Help - total newbie very stuck

[desit]

Hi

I have been given the task by a client of jazzing up his previous Actinic store websites and he has v8 multi site for the task. I've wanted to get into Actinic for a long time so it's the ideal time to learn.

For the past 3 - 4 days I have been trying to find out how you can create your own designs in Dreamweaver but I am either missing something really really simple or I need to go lie in a dark room somewhere.

I'm quite good with Dreamweaver but despite reading all of the posts I can and downloading the documentation the penny just isn't dropping

Would somebody be able to point me in the right direction please on what/how you create a layout ?? Does it mean any layout, if so in what format? (totally totally lost)

Many thanks

Jason

[RuralWeb]

if you have read all the documentation etc then is unlikely that anyone can help. I would suggest going on the actinic design course or contact someone for detailed training.

[jont]

Have you installed the DW plug-in when installing Actinic? I am not sure how you can go wrong as it is simply a case of creating am html page in DW and clicking on the register with Actinic button ... you get the choice of where the layout is to appear.. then you can add in the various Actinic elements such as navigation, cart summary etc again by clicking where you want it to appear and then clicking Insert Actinic Content and choosing the different snippets to insert.

Most designers only use DW to build the outer layout... the other coding is easier done inside Actinic on the design tab using the code window. This is in plain HTML which should be more than enough if you are hacking away at code... which if you are you should not be needing DW.

[desit]

Thanks for the replies.

So, basically you can create any kind of layout and then just register it with Actinic?

Presumably the layout has to be html (ie no php includes etc)?

Many thanks

Jason

[jont]

Actinic v8 now has PHP functionality in-built which can be used to do a whole manner of funky things ... a quick search on the forum will throw out previous and current discussions on PHP with Actinic

[los_design]

Actinic v8 now has PHP functionality in-built which can be used to do a whole manner of funky things ... a quick search on the forum will throw out previous and current discussions on PHP with Actinic

Fantastic functionality considering the offline nature of actinic db's and VERY under used.

I can now get pages to display in under 1 second using PHP for my content as opposed to 3 1/2 hours using integral content in actinic (not to mention the blimming upload time!!!)

As a newbie (your own words), why not work through the excercises to get a handle on actinic. As Jonty states, get into the mindset that there are two factors in an actinic development

1 OUTER LAYOUT - for your site theme
2 INNER LAYOUT - for your site content

Once grasped you will steam ahead but do delve into the excercises my friend.

[desit]

Hi jont and los_design,

Thanks for your help on this and I think the penny has finally dropped - must be thinking more logically now the Easter chocolate has worn off

Just one more thing if I may please ...

los_design, you mentioned 'why not work through the excercises to get a handle on actinic' - where would I find these exercises please? From what I've been reading I'm not sure I've got the correct documentation

Again, many thanks

Regards

Jason

[fleetwood]

If you visit the downloads section of the Actinic website, you will find both Getting Started and Advance User Guides.
Getting Started has plenty of get you started exercises, and the AUG has plenty of worked examples once you've found your feet.

[desit]

Thanks fleetwood,

Starting to get the hang of now

Cheers everyone for your help