designing tips????

[00lewis]

Does anyone know if it would be easier to design the look of your site from scratch in dream-weaver and then try to attach all the actinic code/links etc from the existing templates? Or is this extremely hard. or should i continue to struggle with the existing templates?

I'm also unsure if what i am doing is correct, I am saving over the existing templates and receiving a few warnings/ when creating preview.

1st: if you have a customer accounts set up, you will not see the customer login page.

2nd: when i go back to dreamweaver the warning is as follows: your document has been modified out side of dreamweaver would you like to reload it? (if usually press NO otherwise it will go back to the default)

are these warnings usual and am i doing the correct thing

[pinbrook]

For v7 I'd say design using the templates as the base, for V8 you can create you outer layout in DW

[domino1]

Hi Steve,
Which template file are you editing when Dreamweaver gives you the change warning?

[pinbrook]

With v7 I create a site within DW from the site1 folder and edit the actinic templates using DW, then use Actinic to preview the site

[00lewis]

well the warining come up no matter which template the first has a "do not show again" type tick box so i guess its just a normal thing.

I'm getting confused as to which part of the templates i should be customizing, i think i'm in the correct place and then when previewed in actinic it doesn't always work. but then i realize, for example the the side menus then have another type of template( almost templates within templates).

[domino1]

It sounds like you're editing the wrong files. Actinic will generate the html files for your site based on the templates. If you edit these generated files, Actinic will overwrite your edits when you upload/preview the site. You need to edit the base template files not the generated files.

The template files start with Act_

eg Act_BrochurePrimary.html

[00lewis]

at the moment i am trying to customize the left menu so that its the same on the brochure pages and catalogue pages. am i correct in thiniking - from the basic_products.html page i can work out which templates are being used, then i can click on the edit button and adapt it. So far i have manage to change the current menu images by creating my own and then copying that over the top of the default image, that way i dont need to change any code. however i want to loose the gaps that it puts between each menu image, is this not re-arranged on the basic_products.html,

many thanks for you help so B.T.W

[00lewis]

i'm also guessing that allot of the code is to customize the site through actinic? can i get rid of this as i'm not customizing in this way?

[domino1]

OK. As long as you're finding the correct template file. For a moment I thought you were editing the basic_products.html file itself.

The general rule is don't get rid of anything unless you're 100% sure what it's for and that it's safe to get rid of it.

[pinbrook]

if you ensure you do not compact the code (Design |options) you can use the generated pages to show you which template to edit.

The template manager is good to show you which template too.

i'm also guessing that allot of the code is to customize the site through actinic?i'm also guessing that allot of the code is to customize the site through actinic?

if you create a site within Dw as I mentioned before you can do all your editting in DW