Newbie Needs help

[DaveW]

Hello Actinic community...

I am a (very) new user and I am after a little bit of help.

I have been set the task of altering a site that is built using Actinic, but I am having trouble working out where I need to look to edit it.

The site is not live so I can't direct you there, but I am trying to edit part of a NETQUOTEVAR called TOPLEVELSECTIONSTOP.

My problem is that I can't find it!! Is there a simple answer to this?

Cheers

Dave

[DaveW]

Ok, so to clarify...

I have a set of links on the left hand side of the site and I want to alter the size of the font they are in and maybe the names of the links too.

Am I just being dense?

Is there a way I can get to the HTML that builds this Section?

Thanks
Dave

[Jan]

The easiest way to find you way around the templates is to use the template navigator, go to Advanced | Template Manager, you will get either the Template Manager (traditional grey dialog) or the Template Navigator (looks a bit like a web page), in the template navigator you can click on the bits of pages shown to go to the appropriate templates or design options.

I think that the change you want to make will be in ActPrimary.html or one of the other primary template BTW, but I am not expert on templates, so that is really just a guess.

Regards,

[DaveW]

Thanks Jan,


I've been looking at and editing these files, but I don't seem to be able to change the right thing.

I'll keep trying, it's good to know I am in the right area.

Dave

[garyhay]

I have great difficulty in altering the size of this text.

[chrisbrown]

It depends on the theme used. Some themes make use of css to control the size of the font. This is usually controlled by <span> tags specifying the font as actxsmall or similar. It can sometimes be a little difficult to locate what needs to be changed, as you are experiencing, but here is one way to go about it.

Firstly, download the Advanced User Guide if you haven't already done that. It contains a list of templates and what they used for.

Secondly, realize that the templates contain NETQUOTEVARs which will be replaced by various things when the pages are generated. Sometimes the replacement value is something simple but sometimes another template is used. And furthermore, various elements use text and HTML stored in Design|Text.

Ensure that Compact HTML is turned off and preview the site. Examine the generated HTML pages, in PreviewHTML, with a text editor and you will see comments indicating where each template starts and ends. You should soon be able to zero in on the template or text fragment that you need to change.

Don't be discouraged, it gets easier as you gain a bit of familiarity with the product. The apparent complexity is repaid with extreme flexibility.

[DaveW]

Thanks...

I have the Adv User guide and will look through it.

Will let you know how I get on...

btw, why is it important to have compact HTML turned off? I have seen this said in a couple of posts and wondered.

Cheers

Dave

[DaveW]

Thanks again,

That has really helped me work out how it is going about building the site.

Cheers.

[chrisbrown]

When Compact HTML is turned on, all HTML comments, line breaks and other white space are removed from the generated pages. This makes locating where each bit of the generated code comes from extremely difficult. Having Compact HTML turned makes life much easier as every template contains remarks showing the beginning and end of the template.

Once you have achieved the look that you want then turn the Compact HTML on again. This will have no effect on how the page is displayed but will save considerable bandwidth. The fewer the bytes to be downloaded, the faster the site is for your users. We have all experienced slow sites and therefore know that we and our clients are less likely to continue to browse them.

[DaveW]

Cheers, that all makes sense.