Max number of products in Actinic?

[gabrielcrowe]

its honestly a tough question.

based on how fast your computer is. and how much data you use for each product, there really isnt a solid number.

the size of the database is an issue, 2gb for an access db.

as well as the massive time to prepare the catalog and upload it, after your edits.

40k products = more than 40k pages online.

now generate your marketing data, and that means uploading every page again.

now, a better idea would be to split your products into sections and use multiple domains or folders. each with their own shops.

cogs.bitsndbobs.com
sprockets.bitsndbobs.com
gears.bitsndbobs.com

etc.

then you could really have as many products as you could use seperate cgi-bin script sets.

[NormanRouxel]

40k products = more than 40k pages online

That's only an issue if you have one product per page. As soon as you have 10 or 20 products per page the page count drops to a few thousand.

[NormanRouxel]

now generate your marketing data, and that means uploading every page again

Any routine change that involves all pages would be worth making some effort to mitigate. In this case the Best Sellers and New Products code can be changed to write them to a couple of small textfiles (and only done once when creating the home page) that are loaded via the likes of AJAX.

So all your pages remain unaltered (and don't need uploaded unless you actually change a product on that page) with the changing content being loaded at the clients end.

[leehack]

Single product per page = 5,000 max
Multiple products per page = 15,000 max

Try and use standard actinic outside of those limits and you've chosen the wrong product IMO.
Anything more and it's just unworkable.

Once we get multisite plus an option for a uniformed checkout for all the stores you setup on the same license, actinic can start to play with the big boys.

[BigRedKeith]

now, a better idea would be to split your products into sections and use multiple domains or folders. each with their own shops.

cogs.bitsndbobs.com
sprockets.bitsndbobs.com
gears.bitsndbobs.com

etc.

then you could really have as many products as you could use seperate cgi-bin script sets.

I think what you and Lee are agreeing on is that an Actinic Business single site user should be able to have multiple domains converging to a single checkout process, without having to have a multi site licence.

Now that is a wish list to get behind, especially as we will be starting our shop with the better part of 3,000 products and that is only half our anticipated range. Within the first 18 months - 2 years we will likely be listing over 15,000 products including choices and services, all of which have to have a hidden product behind them to allow individual pricing and stock management.

So Actinic, how soon can we expect development on this inspiring project?

[pinbrook]

There is a new version of Actinic that runs on SQL server (Actinic Enterprise), you should be looking at this version really, as although the product will allow you to enter that number of products, and as you take orders the 2GB size limit for an access database will it will probably be rather slow. I would suggest contacting the Actinic Enterprise sales team to talk about this option.

Surely its worth considering this? or have i missed the point here

[leehack]

V9 will have to have something special to offer, if it doesn't why would anyone buy it. So i reckon watch this space is the best bit of advice for the time being. They must be aware they are behind in some areas, i'd be astonished if we are not presented with something making a big leap forward in sizeability. Standstill in IT and in 18 months you have disappeared, they're no different - we're verging on a make or break period in my eyes and i'm looking forward to it.

[BigRedKeith]

Surely its worth considering this? or have i missed the point here

Hi Jo, i may not have understood what Actinic Enterprise is all about, is it the purly server based product?, Personaly i have wasted too many weeks trying to build a site using the extream limitations of a server based design model.

Not for me
Keith

[pinbrook]

i may not have understood what Actinic Enterprise is all about

I suggest you phone Actinic sales to ask them about it

[BigRedKeith]

Seems that Enterprise is primaraly for multi site hosters and developers like yourself Jo, its just a little OTT in the technical department for amatures like me. I barely understood every other word he was talking about.

Doh!!

[pinbrook]

To be honest I know nothing about it - just vague overheard conversations from others, which is why i thought a call to sales would be a place to get real info.

Sorry if i mislead you

[BigRedKeith]

NP, at least now i know

[Jan]

It's a an offline solution, like the other versions of Actinic, but rather than having MS access as the backend database it has MS SQL server. It's designed for sites with either a very large number of products, a very large number of orders or lots of operators. It's also got some very good additions to the current product.

FWIW, whatever system you choose, the biggest problem with huge numbers of products is getting the navigation right, if you have 100 000 products, you need very good navigation otherwise, no one will be able to find anything.

Regards,

[rolygate]

Would be interested to know some hard facts:

1. Max # of products on a livesite.
2. Theoretical max # of products.
3. Some URLs of live sites.
4. Any ways of resolving the single big upload question.