Product options in a table format

[Charlotte]

Hello,

I'm in the process of creating my first Actinic store, so everything is all very new. I've soaked up the starter and design guides and am about to tackle the advanced, but my brain is starting to hurt and I'm eager to find out a solution to my problem before steam starts to come out of my ears and I go into meltdown!

It's not so much of a problem; I'd just like to find out the most productive way to go about displaying extra product information. An example of similar kind of thing is here:

http://www.wealdentool.com/acatalog/...Tipped_35.html

I know that you can add Custom Variables to your product via the Properties tab but this seems quite a manual and time consuming way to go about it. Ideally, I'd like to import the information from an Excel or an external file. I've experimented with this but fallen at the mapping fields hurdle when my fields don't match those supplied by Actinic. I've also tried the multiple columns html, I encountered some errors so stopped, as I wasn't sure that it was what I needed anyway. However, if someone could point me in the right direction I don't mind pursuing or figuring out how to do something.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Charlotte

[NormanRouxel]

There are several ways to implement the site that you referred to.

Each page is slightly different so you'd have create a Product Template that lays the product (+ additional Custom Properties) out in the appropriate number of rows. This template would start with <tr> and end with <tr>. You'd need several as some pages will have more columns of info than others.

You'd set this template to be the default one for that Section (page).

The actual layout is achieved by using an initial Fragment to lay out the informative info and then start a table with the appropriate number of headings (using a Customised Fragment template). So this template would display the description, the image and then e.g.

<!-- CUSTOM Table Layout Start RightImageAndTitle HTML begin -->

<tr>
<td colspan="3" valign="top">

NETQUOTEVAR:FRAGMENTANCHOR
<table border="0" width="100%" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="1">
  <tr>
    <td valign="top">
    <h3>NETQUOTEVAR:BROCHURE_TITLE</h3>
    NETQUOTEVAR:BROCHURE_TEXT
    </td>
    <td valign="top" align="center">NETQUOTEVAR:BROCHURE_IMAGE</td>
  </tr>
</table>

<!-- Start our Table heading -->
<br>
<table>
  <tr>
    <td>Part no</td><td>A(mm)</td>....<td>Price</td><td>Click to Buy</td>
  <tr>
<!-- now leave this multi-column table open for each such Product to add rows -->

<!-- CUSTOM Table Layout Start RightImageAndTitle HTML end -->

That last <tr> would be the end of the fragment.

Then for each product your custom Product Template (not shown) is used continuing the open table by adding a row for each product and using CUSTOMVAR's for the various items.

Finally you'd end this extra table by having a dummy Fragment at the bottom of the page containing the final </table> e.g.

<!-- CUSTOM End Multi-column Layout HTML begin -->

<!-- NETQUOTEVAR:FRAGMENTANCHOR NETQUOTEVAR:BROCHURE_TEXT -->

 </table>
</td>
</tr>

<!-- CUSTOM End Multi-column Layout HTML end -->