New site feedback please!

[simonwar]

Header graphic ....

Take this as constructively as possible, I am a newbie too and your already ahead of me, so well done and good luck.

However, sort your header graphic out, its horrible, and is my first impression of your business.

(speed4ubanner.GIF 4kB, note is 960 wide and your phone number hangs off the page when my IE Favourites is on.... which it always is).

I know functionality and product is worth more than visuals, and your gif is only 4K, but 20 minutes on Corel or Photoshop and you can import a standard banner better than the one you've got.

You are already Pro, coz your using Actinic..... its just a cherry on the cake, but simply a good banner, is worth its weight in gold.

Shoppers want to be impressed, especially if your selling gaming memory, gamers love awesome graphics..... don't dissapoint.

Food for thought, S.

[jubbbird]

I was momentarilly confused about the "More Pages" PAGE I understand its not a section, but just a example page.

I have based my custom theme on BusinessCSS. It seems that if I place the NQVs for section lists on brochure pages, including the home page, it actually prints the text, i assume because its not parsing that variable in the brochure primary template.

I've looked at the Smart theme, but not others just yet, and it does by default in clude the required Javascript to invoke the section list menu on the home page by including it in the brochure primary template. Is that not how it is accomplished in the Best Seller theme? If not then my next question is "what else, beyond the templates and some config files, defines a theme? Im not entirely sure of the value of categorising a custom theme as the "child" of an existing theme. My custom theme WAS based on BusinessCSS, but theres little left to show for it. I simple can't get the section list NQVs to respond in Act_BrochurePrimary.html

To recap, could those of you who have been so helpful thus far please check your Act_BrochurePrimary.html templates for:

"<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" SRC="Act_section_tree.js" TYPE="text/javascript"></SCRIPT>"

accompanied later on by:

"document.write(YahooSections(section_tree))"

This will show that javascript is being used to generate your section list. Alternatively, no javascript like the above but instead NQVs such as:

"NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP"

show that the legitimate Actinic NQVs are being used to plant a section list that does not require javascript. If this is the case then it is possible to get the variable to work on the brochure pages.

Thanks very much for all your feedback, it is greatly appreciated

[Charles Bastari]

Is that not how it is accomplished in the Best Seller theme?

As with Smart Theme, The Act_section_tree.js is how it is accomplished in Best Seller theme. Perhaps Duncan can advise how he incorporated NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP in his front pages. I'm primarily concerned with functionality. If it works on a permanent basis, I'm happy with it. My main contention was your statement that seemed to imply that Alison herself or someone else had to put the code in her primary brochure template in oder for the category list to be appearing on the home page.

my understanding is that anyone with security set to an inconvenient level will be unable to see the product category menu :/

I have a friend whoes paranoia goes beyond the pale. His browser security settings are so high that he can't place an order on my site or anywhere else unless he lowers them. He nor anyone else I've ever spoken to about my site ever had a problem viewing the category list on the home and brochure pages. That is, before I removed it completely.

[Duncan Rounding]

...Perhaps Duncan can advise how he incorporated NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP in his front pages...

I use the clean theme layouts. The Act_Primary template:
C:\Program Files\Actinic v7\Formats\Themes\Layout13\Act_Primary.html
shows the usage of NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP.
I have just taken the same simple code and placed it my Act_BrochurePrimary template.
I also added the same code into my Act_ShoppingCart template - although you could debate whether you wish to give your buyer the choice to click away when approaching the checkout.
Although it has no direct bearing, I also removed the brochure nav code in Act_BrochurePrimary and hard coded my brochure page links - the links became cumbersome and I only wanted to link to some of them directly.

[jubbbird]

So to ensure I have understood correctly, you have successfully used NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP in your Act_BrochurePrimary.html template file - resulting in a section list menu thingy - and theres no javascript involved?

If thats the case I might need to quiz tech support about how one alters a theme (custom or no) to correctly encorporate this variable on brochure pages.

With regards to security and javascript - javascript has long been a widely acknowledged security threat, but to be honest I have never been quite sure which code used in what manor actually produces the default warnings that XP SP2 provides. For example, even simple examples of Javascript that you might find on any random website - such as rollover menu images that chance when you place your mouse over them - can produce that bar at the top of the screen that won't allow the active content to run until the user selects "Allow...". In a case like this, the rollovers fail to materialise but the links still work which is acceptable (most sites have no rollovers and look just fine). However when the bar appears, rendering your online shop useless until the novice user realises they have to click a couple of tmes to enable all your fancy interactive content, thats gonna suck somewhat.

For this reason I would like to avoid - at ALMOST all costs (last resort then I suppose) - using Javascript for fundamental, show stopping functionality. My current understanding is that a theme is nothing but a collection of html template files + a few text files describing configuration values. I am NOT aware of any configuration values that suggest one can enable or disable certain variables from use within certain templates. I HAVE spoken to tech support on several occasions and on one such occasion I was told that the javascript method was the only way to get section lists on brochure pages. It's also a means to get your section list appearing on pages on completely different domains/sites.

More info on the Clean Layout themes would be much appreciated Duncan

[Duncan Rounding]

I have just created a new site from scratch (out of the box as such) and then applied clean theme 14 to it. I then took NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP from the Act_Primary and placed in Act_BrochurePrimary. The navigation works perfectly on both product and brochure pages. Attached is the Act_BrochurePrimary template that I created. (Saved as a text file to be able to post here).

[Duncan Rounding]

...It's also a means to get your section list appearing on pages on completely different domains/sites...

I'm not so sure about what you are inferring with the above. You will only be able to use NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP on the particular site. You wouldn't be able to place it on pages not maintained by Actinic for that site. You could of course manually copy the produced code into 'other' webpages with minor modification (such as full URL paths).

[RuralWeb]

I can confirm what Duncan is saying, I use NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP on all my sites to generate the menu in the brouchure pages. The only theme it does not work in that Ive found is TwentyFour7.

[jubbbird]

So some themes it works and others it doesn't? Thats good i guess - I suppose it means all I have to do is find out what the difference is and jobs a gud'un.

Duncan - it is the javascript solution that allows you to have your section list on any website. You can include a remote file via javascript - such as the javascript file that is generated by Actinic when you use one of the "_RAW" variables that are listed at the top of "Act_Primary.html". It saves the time and effort associated with updating a statically defined and hand coded HTML menu that corresponds to whatever Actinic is producing based on your shop content.

Cheers guys though, you have been most helpful. When I find out what the magic switch is that allows "TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP" to work in Act_BrochurePrimary.html I shall report back just in case anyone else is interested in replacing any unclean javascript solutions...

[pinbrook]

Going back to the original posted question....

its looks as if thesite has been designed for 1024 res thus as Simon says the telephone number is not visible without scrolloing to all 800x600 users. A simple solution to this is to put the phone number to the left of the banner graphic and the slogan about gamer memory can go on the right. At least the n the phone number is more easily accessible

[Ally]

Going back to the original posted question....

its looks as if thesite has been designed for 1024 res thus as Simon says the telephone number is not visible without scrolloing to all 800x600 users. A simple solution to this is to put the phone number to the left of the banner graphic and the slogan about gamer memory can go on the right. At least the n the phone number is more easily accessible

Ahh now you say that, I see what you mean, my screen is 1024 x 768 pixels, I have done as you suggested Jo and swapped the phone number to the other side - Thanks for that, it will do for now as I am trying to redesgin the banner anyway as it is a bit crummy!, so I will sort it out and try and sort out the whole size thing too!

Thanks for the help and if anyone else has any comments (good or bad) i am grateful to hear them!!

Ally

[NormanRouxel]

David / jubbbird

When I find out what the magic switch is that allows "TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP" to work in Act_BrochurePrimary.html I shall report back just in case anyone else is interested in replacing any unclean javascript solutions...

There's no magic needed. NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP just works in Brochure Primary Templates.

Decrying JavaScript is somewhat pointless as it'll be enabled on 99%+ of customers browsers (I just checked a big Actinic store and it's 98.13% and I'll expect the missing few are spiders and other robots, not real people). The real world of the web would be a much poorer place without it. I'll bet you haven't disabled it in your own browser ;-)

Indeed one of the latest XML/Web technologies - Ajax - relies on JavaScript to add brand new functionality to web pages.

[jubbbird]

Well now that i've looked at a few other themes and checked out code from other people, its looking like thats true - Act_BrochurePrimary DOES INDEED use TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP successfully. The trouble is that when I did it in my custom theme based on BusinessCSS, it simply produced the text onscreen where I had planted the variable, rather than replacing it with the correct code.

I haven't honestly retried it recently after attempting it twice. Ill look a little closer and see what happens. However it still stands that RuralWeb claims it does NOT work in the TwentyFour7 theme... ? Im wondering if I've inherited something from BusinessCSS that stops it working. In which case I could just start a new site and overright the templates with my new ones. It also appears that documentation agrees that only Act_primary.html and Act_ProductBody support the variable TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP.

I'm awaiting word back from tech support who seem to be on the job and taking their time about it (they have come back to me several times with no new information, suggesting that they are actually investigation my issues with potentially interesting results - i've pointed them to this thread also, so if they don't post themselves I will report my findings shortly).

[Duncan Rounding]

I have just tested BusinessCSS theme with NETQUOTEVAR:TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP. When placed in Act_Primary it has no effect and does not show the sections listed. When placed in Act_BrochurePrimary it is not recognised and shows as the raw text of the NQV.

It shows that some themes do not support some NQVs. It does not surprise me that the BusinessCSS theme doesn't support the NQV due to the layout of the theme - that theme does not use either js nor TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP to show navigation. Navigation is only by means of a link back to the sections (shop.html), the sitemap or the breadcrumb trail.

[RuralWeb]

However it still stands that RuralWeb claims it does NOT work in the TwentyFour7 theme

Called Actinic today and they confirmed that there are quite a few themes that it does not work in.