Putting stuff in side panels

[Artisan]

I'm often asked to put extra boxes (special offers, that sort of thing) in the left or right hand panels in the primary templates of a 3-column page layout - a good example of this would be http://www.wifisupply.co.uk/

I usually do this by adding a reference to an external plain text file. I add the file to Additional Files and the site owner then edits the file and does a site update when they want to amend it.

Does anyone have a better way of doing this, maybe even something that could allow a site owner to amend the box from within Actinic, without having to edit the text file?

Malcolm

[andyT]

Neat

I like the elegant solution

Regards

Andrew

[garyhay]

You can use CUSTOMVARS for this. See the Smart theme in V7 for an example.

Once you have the theme up see Design > Site Defaults

[Artisan]

Funnily enough, I was training someone who wants to do their own thing with Business today, and stumbled across that! I'm going to explore it when I get a bit of time. Thnx Gary.

Malcolm

[princeanil]

You can use CUSTOMVARS for this. See the Smart theme in V7 for an example.

Once you have the theme up see Design > Site Defaults

Hi !

Can u please explain this further, how does one use CUSTOMVARS for this ? Also, can this be used in version 6 ?

Thx

[cdicken]

OK.

Go to 'Advanced | Custom Properties' and create a new custom property called 'ExtraInfo'.

Then go to 'Design | Options | Site Defaults' and add a new row to the grid. In the 'Property' column select 'ExtraInfo' and in the 'Value' column enter some text you want to appear in the design. If you are using Business/Developer, ensure you have 'Use as Customvar' selected.

Then edit Act_Primary.html and type CUSTOMVAR:EXTRAINFO where you want the extra text to appear. You can get at Act_Primary by going to 'Design | Options | Layouts' and clicking 'Edit' next to 'Default Overall Layout'.