new products abbreviated description

[nigelt]

Hi
I'm trialling actinic v8 at the moment.
One thing i've noticed which i'd like to change is the "new products" descriptiion.
If i have set up two new products..
Product A... This is a new product, not much more to say...
Product B .. Loads to say here.. blah blah blah for maybe 6 or 7 lines.

When the "new products" list is displayed, the shorter descriptions look absolutely stupid, because they take up the same space as the more "full" descriptions.
the shorted descriptions have loads of empty space.

Is there any way you can abbreviate the new product product desciptions
Maybe just 5 or 10 words instead of the full descriptions.

hope that all makes sense.

Thanks
Nige

[Duncan Rounding]

Welcome.
You can use PHP - try this thread:
http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=23732

[leehack]

I'm favouring removing any of the descriptions nowadays, they always look a mess to me, name, price, more info link and image is my preference. You can tend to use 12 or 15 instead of 6 or 9 with this approach too. Picture paints a thousand words - ten words does jack IMO and helps nothing.

[nigelt]

Hi
Thanks for that.
I tried the php code route and it works great thanks but.......
I have some words in the description i've highlighted with bold.
They are now displaying with !!<< before and after.
Now I know WHY its doing it, but is my choice
a) abbreviated description, no embedded html or
b) full descriptions and keep your embedded html.

Obviously i'd prefer abbrev desc AND keep embedded

Is this a no no ?
Thanks
Nige

[Duncan Rounding]

If you go the php route your html formatting must only start after your truncated limit. ie truncate to 10 characters - then only have any formatting from the 11th onwards.
Like this..
one two three....ten !!<<b>eleven</B>>!!

[nigelt]

Thought that might be the case.
Thanks for that.
i'll try cutting out the description completely. See how that looks.

One final question.
If I totally balls it up, can I recover the original code easily ?
Something similar to restore initial view layout ?.

Thanks again.
Nige

[leehack]

Yes you can. But i would imagine you are also taking snapshots, so you have no need to worry. Tutorial on my site if you are not.