Using Dreamweaverand Actinic Catalog 6 (very basic)

[monosodiumg]

My site is already developed in Dreamweaver, with templates and library items.

I (experienced www dev but Actinic newbie) now want to use Actinic to add ecommerce (currently using the trial but will be buying very soon, assuming I can get this sorted).

Actinic seems intent on builidng the (local) site in c:/..../site1 and I can't find a place to change that (checked docs, dialogs, registry). The (local) Dreamweaver code is somewhere else. I'd like Actinic to use the same folders I use currently. I don't want to have to copy files back and for between the two folders and have to search and replace links etc to make it all work.

Actinic Developer is not an option (this is a one-off single site).

[NASmith]

why not save your project to the site 1 folder. Your links will be relative and no need to copy?

Point dreamweaver at Actnic not Actinic at Dreamweaver.

Or am i missing the point?

[monosodiumg]

You're not missing the point. I had thought of that but I do a lot of development in dw and none in Actinic. Also seems to me that Actinic is the cart and the site as a whole is the horse so fitting the site to Actinic seems the wrong way round.

All my work (20+ projects) is in D:\dev not C:\... . None of the dozens of development tools I have used in 15 years of software development have constrained like that.
I have procedures that specify where what goes and I am not going to rewrite them for the sake of Actinic. Moving everything into Actinic's shop1/ to me is like buying toilet paper and being told I'm only allowed to use it in the in the garden shed.
Now that I think about it, I'd have to change ftp settings, a folder synch tool settings, shared folders and backup settings to keep it all tidy.
Call me a recalcitrant grumpy old pedant, but if I don't get my way on this I'm going to look for another tool.

If I did as you suggest, where would everything go? PreviewHTML/ or do I have to put it in SiteHTML too

[NASmith]

If you did as i said, you would save everything in the site1 folder. Actinic looks in this folder when compiling and uploading your site. Because of the way Actinic works, there is a need to bolt all the products on, the cart the perl scripts etc etc etc.

I know this sounds backwards developing like this, however, unlike a brochure site where you create a new folder and save all your files in it; Actinic is the linchpin in creating your shop. You are not in fact creating a bespoke shopping cart package, you are simply bolting onto Actinic to get the look and feel you require and any additional functionality you wish to add, and therfore are constrained by the rules of Actinic.

My preferred method of working is designing the templates outside of actnic - get it looking exactly how i want. then copy everything into the site1 folder, and then work with the products. Then finally test my links and the site as a whole. This way, you dont have to wade through the masses of files in the site1 folder to get the site looking how you want. Then the final touches are done on files that are already located in the site1 folder.

It may be worth pointing out before you go looking for another tool. Actinic has 60% market share in its particular market.

Just an opinion.

BTW i assume you are using actinic developer (trial)

[pete04]

Using dreamweaver and actinic catalog 6

I have just read your thread and I wonder if you can help me. I posted a question earlier today about using actinic and dreamweaver, whereby I have designed my site in dreamweaver and I now need to include actinic as the shopping cart back end.

At the moment I have used the product and section references that actinic generates on my buy buttons (as hidden fields) to supply the shopping cart with the correct product details. for example:

<form action="http://www.meriden-marketing.co.uk/cgi-bin/ca000001.pl" method="post" name="form1" target="_self">
<INPUT type="HIDDEN" name="RANDOM" value="NETQUOTEVAR:RANDOM">
<INPUT type="HIDDEN" name="SID" value="3">
<INPUT type="HIDDEN" name="PAGE" value="PRODUCT">
<INPUT type="image" name="6" id="6" src="images/buy_btn.gif" border="0">
<img src="images/more_info_btn.gif" width="100" height="29" />
</form>

where '3' and '6' are the section and product references respectively.

I have a problem though in that I don't know how to handle products that have a number of options, i.e a pc that can be purchased with either a 15", 17" or 19" monitor. Is there a way I can have a drop down menu or radio buttons so that the user can select their required monitor size?

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Pete

[monosodiumg]

Pete,

The title of your thread was ideal for my question but I started a new thread instead of posting in yours to avoid hijacking yours. You are now hijacking my thread: posters may end up answering your question instead of mine. It's not a big deal but it's not good practice (or etiquette).

Please let anyone answering your question on my thread know about your other thread and move the discussion to it.

I'm brand new in this forum, as of 3 hours ago, but from the browsing i've done I get the impression that there's a reasonable amount of traffic and enough willing and able experts for your post to stand a good chance of being answered. You can be pretty confident that the relevant experts have seen or will see your post.


mono

[monosodiumg]

I'm using catalog. I don't do b2c sites for a living. This is a one-off for my girlfriend's business (www.lapaella.co.uk).

Who is number 2 to Actinic's first place?

I've had a coffee, cooled off, calmed down: I guess I'll have to put up with it this once but I am not a happy bunny.

Does the developer edition suffer the same defect? Don't tell me that if you develop several sites they are called site1, site2 ,... and have to go into the same folder structure?

Thx for your prompt and pertinent input.

[NormanRouxel]

Don't tell me that if you develop several sites they are called site1, site2

No, once you have more than one site they can be named whatever you want. And yes, they are all subdirectories of Sites. This is how it's been happily used by about 10,000+ users 'till now. Indeed many users won't actually be aware of where the Actinic site files are located as the system just works.

Norman

[cdicken]

Just to echo other comments here, Actinic is a self-contained application rather than something that can be changed to fit with your existing sites.

The core of Actinic is not the HTML (unlike Dreamweaver) - the core of Actinic is a database that contains all your product data, and an executable that generates all the pages using the templates in the 'site' folder.

Actinic has it's own FTP upload built in, so I suggest you just maintain the DW site as you have been doing, and then just upload the Actinic pages to the 'acatalog' folder within your site.