How to edit sidebar content in Actinic?

[tintin99]

I have some custom sidebar boxes (eg news, featured product, exhibitions etc) and I want to be able to edit these in Actinic but can't find an obvious way of doing it. Is it possible?

[jont]

In v7 this is done by using CUSTOMVAR ... or Custom Variables... I assume at the moment they are hard coded into the Act_Primary templates? If so create as many CUSTOMVAR's as you need and enter their text at the site level... then replace the hard coded text with your CMV in the Act_Primary templates eg:

CUSTOMVAR:NEWS
CUSTOMVAR:FEATURES

HTH

[wjcampbe]

With no URL provided, we have to guess what theme you are using, and so help provided may be miles off the mark.

Are you talking Brochure Pages or Product Pages, or both? Again we have to guess?

It is likely that your answers lie in the template files (ActPrimary.html and ActBrochurePrimary.html) but if you really want help, you'll need to provide a bit more information.

Have you read the Help Topics in Actinic and the Getting Started Guide that is installed with the Programme? This really sounds like a basic question that is already covered to a degree in those areas, and fully covered in the Advanced User Guide.

[tintin99]

In v7 this is done by using CUSTOMVAR ... or Custom Variables... I assume at the moment they are hard coded into the Act_Primary templates? If so create as many CUSTOMVAR's as you need and enter their text at the site level... then replace the hard coded text with your CMV in the Act_Primary templates eg:

CUSTOMVAR:NEWS
CUSTOMVAR:FEATURES

HTH

Thanks Jont - I now understand how to use CUSTOMVAR's which is very helpful! But it looks like there's only a small input field for adding content (Design Options -> Site Defaults) and no way of including images. I see that CUSTOMVAR's can be used to include files but I could use NETQUOTEVAR:INCLUDE for this. And this would mean using another application for editing the include files which I was hoping to avoid.

An ideal solution (I think!) would be to create a brochure fragment for each of the sidebar boxes and then pull them into the page directly from the database but I'm not sure if this is possible?...or even if it would work...

I did try creating a brochure page for each sidebar box and then using NETQUOTEVAR:INCLUDE but it didn't work - I think because Actinic was trying to include the brochure files before they had been generated!

[acompton]

A CUSTOMVAR in a product will take up to 255 characters - that's quite a lot to read. Use two CUSTOMVARs if you need more.
A CUSTOMVAR in a product can take an image - enter the pathname from the Site1 folder and tick the 'filename' checkbox.
I assume that these options are possible in Site->Defaults

I did sidebars on the home page by hard-coding them in the template, as the text and images are fixed.

[tintin99]

A CUSTOMVAR in a product will take up to 255 characters - that's quite a lot to read. Use two CUSTOMVARs if you need more.
A CUSTOMVAR in a product can take an image - enter the pathname from the Site1 folder and tick the 'filename' checkbox.
I assume that these options are possible in Site->Defaults

I did sidebars on the home page by hard-coding them in the template, as the text and images are fixed.

Thanks Alan, I hadn't twigged you could do images like that. I thought you could probably put lots of text in the field even though the field itself is small but the problem is my not-very-computer-tolerant client will probably find it all a bit user-unfriendly.

[jont]

You can also use an external .txt file for more text and use the filename to be included ... that makes editing and maintaining much simpler ... I use this on several sites when the client is no au fait with Actinic menu's, HTML etc