Importing new site designed in India

[Ridgewood12]

I have been working with a development company in India. After many Iterations of the design, they have produced the final design. However they have provided me with a zip files with what seems like the Indivual files. The only Instructions they provided are "I quote".

i have attached the files in the mail and here is the files, please refer below instruction to upload it to the server. extract the zip and copy the folder to this location
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\Actinic v9\Sites

then open actinic software and click on the file menu and choose the "My site" and then activate this to run the site.

after that upload it to the server. you can find this in the server after upload.

I've tried what was suggested and this makes no sense. I get soem of the images on the home page but none of the advanced functionality. Am I correct to think that the develoment company should provide me with an .acd file backup in which to Import?
Any help to get this working would be greatly appreciated.

JB

[Duncan Rounding]

What are the files that they have sent?
Are they HTML files?
Are they for v9 or v7?
They should certainly supply you with a snapshot to import.

[I-CC]

Sounds like they have sent the design, as in html pages and associated bits, but not an Actinic integrated design, i.e. you have the basis, but not built into Actinic yet. Are the developers Actinic savy?

[Ridgewood12]

Thanks for the Information. The code does look to be Raw Html.

The developers are "supposed" to be Actinic Savy, however I have my reservations. The version I am working with is v9. Based on the strength of the comments I think I will ask the developers to provide a .acd file.

thanks

[leehack]

OMG John, are you the reason we all get 15 spam emails a day from Indian outsourcing web design companies ?

[Ridgewood12]

I certainally hope not. However its never a bad thing getting a second opinion when working with any developer foreign or domestic.

[I-CC]

Whilst developing the design and going through the different iterations, did they provide you with a dev URL to show it working (under Actinic operation) ?

[leehack]

John, from their email it appears they have no idea about how actinic works, however all is not lost if you do actually like the template. You need to either integrate it yourself via the DW interface or get a designer to do this part for you. If all is well with the template, the good news is that there should not be too much cost to do that for you.

[Mike Hughes]

OK. The description isn't that great but aren't they just sending all the site files zipped up?

John, if all the files are zipped in a subfolder then you should be able to unzip the whole thing into your /sites folder. Otherwise create a folder to unzip the site into.

One way to check what you've got is to look for the database file. It should be there with the extension .mdb

Mike

[Ridgewood12]

Thanks Mike and everyone else who has provded sound advice. The developer has now produced the correct Import Snapshot file. However the site is still riddled with errors. He has been given one more week to sort this out. After this I think I will take the advice on this thread and take the design to a recognised Actinic Developer. Has any good recommendations on a Actinic developer that can complete this work.

[I-CC]

Thanks Mike and everyone else who has provded sound advice. The developer has now produced the correct Import Snapshot file. However the site is still riddled with errors. He has been given one more week to sort this out. After this I think I will take the advice on this thread and take the design to a recognised Actinic Developer. Has any good recommendations on a Actinic developer that can complete this work.

If you can provide a URL of the current state of the site, intended look etc etc, then plenty that might be able to advise on fixes or indeed offer quotes.