Just what can I do with Brochure Pages?

[Stillo]

Hi there,

I'm a bit of a newbie with Actinic, having played with V6 in the past & I am now reeally hoping to apply myself to V9, which I have just purchased.

My main problem is, is that at heart I am a designer, used to creating static HTML pages. I am now finding that more and more I am being asked to develop pages with at least some element of eCommerce in them. I am happy to use Actinic for this, but I just can't find a clear explanation of how I can integrate "normal' pages with an Actinic Catalog.

I gather that Brochure Pages give you the ability to display info not related to purchasing anything, but they seem to be limited to just displaying fragments of either product info or basic tex/image snippets.

I am hoping to develop sites where there will be a lot of these non eCommerce pages, going beyond the basic nature of Brochure Pages & featuring more complex layouts, functions & navigation.

I have done this in the past with V6 by simply just jumping in and out of the Actinic acatalog folder & just displaying static html pages where required. This time, however, I need to be integrating the shopping features of Actinic into every page on the site. For example, even a page where the main content is not shopping related, I would still like to to feature some new products in a side bar. I also need to be displaying the current cart status on every page as well.

So I guess my question is! Am I just missing some of the real functions of Brochure pages, or is there an easy way to feature Actinic content in pages that are not created within Actinic?

Hopefully there is a devastatingly simple answer to this. I have no pride & am happy to look the fool if there is an easy way out of this!

Thanks for all your help, I look forward to contributing more to the forum from now on!

Mat

[pinbrook]

You create brochure pages by adding fragments - then apply layouts to fragments. Thus changing the way the pages look.

You can have a fragment for text only, or a fragment with an image to the left and so on.

Here is a useful tutorial

http://www.websitedesigned.co.uk/Act...hure-pages.htm

[jont]

Think of fragments like a CMS ... adding text and the layout and structure is applied automatically.

I tend to use product pages for content but with modified layouts... they allow for greater flexibility in the long run IMO.

[Artisan]

As well as applying different layouts to fragments, you can do a lot by using HTML in them, even using just one fragment and filling it with HTML to achieve an exact content layout. All HTML must be enclosed within !!< and >!! tags.

You can also use iframes to call other pages in fragments, I found this useful for running a guest book in a fragment, at http://www.newmilton.org.uk/acatalog/Guestbook.html

[Stillo]

Thanks all for getting back so quickly.

I can see there are going to be some good elements of fragments, most significant is Jont's comment about treating it like CMS. Because they are quite simplistic, it is a great way for me to instruct clients, who are managing their own site with Catalog Client, in a method of basic site updates.

Also, thanks Artisan, as I hadn't considered iFrames at all! Although I overused them when I first learnt about them, they would be perfect here for when I am dealing with a page with more complexity than I could fit into a fragment.