Dreamweaver CS3 and Actinic V9: Best Practice

[Rob_Rhubarb]

Hi,

I want to use Dreamweaver to design all my non-product related page content such as FAQ's, Contact Us, Installation Guides, etc. I will then register a 'Product' page design with Actinic so that I can drop in the Actinic Inner Layout content into my product pages.

I wanted to know if there is any problem registering a dozen or so designs from Dreamweaver to Actinic? i.e. I will be registering each separate page I design such as the FAQ's and Contact Us pages so that I can drop in the odd bit of Actinic content but still use all the design features within Dreamweaver.

I want to avoid using Actinic for anything other than generating the product page content and checkout and payment pages and this seems like the best way. I'll probably design all my navigation in Dreamweaver as well as my product categories aren't going to change much.

Is this a good way of doing things?

Regards,
Rob.

[leehack]

Completely the wrong way round tbh Rob. You want to try and create one template for the site to use and then create your product pages and brochure pages within actinic.

[Rob_Rhubarb]

Hi Lee,

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'm coming from a being good with Dreamweaver and not-so-good with Actinic point of view.

Would my intended approach work ok though? I'm suffering brain-ache at the moment and want to avoid squashing anything else into my limited mind

Regards,
Rob.

[jont]

You can do it but future maintenance and ensure all pages are the same from a usability point of view would be a nightmare.

You are really best bringing everything into Actinic, use the one design and spent the time saved elsewhere on the site.

[leehack]

Thanks for the advice. I guess I'm coming from a being good with Dreamweaver and not-so-good with Actinic point of view.

If your experience is with DW, then that's fine as that is what you need the most experience in for designing an outer layout. When you go into the inner layout of actinic, you do need a bit more actinic experience, but essentially general html and css skills will help you do almost anything you want. Registering a DW design with actinic really is an easy task, don't worry about that part, it's the easiest part of all. It sounds like you need to understand actinic a little better with regards to what it is and how it works. It is essentially a template (layout) based system, where all parts of your site are fed from a choice of templates for that area, therefore majority of the inner gubbings are already there, it is only the outer layout that isn't, but you have the DW experience to do that part anyway. You also have the design wizard in V9, but with DW experience, you want to be doing your own.

[Rob_Rhubarb]

Ok, thanks JonT and Lee. I'm going to go with what you say and create just the one template in DW and register it with Actinic. It's time I bit the bullet and got round to understanding Actinic a little better.

Expect to find me elsewhere in these pages weeping uncontrollably very soon

Regards,
Rob.

[jont]

Expect to find me elsewhere in these pages weeping uncontrollably very soon

Welcome to the Actinic Clan

[RuralWeb]

create just the one template in DW and register it with Actinic

Its the way to go -

[AndyBorrett]

You'll probably spend a week or two pulling your hair out then it all clicks into place.

My tips:

Use the wizzard to get you going.

Take plenty of well named snapshots.

Don't worry about adding too many products to start with.

Think of design in Actinic as adding everything you want on every page all to the same master template, then use blocks to mask or reveal the bits you want on each page. Once I got that bit in my head it all seemed a little bit more understandable.