Has anyone else had real problems with V9 ?

[David Laine]

Hi All

What a nightmare !!

I was happily running V6 (yes, I know it's old, but it did everything I wanted) on Windows XP when my pc crashed in the most spectacular fashion and had to be replaced. The only operating system easily available now is Vista and V6 doesn't run on Vista, so I upgraded to V9, via V7 and V8, all very laborious, but I've encountered all sorts of niggly problems which I'm sure other folk must have found - I can't understand why they haven't been sorted out before.

V9 offers off line ordering, which is brilliant for tracking down customers' details and for accounting purposes since all transactions can be stored in one place but unless you process the order in a particular way, the invoices won't print and the drop down in the credit card section for card 'valid from' date only extends back to December 2006 which is great unless you have a customer like mine who's card started in June 2007.

In V6 the text in my site www.flashbacksales.co.uk looked fine, in V9 it was far too small, I eventually found a setting to change the default font size but the product descriptions still look naff 'cos the Product headings are too small

Is it me, or am I one amongst many ?

If any Actinic experts would like to earn a few honest shillings to sort this mess out, please get in touch via e-mail

dave@flashbacksales.co.uk

[TraceyG]

Hi David,

It can be a problem when upgrading from the earlier versions of the software due to the big differences between them.

the drop down in the credit card section for card 'valid from' date only extends back to December 2006

I take it you mean the drop-down the 'new order' tab? If so then the dates are hard-coded in the layout (this is going to be changed for 9.0.3), but you could try making the change in this thread.

the Product headings are too small

Looking at your site it looks like your headings are using the default font size. You could try editing your product layout by doing the following:

- highlight a product in the content tree
- click on the 'Design' tab
- in the 'preview pane' click on one of your product names
- this should display the product layout code in the 'Layout Code' window and the 'ProductName' variable should be highlighted
- you should see:

<b>ProductName</b>

- change <b> and </b> with <h2> and </h2> or <h3> and </h3> (depending on how big you want them). If neither of those sizes are any good then there are some preset css font sizes set up in the stylesheet that you could use, for example, you could surround the code above with:

<span class="actxlarge"> and </span>

Other classes to choose from are:

actxxsmall
actxsmall
actsmall
actregular
actlarge
actxxlarge

- click 'apply' to see the changes in the preview pane.

[David Laine]

Hi Tracey

Thank you very much for your help. As far as the moto page goes, changing it is even harder than I thought. I've got version 9 Business, the latest version from the Actinic site and inside there's no option to edit the moto html. It doesn't appear in content page edit, nor design library layouts. This had both myself and Actinic Support really puzzled yesterday (Monday), so last night I did some lateral thinking, I put v9 on a spare pc but didn't licence it, but at start up, chose to evaluate Developer and voila !, there were the missing moto edit features, I changed some of the codes for the dates, I think I changed the start date to 2023, applied the change, came out of Actinic, went back in as a Business evaluate and the change had taken

UPDATE
Unfortunately, having added the code that you sent, I now get an error when testing that says 'the credit card start date must come before the expiration date'




I understand that importing the site can be difficult, so I've decided to start again from scratch and give the site a whole new look. I'm not that good with coding, so I tried the v9 Design Wizard, it works really well except the body background colour remains white regardless of the setting of the background colour in Design Themes, Advanced

The problem only affects Design Wizard Themes but I've got a work around from Tech Support yesterday. You go to Design Library layout, webpage outer layout, Actinic style sheet and enter the colour number needed in line 9, so it looks like I'm all set to go now with my all new look site

It's a shame though that such an expensive piece of software has so many errors in it and it costs 4p a minute to talk to Actinic

Once again, many thanks for your help, I'm sure I'll be in touch again

David Laine

[jont]

Also check the actinic.css for any declarations against the .body

[RuralWeb]

V6 to V9 is a huge leap and the upgrader will have struggled - the advice always has been to redesign rather than try and upgrade. Redesigning will also ensure that V9 works better in the long run by getting rid of all the legacy code from V6

[jont]

V6 to V9 is a huge leap and the upgrader will have struggled - the advice always has been to redesign rather than try and upgrade. Redesigning will also ensure that V9 works better in the long run by getting rid of all the legacy code from V6

Indeed - it is a pain to start with but rebuilding from the bare bones upwards is by far the best solution in the long run and will save hours of hassle down the line.

I am part way through a v9 upgrade which came from v7 to v8 upgraded but left so much legacy cr*p it was a real nuisance so have gone for a rebuild into v9 from the v8 data. Longer but should ensure better long term stability and ease of use inside Actinic.

[MDS]

My V7-V9, whilst functioning, has a few wierd issues.

Starting from scratch is definately the best way I think.

[leehack]

I've upgraded a V6 site into V9 today, the design got trashed and all end of new variables were created along with a few strange other things. I found that taking a design snapshot from a clean V9 site, importing that and the library gets back to square 1 (good feature). That sorts out the design and historical code removal. Sadly it joined the scrap yard after that and became my 4th V9 site on the scrap heap awaiting 9.0.3 the saviour.

[David Laine]

Hi All

Thanks to all of you who replied.

I still had problems for all of this week, there were yet more errors that came when I used the Design Wizard but after a call from Paul in Actinic this morning, things seem to be starting to work at last

[BrianCurtis]

Re-Build?

Hi All,

Really interested in this thread as I'm about to upgrade myself from 6.1.5 and I have a LOT of data on the site.

I can see of course the common sense behind starting from scratch so I guess my question is simple: Can you export/import orders and customer database/account details easily? Also, how do you get the whole store and all the items (including the tutorials I have using templates edited) in members-only areas? Do you mean I have to actually re-build the WHOLE site from scratch?

That's a bit scary! Been working on it for 4 years now

Thanks . .

Beej

[Duncan Rounding]

Without too much work you should be able to get the product data out by exporting and importing.

The design itself though will most likely have to be redone. It's a lot easier though in v9 than it was in your version (once you get to grips with it). If you want to stay with approximately what you've got then you could stip the old Primary template back to the bare bones and then use it as the outer layout for the new site.

If you haven't already I would recommend you download the v9 trial and have a play around and see the difference.

[pinbrook]

you may find it beneficial to go from 6 to 7 then to 9.

I've got a feeling 6 to 8 or 9 is not advisable, just get a 30 day trial of 7 and upgrade, then export product data. As Duncan says don't try to upgrade the design - redo that from scratch