Actinic developed for multiple computers?

[Christylh]

This is sort've a basic question but was Actinic developed with the intent of designing a site AND downloading/processing orders from the same installation only?

We have one system which design, uploads & changes are made from (mine) & one which orders are downloaded & processed from (the customer service PC), but when I make changes to the site, sometimes our rep gets .fil errors when she downloads (saying hosted files have changed & she needs to reupload the site).

The only way I can resolve it is to take a snapshot of the site from my system & transfer it to her & upload from there once.

My manager & I have discussed this problem openly & we have contacted our ISP who says that our file environments have not changed & they claim it isn't them. So I'm at a bit of a loss.

Will Actinic Developer ever be networkable or is it meant to be used in a single computer only fashion?

[chris ashdown]

You are right in that to use it on more than one computer you need to transfer snapshots between the working online computer and the development computer

There is a new networked version of developer which although expensive may be what you are looking for

[Christylh]

That is interesting.

Can anyone contact me about this networked version who is reading? Thanks!

[Froogle]

That is interesting.

Can anyone contact me about this networked version who is reading? Thanks!

you can split actinic between 2 computers

what you do is install it on both pcs and load the snapshot on each. Within the settings you can choose one to only allow uploads and the other to only allow downloads.

the only thing with this is if you add products on one pc then they're not included in the second pc. Not a problem unless you're doing offline orders

cheers

[jont]

Is the download machine being used to stock control on the site?

Not sure why you are getting the .fil errors on the download machine. We are set up so on one specific site the maintenance is done on my machine and the orders are dragged down on another in sales. Both machines are under the same version number (7.0.4)

When I need to make a change to the site I simply upload (after ensuring they have cleared any orders from the site) and then they can download immediately without any errors or warnings. The sales machine is set with maintenance disabled and all they have in icons across the top is "print" and "download"

[Jan]

Actinic is designed to be used as you are using it, ie: one machine for developement and upload and one machine for download. You have to have exactly the same version of Actinc on both machines and your security keys have to be the same. You need to bear the following in mind though if you do have split development

1) Stock control will not work unless you transfer stock figures from the download machine to the upload machine (or use external linking to link the stock levels between both machines)

2) If you create customer accounts from orders on the download machine, you have to transfer them to the upload machine and upload them to your website for them to become active.

3) If you are taking offline orders on your orders machine, you need to keep the catalog up to date on your download machine to prevent issues with different pricing etc.

We are using split processing at the moment but are going to move back to using a single machine because of issue 2 in the list.

We get the .fil messages sometimes but ignore them and don't seem to have any problems.

There is also the new multiuser version of Actinic, which is available to purchase from Actinic, this gives you the ability to use Actinic on several machines at once, you can find more details about this at the URL below :

http://www.actinic.co.uk/products/multi_user.htm

Regards,

[richardh9999]

Hi Jan

I've been thinking about starting to use customer accounts but from what I read in your message maybe its not a good idea, given that I maintain the website from Istabul but orders are downloaded in the UK.

Any clever ideas?

Best wishes
Richard

[Jan]

I have often wondered where you are based Richard, now I know.

We export a hierarchical import file from the download computer to the upload computer, import it there and upload - this is not a good thing to do though because the internal customer ids are different, so while people can shop online, the orders are sometimes assigned to the wrong customer on the download machine. The only way to be certain is to transfer a snapshot from the orders machine to the upload machine - not that practical but the only surefire way of transferring customers properly.

Regards,

Jan