Design Idea: can it be done?

[calmncomfy]

I'm toying with the following idea:

1) Having an individual section for each product to allow large pictures & keep the page loading time optimised

2) Placing text & picture links in a table on the main shop page (like the current home page of www.calmncomfy.co.uk ) to jump to information only pages in the catalog. These info pages will have fragments only that link to other appropriate fragment only pages. This gets around the problem of Actinics rigid hierarchy section format.

3) These information fragments will at a relevant point link to the product section where customers can see a big picture of the one product they want quickly & buy it.

4) My main question is how do I hide the huge list of sections that would appear (1 for each product) on the main catalog page? - perhaps have one more sub section called "full product list. that contains all the product sections.

5) I also need to get fragments to appear above sections for any page
Can anyone think of the best way this could be achieved?

I get frustrated with not being able to show lots of small pics on one screen for the customers to view without having all the section showing above them.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

[wjcampbe]

1) I believe that is a good idea.
2) Doable. Why not keep the fragments in the Brochure section.
3) Doable.
4) Use Sectionstop instead of Sectionsraw on the main page.
5) Design | Options - default section lists - bottom.

[calmncomfy]

Thanks for that Bill. something to keep me busy.

Each time I add a new brochure page a new page link is added to the top of all the brochure pages. I don't want too many of these- hence putting them in the shop pages.

I really want to put navigation buttons on the site, down the side rather than page names text at the top. I think this would involve changing the design|themes This is something I need to address soon. My main problem with this is lack of programming & customvar knowledge. I understand Dreamweaver can help this & see that 1&1 are offeriing it for free with a minimum 6 month hosting package, which would be about £90. Seems a good deal.

What theme do you use?

[wjcampbe]

I'm using smart, and about to take the plunge away from the yahoo style section links - I have two or three new product ranges in development, so its about to get unmanageable. My initial thoughts are to keep the top level section links, but use alternate navigation in a second table for the section internals. - Still thinking it over.

[jont]

The Smart theme is generally a good design and can be changed quite easily - my main niggle for me is always the navigation using the Yahoo style layout which I have stripped out for my own site and have modified for the others. Taking search engines through the CGI bin is not great but if you are linking from fragments to the products and sections you should be OK. That said it does work well out of the box.

My own site has fixed sections and subsections that I don't need Actinic to maintain dynamically - I have installed a CSS navigation which is very easy to update should I need and extra section or subsection.

[calmncomfy]

OK I've slaved away at this one and have finished the first phase. If anyone would like to give some feedback on any further improvements I would appreciate them. A good point to start looking for the new bits is http://www.calmncomfy.co.uk/acatalog...Bracelets.html
thanks again for your help Bill & Jont

[wjcampbe]

Colin, you are coming along very nicely, but I have to say I don't like the way the 'tell a friend' wraps. I would try a space between friend and the <input tag, and if that does not make it look a bit better, I'd go for the <br> after the friend.

[calmncomfy]

Yes good point. I've got that done now. Cheers

[pinbrook]

I've been looking at the site - the salt lamps look to be an interesting product. But there is no size info for them, you give the weight but I'd like to know how many cms high, wide etc.

Don't tell anyone but I was thinking of Christmas presants!

Additionally why don't you addd the crystal deodorant as a component to the magnetic braclet, then people can add it to the basket more easily.

One thing that bugs me about the curves theme is the duplication of the navigation, I would get rid of the left hand block of navigation and allow yourself the luxery of full width screen since you are going heavily for images. I like the magnetic braclet section, good images and information

[completerookie]

try including the ALT="..." tag to the horizontal row of pictures, this then becomes the tool-tips similar to the vertical pictures

[calmncomfy]

Thanks for all your useful comments.

Jo - Yes I must do those measurements. Its difficult as each one is a vrey indivdual size, but i'll put in approximations. As for crystal deodorant, that is a good point. I will add a hypertext jump to the free product. I agree with you on the curves navigation, I'm considering a change to smart when I find time.

Kevin - I must be more a rookie than completerookie, I don't understand how to do this

ALT="..." tag

. could you explain a bit more?

[Nadeem]

Hi there

Someone else asked about this, here is a thread on one way of doing an alt tag. http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=12003

Kind Regards