Advice Please!

[Craftcorner]

Hi,
I am new to this and would like some advice. I am currently building a website using Actinic Catalog V7. I would like to use the on-line shop main page as my homepage, is it okay to do this or do I need to use the designed homepage and brochure pages. It appears to be working fine in the offline preview mode.

I am using one of the clean layout themes and have the different sections listed down the bar on the lefthand side of the screen. I have tried to reduce the size of the font size unsuccessfully! Can anyone please tell me how I can do this?

Regards,
William

[jont]

Hi William,

welcome to the forum. Do you mean you want to use your existing homepage and not the homepage created by Actinic? If so then in the content tree click on the "home" icon and untick "use as website homepage" and in Design | Options | Misc enter the homepage link you want to use eg http://www.site.com/index.htm.

To reduce the size of the section font in the left hand bar using the smart theme you will need to open and edit Act_Primary.html template in the root of the Site1 folder (take a copy before editing)

In the header of the page you will see a Javascript function called "function YahooSections(ar)" and a few lines in look for the following:

strIDs += '<a href="' + ar[i].sURL + '"><span class="actregular"><b><font color="NETQUOTEVAR:FGCOLORCSS">'

the size of the text is being set by class="actregular" ... you can make smaller using any of the default styles set up in the actinic.css style sheet .. eg "actsmall" will make it 2 pixels smaller and "actlarge" will make it 2 sizes larger.

The child sections are styled at

strIDs += '<a href="' + ar[i].pChild[j].sURL + '"><span class="actxxsmall">

again you can make smaller or larger by changing the class="actxxsmall" accordingly.

If you want to do more than simply change the size (eg a different colour) you will need to create a new style class in the actinic.css stylesheet and specify in the Act_Primary accordingly.

Hope that make sense.

Jont

[Craftcorner]

Re:Advice Please!

Hi Jont,
Thank you for replying to my request. The layout I am using is the Clean Layout04. It does not have the Java function you stated, but it uses NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP.
I have manged to reduce the font size down by editing ACT_Sectionline.html. I am still trying to figure out how to reduce the spaces between the sections titles in the lefthand bar. The aim is to reduce the overall length of the section titles. So if you have ideas I would greatly appreciate them.

Again thanks for you help.

William

[Bruce]

Hi,

I am afraid it will not be possible to reduce the space between the section Titles as NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTION actually uses the following in "Design | Text"

ID : HTML CODE
1187: <TABLE width="100%"><TR>
1188: </TR></TABLE>
1189: <TD WIDTH="%d%%" valign="top">
1190: </TD>

So each section has eg "Basic Products", has it own table. The problem is
that if you remove these tables, you also remove the main tables for the
main section, as they are both connected.

Kind regards,

[Bruce]

Hi,

Amendment to my previous post after trying something else...

If you remove the tables from Design | Text, then you can put the table/row/cell tags around NETQUOTEVAR:SECTIONLISTTOP and
NETQUOTEVAR:SECTIONLISTBOTTOM in the productbody template for the main section list. You could also put table tags around the template used for Top Sections (Act_SectionLineSmallText.html) to control NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP.

Kind regards,

[Craftcorner]

Re:Advice Please!

Thanks Bruce,

For your previous two replies, I have tried that and it works, but it still leaves me with a space between the section names.

As another option I tried to create a list box from the code in the Advance Users Guide, page 37. I put this into ACT_Primary as requested, but it does not do anything. Can someone please tell me if I need to disable anything or does it need to be put into other templates such ACT_Primaryleft etc, as I am looking for it to be displayed in the lefthand side bar.

Regards,
William

[Bruce]

Hi,

Can yo confirm that you put the first bit of code between the the <HEAD></HEAD> tags in Act_Primary.html and then inserted this bit....
<FORM>
<script language=Javascript1.2>
document.write(ACT_ListBox(sections) + "<BR>")
</script>
</FORM>

In the left hand bar where you want it to appear? If you have, have you updated the site?

Kind regards,

[Craftcorner]

RE:Advice Please

Hi Bruce,

I have put the main function code between the <HEAD></HEAD> tags of ACT_Primary, below the commented out NETQUOTEVARS.
The script routine I place after the NETQUOTEVAR:SIMPLESEARCH & NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP in the section for the lefthand bar.
I wrote it exactly as it appears in the book and I have gone though it several time but can't see anything wrong.

Regards,

William

[Jesterfx]

A better subject title would be very helpful chum

[Bruce]

Hi,

Can you upload a copy of the template you are trying to amend so that we can take a look at it and let you know what is happening.

Kind regards,

[Bruce]

Hi,

Taking a look at the template and will post back once I have worked out what is happening.

[Bruce]

Hi William,

Have located the problem. It is with the second bit of code you pasted to the left hand side to display.

Please note.. You currently have..
<FORM>
<script language=Javascript1.2>
document.write(ACT_ListBox(sections))+ "<BR>")
</script>
</FORM>

This line ..
document.write(ACT_ListBox(sections))+ "<BR>")

Needs to change to show

document.write(ACT_ListBox(sections)+ "<BR>")

You had added an extra closing bracket ) after the sections. It should be
(ACT_ListBox(sections)+

Not

(ACT_ListBox(sections))+

Have tried it here and it works just fine.

Kind regards,

[Montoid]

Follow uo to this: Frustrating Problem

Hi, I've just completed my first Actinic website:

http://www.gardengadgets.co.uk

My section links are rollover buttons which look fine in Explorer BUT when viewed on my Mac at work they spread down the page in a really untidy way, viewed with firefox, safari etc. After following this post, can I just confirm that this is my only option i.e. the tagging individual templates thingy. I am a complete and bewildered beginner!!

Any thoughts, comments on my site would be great! (Clients like it, phew!)

P.S. I've sepnt all afternoon on this problem

[Bruce]

Paul,

The site looks and displays just fine on a PC, the rollovers work and everything looks just fine. I have had a look in IE, Mozilla, Opera and it looks real fine. Unless you really want it to look different on the Mac I would suggest leaving it as it is, but if the client wants the spaces reduced, you will have to go with the advise above.

Like the layout of the site and the overall feel. Neat.

Kind regards,

[leehack]

Paul

Think the site looks great, only one thing i didn't like:

when customer gets an option to choose colour etc., i saw the question "what colour do you want?", this doesn't read too well, bit like a stroppy teenager who can't be arsed to help you in the local grocers.

I would suggest something like "please select colour required"

Just my opinion.