Laying products in tables

[June]

I am using Developer 7, and am offering similar products in miltipacks. I would like to put the initial description & image for each type of product at the top of each product page, and lay out the product bundles in rows underneath, with 4 columns for each product (i.e decription, price (inc VAT), quantity, cart)), per column. I have seen this in the Catalog 3 advanced users guide, where there were a few templates to alter(paste new code). I ended up with an error on this. Can you confirm how I can amend my templates in Developer 7 to accommodate this layout (or I can maybe select these when appropriate)

Any help appreciated

June

[Jenny]

What you could do is create a fragment for the top info and then create products with a template of say product name and description. You could always amend these templates (saving as a new name) to match your look!
Hope that's clear
Jenny

[June]

Thanks for your response on this. The fragment idea at the top works fine, but for the subsequent bundle product lines, I thought the 4-cell table effect for each bundle - like a grid (where I don't need images) would look a lot neater than having to scroll down the page to see all the items - there is a lot of unnecessary space wasted here - I have seen this idea on other websites - I just don't know how to achieve it!!

I have seen an example where the product (description, image), is at the top, no separator, then the table or grid relating to that product is below with the carts, etc. before the next product, and it looks really neat.

Any further ideas appreciated!

June

[garyhay]

Can you post the URL of a site with the design you like

[NormanRouxel]

I have a Multi Column Product Layout patch on www.drillpine.biz/actinicstuff/

It allows you to vary the number of columns as you go down the page, so it would be very easy to have a full width item, followed bu a 4 column layout. And, optionally, repeat that by having another full width item, etc...

[June]

Hi,

Here is an example of the site layout I like

http://www.digishopdirect.co.uk/acat...ylus_r200.html

I hate to be a bore on this, but I think it looks good

Can you help??

June

[NormanRouxel]

Ooops. I misread your post. You want a very compact layout with minimal information per product in a single row table across the page.

That's just standard Template Editing. Your first "product" is really a fragment containing the description. For subsequent products modify one of the Templates to change the layout to have 4 cells across.

Actinic uses a <TR> for each product (and a </TR> at the end of the template. It uses a 3 column layout as standard.

To break out of this predefined layout replace the initial <TR> with <tr><td colspan=3><table><my compact table code now starts...>
and replace the final </TR> with <my compact table code ends...></table></td></tr>

[Jenny]

Hi
just almost as I said, with template tweaking!
The text and picture will be one template.
The products below will be the other template.
Start with what I suggested and work from there.
This is the same sort of principle:
http://www.suffolkcards.co.uk/acatal...in.html#artist
Jenny

[garyhay]

Use a fragment for the top part as Norman and Jenny are saying edit the product template. If you are not sure how to do this we could supply the required layout.

[June]

Hi,

Could you supply me with the HTML code layout - that would be great.

I have tried looking through the advanced guides and have tried revamping the existing templates. Do I have to amend both the productline.html and productbody.html templates to produce the products in tables?

Thanks

June

[ClaireMH]

Did you ever resolve this issue as I am trying this myself and I am finding it difficult to aceive the very compact rows.

[Nadeem]

Hi Claire

Have you checked the design guide thats comes with the software. If you go to "C:\Program Files\Actinic v7\Starter Guide" and open "DesignGuide.pdf", check out page 23 entitled "Laying Out Product Information in Very Compact Rows"

Kind Regards