Custom Rollovers

[stormyweather]

I am still trying to find my feet with Actinic, and have now read the Advanced Guide from cover to cover.

I started with one of the CSS plain designs and have been slowly changing various aspects of it, to try to get to the shop design I want. You can see my efforts so far here : http://rantandrage.purpleparasol.com/

My next task is to change the buttons for ones I have created myself, and I read the manual but couldn't quite understand what was being said.

I know I could go to settings/site options/links and change the button images there, but I notice that not all the buttons that I want to change are included there. So, as I eventually would have to do it the hard way, I read the (advanced) manual, and it said :

To insert your own custom navigation buttons, with image rollovers, you can recycle the code from any of the existing navigation image layouts.
1. Go to 'Design | Library | Layouts'.
2. Locate the 'Navigation Icons' group and click on any layout in the list whose name ends in 'Image Navigation Button'.
3. Right-click on this layout and select 'New Layout'. Call your new layout whatever you want.
4. Customise the code as you see fit.

I did all of that, with an aim to replace the home button (to start with) and ended up creating a layout called "Home Image Navigation Button RAR", to use instead of "Home Image Navigation Button".

But what do I do now? When I click on the existing Home button in Design View, it tells me it is in the layout "Standard Brochure Page Link Image". I am not sure how the two relate . . . Can anyone tell me where I have gone wrong.

Liz

[leehack]

If you are a web designer and understand html and css, my advice would be to scrap using the actinic navbar and create your own with your own rollovers or effects. The actinic navbar is fine if you use it as is IMO, if you want to add to it or change it, it becomes easier to just do your own. The links you refer to are often so static on a site once built, that there is no need for anything dynamic.

[stormyweather]

Thanks for the advice. (I can't believe you have done over 8,000 posts on this forum - that is quite amazing, by the way).

I could do that, but I am still not sure enough about actinic that if I rip out their nav bar it won't come back and make trouble later on. But I'll give it a try.

[leehack]

Thanks for the advice. (I can't believe you have done over 8,000 posts on this forum - that is quite amazing, by the way).

It's actually quite sad not amazing, . Until you said that i did not realise i had broken 8k in posts. OMG i need a life, i'm off to go find one.

I could do that, but I am still not sure enough about actinic that if I rip out their nav bar it won't come back and make trouble later on. But I'll give it a try.

If you are unsure, then take a snapshot before you start, that means you can return to that state at anytime you wish. Rather than delete actinic code, just comment it out instead so it is still there. It looks a bit daunting i can understand but you are effectively going to add your anchors into a table cell or a <div> as with a normal site. In fact design a navbar outside of actinic in notepad and then paste it in. The only thing you have to concentrate on is putting it in the overall layout and in the correct place - preview will show you instantly if you got it right.

The buttons for brochure pages are defined on the brochure page itself, you can see them on the general tab if you select any brochure page, if that is your preferred route.

[stormyweather]

It's actually quite sad not amazing, . Until you said that i did not realise i had broken 8k in posts. OMG i need a life, i'm off to go find one.

It's a lot of posts.

The buttons for brochure pages are defined on the brochure page itself, you can see them on the general tab if you select any brochure page, if that is your preferred route.

That sounds quite deep from where I am sitting. I thought they were on the links tab . . . just when I thought I was getting somewhere. I will try again.

[leehack]

That sounds quite deep from where I am sitting. I thought they were on the links tab . . . just when I thought I was getting somewhere. I will try again.

The images to use for each button for each brochure page are defined on the general tab of the brochure page itself. Just select a brochure page and you will see them in front of you. You define the normal state and the rollover images to use.

[stormyweather]

The images to use for each button for each brochure page are defined on the general tab of the borchure page itself. Just select a brochure page and you will see them in front of you. You define the normal state and the rollover images to use.

Oh! I get it now. Thank you very much for persevering.

Umm this Actinic is a bit like trying to find your way around Venice, in the dark, with hydrophobia.

[leehack]

Umm this Actinic is a bit like trying to find your way around Venice, in the dark, with hydrophobia.

Stick with it Liz, in 3 years time you could have grey hair, no friends, 5,000 + posts and know actinic inside out like most of the experts on here. Alternatively, get out while you can, the 'heroin' will grab you otherwise!

[jont]

If you have selected a nav bar that uses images it is a simple case of calling your images the same name as those in use ... in design tab click onto one of the navigation links and you can see the filenames in place for the out / over conditions and you can either change or call your own images the same.

Worth noting that if you do change the nav bar images and upgrade say from v9.0.1 to v9.0.2 Actinic will either replace with a default set or usually complain that the buttons could not be generated and give an error - this can be ignored once you know it is going to happen.

[jont]

OMG i need a life, i'm off to go find one.

Send me an invite when you find one please!

[Darren B]

Send me an invite when you find one please!

Well theres a thought, but would this not mean we would all end up together talking the same stuff. I think selective invites might be appropriate

saying that im off to see if i can find one in the sun, might let you know

[Darren B]

Jont did you notice how quick Lee was in helping and replying

[stormyweather]

If you mean how quick Lee was in replying and helping me - yes he was!

Very much appreciated.

[Darren B]

How are you getting on, cracked it yet?

I edit out all the actinic stuff i dont want, as Lee said, then if it breaks just un-edit, saves bags of time messing with snapshots, but do them often. Its all to easy to not bother because it will take a few mins.

Actinic still scares me, and sometimes i struggle to see the wood from the trees, but walking away or doing something else normally does the trick

I like the colours you have chosen

D

[stormyweather]

How are you getting on, cracked it yet? I like the colours you have chosen

Hi Darren

I am afraid I can't take credit for the colours. Those are the design of the lady that owns the physical rant and rage shop. She has red hair and I guess wanted that reflected in her brand. Her original actinic shop is very similar and I didn't do that for her - someone else did. Here it is : www.rantandragekids.com

Nothing happened on the actinic project today as sadly I had to spend the whole day driving to Leicester and back - a total of 475 miles. I just got home 5 minutes ago. But yes, with Lee's help yesterday I did the changes - I finally understood that :

• the buttons for the shop pages are set up in Settings/Site Options/Links
• All the other buttons (for the brochure pages) are controlled from the brochure page itself by clicking on page in the content tree, and then on the Page Details
• Except the button on the brochure page that leads to the shop, and the login button, which for some reason are also in Settings/Site Options/Links (this threw me at first because having found them in the Settings/Site Options/Links section, I couldn't understand why ALL the buttons were not listed there.)

So I changed the buttons using those methods, but have noted that I could have just taken out the nav bar as supplied and put in my own as Lee suggested, rather than try and manipulate the layouts as I tried to describe in my opening post.

Tomorrow I will add the last two buttons that I missed, (my efforts are still here ) then try to import all the customer's products from an excel spreadsheet which I previously exported from her live shop.

I am going to experiment with altering the spreadsheet so as to make the products import as one per page (they are not so in her live shop), and then worry about the SEOing of my version of her shop. Her live shop is not optimised at all as far as I can see.

There are probably a whole load of other things to do that I have no clue about as yet, but that is the plan. Thanks for asking.