Building a Store from beginning

[Doc]

Hi All
I have studied the documentation:
Getting started with design in Actinic 7
Desiging with Actinic Developer
Design and Implementation
And what I can say from these documents, is that they are written by technical writers and alot of the inormation is repeated between these three documents.
I am looking for a How To document: How to build a Store step by step, using Dreamweaver and Actinic. Does such a document exist? If anyone has written one, I would really appreciate a look at it...

thanks doc

[simonwar]

Have you done any web building before .....

Doc,

What level of knowledge would you say you have in webdesign ?

First i don't think there is a document of the type your looking for, and I also believe you don't need it, and as anyone will tell you IT manuals are CRAP! Even good ones.

I too have just started with Actinic Catalog and consider myself an intermediate web designer, and just played around a bit asking specific questions using this forum. OK, I am pretty good with HTML and fair on scripts, but really, the template orientated approach to Actinic is very easy to grasp once you have a play around, and get some guidance from other users.

I strongly suggest that you should not worry about an holistic remedy to designing with Actinic, and just load up a few dummy sections and products, and attempt to modify template html pages later.....(what are these you may say).... Don't worry just ask a few questions on this site, there are loads of good people who will have the answer you want, and tell you exactly what to do mouse click to mouse click.

You will get the best out of this forum by asking specific questions, i know because my site is coming on wicked and its down to much of the support from this forum.

Best of luck, Simon.

[AJReading]

You may also find that creating a template from scratch is a bad idea. Have a look through the templates and the "Clean Layout" templates as most of them will provide the basis to a design you are looking for.

I found it much easier to create designs from modifying the existing templates rather than starting from the beginning.

www.classixshop.com
www.curtainpolesemporium.co.uk

Both these used the "Clean Layouts" and i simply added my own images and code to save hassle of making my own

[Doc]

I am a programmer by profession. been in IT for 20 years (inc. HTML).
I think actinic is feature packed product, but its a bit of a mine field..
I am trying to figure out what fragments are and how templates build up fragments and web pages.
When I look at the Template Manager it gives me a generic view of a generic page..what I want to know, is how do i know which templates have been merged together to produce a specific web page..I want the Template manager to say..here are a list of all the templates which are in THIS PAGE...is that possible..and where do fragments fit in...are they web pages or parts of a web page or just few templates added together...

[AJReading]

Im also a programmer by proffession but ive only been in the business 3 years and im only 18. Ive used actinic for about 1 year now and was pretty confident with it after half a year. Its simple once you use it and play around with it. If i can learn it im sure you can

As for the template manager....
There is a button on the top right, "Change View" click it and you will see a much more complex version of the template manager. However im sure you will find this version much easier to use...

Let me know if you have any more problems/questions

[Doc]

Thanks...how are you using actinic...are you doing some site design or just using the existing designs in actinic

[pinbrook]

I want the Template manager to say..here are a list of all the templates which are in THIS PAGE

if you use the dreamweaver extension this will help with the above

Also the template manager is good for identifying which template does what.

Its just a case of trial and error whilst you learn.

Give yourself a day or so just to build and destroy. Then start building for real