complete re-design. opinions please.

[Tone]

Hi guys!

right, currently my companys site looks like this www.digisat-plus.com -> shop online, then you are in Actinic.

this page is ok i spose, it's one of the basic templates and to be quite honest we are sick of the sight of it. and want to change! now none of the other templates really tickle our fancy and we want to make the site look completly different. instead of having to scroll down through all the products, we want to have more sub menus with smaller pictures so it is A. easier to navigate and B. quicker to load.

but the problem is that our site has had lots of extra html coding done to it by the people that designed it.

is it worth just completly starting again and hiring someone to do it, or should i install actinic onto a standalone computer and redesign it myself?

what sucsess have people had on here, when doing the site themselves.

examples would be really helpful.

ta

Tony

[garyhay]

Tony

I notice you are still using V6. Thats not a problem but V7 would give you more functions and an easier to use interface. This would give you the abilty to control everything from within Actinic doing away with other peoples coding.

Self building can be Fun but you will need a lot of time to get to grips with how things are done.

We recently changed This to This where we have navigation always running at the side to 2 section levels depth. We also resized all the images and removed all coloured backgrounds from them.

I would suggest that you design something to keep all the pages (both catalog and non-catalog) the same to aid navigation and put as few clicks between entering the site and buying a product.

I said on another thread today that Actinic provide some excellent training days and this may help you out.

is it worth just completly starting again and hiring someone to do it, or should i install actinic onto a standalone computer and redesign it myself?

Lots of people on this forum can help you out including myself but it's a decision you will have to take. I guess it comes down to time (do you have enough and how quickly do you want to chnage), Money (can you afford to pay a developer), ROI (what difference will a new site make to your business)

I hope that helps you somewhat. Please feel free to call or e-mail me direct if you require any further details or have some more questions.

[Tone]

wow, thanks for the reply, very helpful

basically this is how it is.

late 2003, we had the site designed by a web company, and basically it had lots of problems to start, they winged it and didnt really know what they were doing. and when problems came along, they got an external html developer to write in bits here and there to fix the mistakes they made. i was brought in to run the shop and to try and get some sales out of the site.

the problem now is that becuase there is so much bits of added script here and there i cant change things like you would expect. yesterday i changed all the phone numbers to the new ones as we changed offices and location. this morning i uploaded the site after making some changes and the numbers are back again. and i will be honest. i have NO idea how this can happen.

i have been into design/options/layouts and change the phone number in the html in there and uploaded again and still it is there.

so i check my address and realise that there seems to be 2 online shops, one at http://online.digisat-plus.com/acatalog/index2.html and another shop at http://www.digisat-plus.com/acatalog/index2.html

we have been using the online.digisat-plus as far as i was concerned, but certain combinations of link clicks takes you to this site! which we never knew was there.

so you see, its a big f'ing mess.

im keen to re-design to make my life easier. i recently have taken over the shop and am working full time on it, i have brought in an extra computer today that is going to be my design computer so i can start from scratch and build up a site worthy of being used. *i hope *

currently we own V6 i will look into this v7 and see what the costs are etc.

thanks for your help and advice, i will definatly be back with more questions.

Tony

[garyhay]

You should download the Advanced User Guide from Actinic and also the Developing guide. Dont worry if it says in the Dev guide about Developer because catalog uses the same theory.

i have been into design/options/layouts and change the phone number in the html in there and uploaded again and still it is there.

You need to change the TelNo. in View > Business Settings and it should appear in the site.

Good Luck

[Tone]

You should download the Advanced User Guide from Actinic and also the Developing guide. Dont worry if it says in the Dev guide about Developer because catalog uses the same theory.



You need to change the TelNo. in View > Business Settings and it should appear in the site.

Good Luck

thats the odd thing, the number in there is the correct number, the only wrong numbers on the site are on the www.digisat-plus.com/acatalog/index2.html so i think i will have to go into the other site and manually change the numbers in html.

my my what a mess.

thanks again

Tony

[garyhay]

Do you mean in the banner at the top of the page.

[Tone]

nope

if you go to www.digisat-plus.com/acatalog/index2.html

and : http://online.digisat-plus.com/acatalog/

the online.digisat-plus.com site has the correct numbers, well nearly all the numbers on the pages are correct.

on the www site they are all wrong, i wnat to just get rid of one or the other!!

[garyhay]

It does look like these are hard coded into the design

You will need to edit Act_Primary.html

I cant see the online. version at the moment

[Tone]

you cant see http://online.digisat-plus.com/acatalog/index2.html ?

oh dear. i can.