Actinic HTML

[Bulldog]

In order to change the design from actinic to my own I have opened the actinic page in Dreamweaver (after unchecking the compress html) and redesigned it.

I have then copied and pasted the revised HTML into the TEXT area of the catalogues 'New Section' and included the !!<>!! tags.

The HTML I have pasted in includes all the Attributes like 'Add To Cart' and the various options I created like drop down menus for product colour and quantity selection and the embedded flash movie.

Will this still work in Actinic when the customer places an order as the whole content area (excluding navigation and logo) is in the HTML I have pasted into this texs area. Will VAT and all that order processing stuff still work.

For example for each product I have 1 'New Section' page only and this contains all the HTML for all functions belonging to that product if you know what I mean. (Add to cart, colour options etc).

As you can appreciate, I dont want to do this on all products as there will be around 200 products in total.

[jont]

If you have edited the templates to suit your own site design why not let Actinic handle the site? I am not sure why you are adding in the HTML into text areas under Actinic when Actinic will do this automatically.

You need to edit the various templates to match your design and simply add the products in under Actinic... otherwise you are definately going to kill the site for sure. Once your templates are set up adding new products, sections etc wil all be handled correctly and will be laid out exactly as you want it.

[Bulldog]

Layout

The reason I have pasted in the HTML is because 'for example', I want to put my products in columns and rows, say 5 products per row over 5 rows, then use another page for another 25 products and so on until all my products are there. Actinic seems to put all my products in 1 column so when you have 200products, the page is too long.
Also I want to change the placement of the attributes (colour and quantity drop down menus). They are also placed in 1 column and that isnt the look I want.
When I change the layout in Dreamweaver and save the changes, then do some more work in Actinic and preview it the changes revert back to the actinic design layout. Actinic doesnt seem to very changeable.
OK you can change the navigation buttons and header areas and even some of the colours but I cant seem to completely manipulate the design to exactly match the client brief. The Netquotevars are quite complicated and I just try to comment them out.
I will have another go but if I you completely manipulate the design then maybee it would be better to employ a database programmer and manually code each e-commerce job.
Are ther any other websites that sort of offer more advice or is there only this forum?
Or am I doing it all wrong and its totaly my fault. Are there any other resources on the web?

[Duncan Rounding]

You will find loads of help here Martin, hang in there. Once you grasp how the concept works it'll get easier - many people (myself included) found it a steep learning curve at first.

Actinic creates the html pages based on templates. It is these templates that you will need to modify, not the resultant Actnic created html - otherwise, as you rightly say, it will get overwritten.

I would recommend downloading the Advanced User Guide and having a read, it will help grasp the basics.

You'll find the forum very helpful here for anything specific that you need help with.

As for your immediate problem of too many products on a page: Try creating subsections of products so that each section doesn't have too many products per page. You can also place products in columns with a simple extra piece of code mentioned in the AU Guide.

Duncan R

[jont]

As Duncan says - if you are making changes and then losing when previewing it is likely you are editing the files in the PreviewHTML folder - you need to be making the changes in the root of the site1 folder to the actual templates that feature all the NETQUOTEVAR's

When creating your own layout I find the best solution to start is to open the Act_Primary.html (the main "holding" template) and copy your design at the bottom of the page. Slowly but surely copy in the relevent NETQUOTEVAR's and other Actinic stuff, save and preview back under Actinic to make sure you have not killed everything. When happy with the new layout strip out the old design.

You can't comment out the majority of the NQV's - they are compiled by Actinic and without them the page will die.

Persevere - once you get into the methodology with Actinic you will appreciate its flexibility - it just takes a little while to get there.