Templates(?) & Aligning Items in a List

[neillking]

Hi, I'm new to this program (but not to websites, html. FrontPage and Dreamweaver). I'm trying to get a simple layout using 'Select items from a list' as a basis. This will be used to group similar products together. The idea is that I have a broad description plus picture at the top using 'Image to right of text and title' and then the various related items listed beneath using 'No image, laid out in rows'. All that is fine except for the three issues below, roughly in order of importance...

1. I can't get the left-right alignment right. A test sample at our test page shows the narrow top section and wider listed items below. I'd really like the picture to be above the Colour Choice and Add to Cart items with the descriptive text the same width as the text below - as seen between the rules.

2. The whole section is a bit too narrow.

3. I'd maybe like to be able to wrap the text around the picture. This depends a bit on the solutions to 1 & 2 though!

I'm told the answer lies in the templates but despite much mucking about with the html there I really haven't made much progess (other than beinhg able to alter which section goes narrower than the other!).

Some kick-off help would be very much appreciated here so that I can get a simple site up quickly and then spend more time learning more about the program to create the mark II shopping site!

Thanks!

[sabbie]

Dreamweaver Extension

The extension is a great help for understanding how the templates are all pulled together.

If you are using Dreamweaver, install the Actinic extension for Dreamweaver that came on the Setup disks for Actinic.

Go back to Actinic and go to Designs > Options > Miscellaneous and untick Compact HTML > click apply

Now if you preview any page in Actinic it will make a copy in your Actinic Site folder called P_index.html which you can open in Dreamweaver

You can now open the page in Dreamweaver from that location and you will now notice lots of yellow boxes on the page ..

If you click on one of the yellow boxes then look in the propeties box at the bottom of the page it gives you the file path to the file that controls that aspect of the page ..

If I lost you after installing the Dreamweaver extension ..

Simplest way is to install the extension .. Upload site, view the page you having problems with, in internet explorer go to file > save as > and save that page to your desktop .. Then in Dreamweaver open that page .. and you will see the yellow buttons mentioned as above ..

[neillking]

Hope I'm not being dim here - the extensions only seem to be available in Developer and not in Catalog which is the version I'm using.

[tccom]

the dreamweaver ext is found in your actinic folder, under extensions

[Mike Hughes]

they were added to catalog and business in V7.0.2

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Features added

Advanced Search using custom properties (to Catalog from Business and Developer)
Command Line activation (to Catalog from Business and Developer)
Actinic Dreamweaver Extensions (to Catalog and Business from Developer)


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Mike

[webyourbusiness]

Is this what you are describing?

http://www.elkmountainherbs.com/acat...lfa_Plant.html

Greg Hewitt-Long

[neillking]

Thanks guys, I'm most impressed that you're all responding!

I've now installed the DW Extensions and will 'have a play' over the next 48 hours.

This particular issue seems to reveal one of Actinic's weak points ... that there's nothing much between the over-simplified idiot's starter guide and the full technical reference, not least on their website where my novice search for 'dreamweaver extension' didn't even reveal the info that you guys already know about.

The ALFALFA Plant page isn't quite what I'm tring to do but does have similarities so I'm looking at the view source code but I'm not sure yet where that will take me - I think I probably need to focus specifically on my trial page layout at this early stage in trying to get a quick mark-I version, otherwise I might get knocked too far off track.

What I need to find out now is just what controls the relationship between the templates in use - the 'Image to right of text and title' and the 'No image, laid out in rows' templates. My attempts at changing the colspan, td, etc elements in these just reverses which one goes wider so my quest is still for that elusive equal overall width on screen!

[webyourbusiness]

ok - that alfalfa page was done using a "header" product that is not purchasable - and then altering the "in-a-row" template for the detailed products.

So think laterally about using different product templates to achieve your goal.

hth

Greg Hewitt-Long