How big can an Actinic site get and still work properly?

[kathdawson]

I have started working on optimising a client's site that has been developed in Actinic 8 - I am new to Actinic so I appreciate any help I can get in terms of understanding limitations.

I am working with our own Actinic Developer to get some specific training and advice but I wanted to get some feedback on your general experiences.

The site we have taken on is about 1GB - snapshot is 700MB+ - it has approx 10,000 products. I am finding it almost impossible to work on as even though it is now on a dedicated laptop it is incredibly slow to make any changes.

The site sells tools and so I want create a search by brand (the competition does this so I think its a usability essential) but as far as I understand this will mean doubling the size of the site to create each product in brand sections.

Is there an optimum size / number of products for an Actinic site?

Thanks for your feedback
Kath

[mattc]

little trick for searching by brand without creating duplicates...

add a variable called 'brand', make it a drop down, add the ability for parent and new as options and put it in the tab of your choice.
MAKE IT SEARCHABLE

then select the brand for each product. (in advanced searching now) Run the search term for each brand and create a link to the string on your contents page.

[jont]

Try disabling the marketing functions whilst working on the site as this can aid speeds marginally.

Officially Actinic will handle many more products but speed decreases as the numbers go up.

[NormanRouxel]

You could also try Housekeeping / Compact Databases as this may free up a lot of wasted space in the database.

Backup first before trying, in case there's anything wonky that may break the compact.

[Jan]

Switch off the design preview tabs as well, this also speeds things up.

Regards,