Starting at the beginning

[towcho]

Hi,

I am starting to develop my next-generation website and in the process want to end up being able to develop for other people.

My very first question is about themes and how to assess which is the best for a particular application.

I have listed out all the themes and the templates which are unique to each one.

1. When I choose a theme, presumably Actinic moves the templates in the theme directory into site 1. This seems to suggest that the templates listed in Site1 are not the "original" templates, but ones specific to the theme currently in use. Where are the "original" templates, and is one of the themes the "original" (if so which one is it?).

2. It looks to me as though the theme you choose actually contains the whole functionality of the site, not just navigation and appearance. Is there any information I can read which will give me a quick reference guide to the sort of functions (outside of navigation & appearance) effected in each theme? Again, is this compared to an "original" or is each one its own starting point (do you know what I mean?).

I am asking this so that I can minimise the work needed and to keep templates in their received state as much as possible.

I hope this makes sense....

Cheers,

Pauline

[jont]

There is no "original" theme as such. The themes are stored under Actinic v7/Formats/Themes.

Each theme is slightly different so all the bits it needs are brought into the site1 folder when you change a theme - take note if you change any scripts or templates and change a theme they will be over written with the basic starting template.

Most of the templates in the site1 folder do the same thing between themes but may be laid out is a different way. You can find what template does what using the template manager and also using the Dreamweaver plugin if you have Dreamweaver.

Have you downloaded the Advanced Design and User guide form the main Actinic website yet? Lots of info in there about the templates etc.

[towcho]

Thanks for this.

Where is the "basic starting template"? This is what I'm after I think.

The Guides are useful to explain the purpose of each template and a rough idea of functionality, and then helpful in describing specific changes. The template manager (I assume) shows me what's in the theme currently in use.

I don't have Dreamweaver.

What I'd really like is a high level outline of each theme and how it is different from the "basic" (ie what it offers).

I would assume that the best way to enhance a template would be to save it as a new theme (in the Themes directory) and develop it from there. I would imagine that if I wanted changes to other "basic templates", then they would have to be saved to the new template directory and developed from there.

Is this the right approach?

Cheers,

Pauline

[jont]

Not quite sure what you are meaning by the basic starting template - when you load a theme the templates are brought into the site1 folder in an unmodified fashion.

You may be confusing template with themes. A theme is a set of templates which Actinic uses to compile the pages. Each theme has a lot of templates all starting with Act_??? each template has a different function .. some handle the price, some the image, some the brochure layout, some the section layouts etc. Most of the templates are intrinsically the same between themes eg Act_Primary.html template does the same thing but is laid out slightly differently ... Act_ProductLIne.html again does the same thing in laying out the products but can vary between themes.

When you change a theme the biggest change is usually to the Act_Primary.html as this is the master template which affects most of the site design

If you have Developer you can modify a theme accordingly and then export and create a new theme and you can also then send to a customer.

HTH

[towcho]

There is no "original" theme as such. The themes are stored under Actinic v7/Formats/Themes.

Each theme is slightly different so all the bits it needs are brought into the site1 folder when you change a theme - take note if you change any scripts or templates and change a theme they will be over written with the basic starting template.

I do understand the difference between themes and templates - I'm reacting to your comment above, which implies that there is some basic theme with "original" templates from which other templates have been generated (to give each theme its uniqueness).

I know I can generate a new theme, and more or less how to do it. My question is whether there is a quick way of working out which theme would offer me the best "template" for a new theme, and whether there is one from which all the others have been generated. Without knowing this, I could spend hours trying to get to grips with every existing theme and trying to understand which templates have been used/changed and how.

I want to know in what way each theme is unique, so that I know which one to start with on a new development.

I'm not sure I'm making myself clear..?

[towcho]

Each theme is slightly different so all the bits it needs are brought into the site1 folder when you change a theme - take note if you change any scripts or templates and change a theme they will be over written with the basic starting template.

I do understand the difference between themes and templates - I'm reacting to your comment above, which implies that there is some basic theme with "original" templates from which other templates have been generated (to give each theme its uniqueness).

I know I can generate a new theme, and more or less how to do it. My question is whether there is a quick way of working out which theme would offer me the best basis for a new theme, and whether there is one from which all the others have been generated. Without knowing this, I could spend hours trying to get to grips with every existing theme and trying to understand which templates have been used/changed and how.

When I start, I expect I will have found a few websites which look something like what i want to do. I then want to make the best choice of the existing themes, giving me the required navigational layout, look and feel as well as overall functionality.

So I would like to know if there is a basic theme or set of templates, and an idea of which aspects are unique for each theme.

I'm not sure I'm making myself clear..?

[jont]

If you take a look through the theme folders you will see which templates are changed to that theme including all the images... the rest can be found in Actinc v7 / Original folder where if you modify soemthing in the Site1 folder and mess up you can drag back from the Original and ovewrite.

A lot of the themes are small variations on each other with a few exceptions eg Smart Theme. If you are developing sites you will find most of the developers on here will start with a clean CSS layout and hack the layouts to suit

[towcho]

Thanks very much for this. I also spoke to the helpdesk and I think I've got it straight now.

On to the next one...

Cheers,

Pauline