Newbee needing help on design layout

[dave@djdesign38]

Hi list,
I’m a graphic designer and have designed websites but I’m having problems
getting past doing the basic shop in Actinic.

My biggest problem is getting the design right i.e. fonts, font colours, font sizes and of course page layout. All of which will make the site come alive!

Can I do these layout changes from within Actinic.

I use FrontPage 2K for websites I Have done; can I design layouts from there?

If anyone can give me some idea how to get started on the design config side I would be most grateful. I have the "getting started" Actinic book but this only gives me basics.

I understand there is no quick fix I just need a starting point.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Dave

[garyhay]

You will really struggle to get FP working well with Actinic. I am sure this forum user described how to use FP with Actinic a week or so ago. Have at look at his post.

[retekdirect]

I'd highly recommend getting the advanced guide from http://actinic.co.uk/support/downloads.htm . When i started off using Actinic (a few weeks ago) this was invaluable (and, of course, trawling these forums )

I have a personal aversion to Front Page, but you should be able to work with Actinic and FP if you really must. Once you get your head round the fact that each catalogue page is generated from almost a hundred or so fragments or templates, you'll do fine. It's a case of tweaking the component parts to suit.

Also, the Dreamweaver extension is fantastic. Helps you fathom out what goes where much easier. See the advanced guide for more info.

Good luck!

Ryan

[dave@djdesign38]

Thanks Ryan,
That’s really helpful and encouraging. I think initially I will try and do as much as I can to design the site within Actinic using the themes and colour options.

Once I have become more familiar I will then venture to importing pages etc…

Yes I only got mine on Friday last week. Have yet to upload it to registered site. I did confer with my server host before purchasing and I convinced my client to purchase the ssc also.

So its fingers crossed?

Thanks again for your time.

Regards

Dave C