Actinifying your site

[luka]

Following from the previous thread,

Gary's method of hardcoding the site and creating saving a page as Act_Primary makes things much clearer.

My question is , what happens there is not a clear division between shop and "brochure", say you want to have some intro text and a featured product somwhere in it, plus links to product sections from your homepage.
What code/url do you use to link to them and what needs to become the Primary template.
In which case how does it affect your "brochure" flexibility ie. including non poduct and section specific text/images on that homepage.

Also if I dont want to have cart buttons and contents on that page. not until I get to the section or product it links to

It seems I need to use some NETQUOTEVARS there but then the page needs to be based on a template
This "grey" area is confusing me at the moment


As an example of what I'm trying to do see www.agoy.co.uk

Note: I have no connection to the site, I've just been looking at how different sites sell their products and what they're based on.


many thanks,

[garyhay]

Can I suggest you go http://www.actinic.co.uk/support/downloads.htm and get the sdvanced user guide and the developer guide. I think the last 10 pages of the Developer V5 guide are the best

You can link directly to a product from outside the catalog.

In which case how does it affect your "brochure" flexibility ie. including non poduct and section specific text/images on that homepage.

It makes building the non-catalog part of the site much more flexible. It is built in Dreamweaver (or Fpage if you are mad) and you use the basis of this page for your Act_Primary


Chris can we have some sticky messages where we can post full answers to this kind of question

[luka]

thanks gary,

I already had the advanced guides but not the v5 one , good call.

I just have a question related to the content management of the "brochure" pages if they're hardcoded.

e.g if you want a featured product to change weekly, ok i think i saw something in one of the guides, but what about the text and images etc ie. being able to add/remove banner links or some thinthing like that, do i have to program a different backend for that? (not very elegant) or would it be an idea to save the design as Act_BrochurePrimary so that fragments etc. can be edited and added in actinic.

What are the pros and cons of this

Luka.

[luka]

Sorry, also forgot to ask,

I've looked up linking directly to products, thats ok.

Is ti possible to link to sections just by linking to the html page specified in the section wizard. eg. pots_and_pans.html (the page that gets generated) or do I have to use a different method.

thanks,

Luka.

[garyhay]

Not explaining this very well.

What I am trying to get at is you can have any number of pages outside the catalog (shop part) but retain the exact look and use as you have in the catalog.

I always thought that the brouchure was fine for some but felt it was easier to maintain the pages outside catalog with a different back end.

Yes you can link using the HTML file names from outside catalog and even from other sites.

It may help me explain if you tell me if you have designed a site yourself or are using an Actinic template and if you are using other web development tools (Dreamweaver or Fireworks or Frontpage)