Customer section layout

[plandon]

I'm developing a home page layout that I'm trying to integrate more fully with Actinic. The site is www.eurobeads.com
I'm trying to emulate the nested tables which show a thumbnail and 3 or 4 sections listed next to the image. At present they're just links into the site which don't work too well because during login the direct link gest lost and you end up at the main section page. It would be much better if I could incorporate the home page fully. Can anybody suggest which way to go? Perhaps I could use a main section just for an image with text sections next to it?
I would be grateful for any suggestions.

[cdicken]

You can do section links in the way you describe by:

1) Create six top-level sections within Actinic called 'Glass Beads', 'Plastic Beads', 'Findings' etc.

2) Use the appropriate image within the 'Section Image' field for each section - e.g. 'sect-glass1TH.jpg'.

3) Lay out your section links in two columns by going to 'Design | Options | Sections' and in the 'Default Location and Arrangement of Section Lists' area, set the two 'Column Count' fields to a value of '2'.

4) This is the tricky bit. Your sub-section links have to be embedded as HTML within the 'Description' field of each section. It will look something like:

!!<
<span class="items">
<img src="Grafiks/Bulit.gif" width="10" height="10">
<a href="http://www.eurobeads.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?SECTIONID=glass2.html" target="_top" class="items">Swarovski Stones </a><br>
<img src="Grafiks/Bulit.gif" width="10" height="10">
<a href="http://www.eurobeads.com/cgi-bin/http://www.eurobeads.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?SECTIONID=glass4.html" target="_top" class="items">Glass Beads </a> <br> </span>
<span class="items"><img src="Grafiks/Bulit.gif" width="10" height="10">
<a href="http://www.eurobeads.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?SECTIONID=glass3.html" class="items">Rocaille and Bugles</a> </span><br>
>!!

- although from the look of your code it looks like you have got this far already.

[plandon]

Chris,

Many thanks for that. It's a great help.

regards

Peter

[plandon]

Images and CSS in SEXTIONTEXT

I worked along the above suggested lines and the new section layout seems to be functioning nicely. There are just two small problems which I can't figure out.

I've applied a different, smaller CSS style to: NETQUOTEVAR:SECTIONTEXT and I've included Bullet gifs in the hand-coding in the section description. Both show up properly in Dreamweaver. The bullets also show up in the site preview but after uploading, the bullets don't appear althoug the graphics HTML is there and the CSS style seems to be overridden somewhere. Any suggestions? I've tried copying the CSS file to different directories in the site and I've tried all the paths I can think of for the graphics. I've left the HTML un-compacted.

[cdicken]

The CSS is probably overwritten by the NETQUOTEVAR:SECTIONTEXT being within <a></a> tags and so it takes on the properties of the <a></a> tags.

I suggest you create new classes within the stylesheet for links. Do this in the following format:

a.section:link{
color:NETQUOTEVAR:LINKCOLORCSS;
font-size:10px;
text-decoration:none;
}

a.section:visited{
color:NETQUOTEVAR:VLINKCOLORCSS;
font-size:10px;
text-decoration:none;
}

a.section:hover{
color:NETQUOTEVAR:HLINKCOLORCSS;
font-size:10px;
text-decoration:underline;
}

a.section:active{
color:NETQUOTEVAR:ALINKCOLORCSS;
font-size:10px;
text-decoration:none;
}

Change the values to be what you want, and then change Act_SectionLine.html to include the following:

<A HREF="NETQUOTEVAR:SECTIONLINK" class="section"><B>NETQUOTEVAR:SECTIONNAME</B></A>

[plandon]

login also a problem.

Thanks Chris, I'll work that through. There's one other, hopefully final problem which I've found. If I use the following as a link:!!<
<a href="http://www.eurobeads.com/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?SECTIONID=glass2.html" target="_top">Swarovski Stones </a>
>!!
customers who are not registered are taken back to the login screen on a continuous loop.

If, instead, I use a simple link:!!<
<a href="http://www.eurobeads.com/acatalog/glass2.html" target="_top" >
>!!
it's OK for non-registered contacts but for anybody who is logged in, there's no longer any "currently serving...." information showing.

Is there a workaround to this?

regards

Peter

[cdicken]

If you add &NOLOGIN=1 onto the end of the first link then it will solve this problem.