruce]

Noel,

The 'Product Groups...' option on the 'Marketing' tab is there to help you create product groups within your catalog that you could assign discounts for in 'Marketing | Discounts and Surcharge Settings | Cart Content'. If you want to display something completely independent from the existing lists, then you will have to hard code it into the layout / sidebar where you want it to appear.

Kind regards,

[noelweston]

Noel,

If you want to display something completely independent from the existing lists, then you will have to hard code it into the layout / sidebar where you want it to appear.

Thanks, Bruce. Can you give me any pointers where to start looking at this ? Is this something I can do within designer, and are there any samples or examples I can work from ? Or will it have to be done outside of the Actinic environment ? If the latter, how do I then deploy the changes to my client ?

[LooseDrumSticks]

Me thinks that the AUG would be the best place to start!