Is it possible to have different colours/header pictures on different pages

[pinkequine]

Hi

We'd like to have different looks for different sections of the site and I am not sure if this is possible in Actinic. I didn't want to go too far into thinking about designs, if this can't be done.

So we'd have a junior section, originals (main area) and a professional section, with different colours in each.

I know its not something I can do myself, but just wondered if in theory its possible with Actinic.

[leehack]

It is possible yes, reasonably technical but definitely possible.

[Darren B]

yes you need to create different layouts, copy the default one and change them, but you will need to replace the actinic logo variables with a hard coded one or create new variables with the code in it then you can use the same variable on different pages if you need to

something i have been working on here "still under construction"

[pinkequine]

Thanks so much

Thanks for the rapid response... thats good to know, we've been struggling with one website "look" trying to fit all our markets and I think we've been missing out on really capturing - especially the young market - with a more grown up looking site.

[leehack]

You can get any click onto any section to activate a change of design on any area of your site. I am not a favour of creating multiple layouts as this gives you more layouts to maintain, I favour one design with content changing dynamically according to blockifs and variables on the page that you have set.

The best and slickest solution involves using a body ID that changes styles via css coupled with variables containing the graphics for the pages. It is the most complicated to setup, but once setup, the most powerful and by far the best way to do things.

[Darren B]

It is the most complicated to setup,

thats why i do it this way seriosuly from your side of things dealing with clients then it makes alot of sense

[jont]

yes you need to create different layouts

You don't half make life hard for yourself don't you Darren

I am not a favour of creating multiple layouts as this gives you more layouts to maintain,

Neither am I. Set up a section level variable and give each section a unique identifier (1,2,3,4 etc etc) ... you can then set up different classes in the stylesheet such as

.myStyle1 {color:red;}
.myStyle2 {color:blue;}

in your layout set up your class wrapping the changeable items

eg:

<span class="myStyle">code to change</span>

you then need to insert all the options wrapped in a block if condition which tests the sections eg:

<span class="myStyleblock if1/blockblock if2/block">

in the block if test for the new variable == 1, ==2 etc

[Darren B]

There ya go, you two ruin a nice day with all this talk of blocks

[NormanRouxel]

<span class="myStyleblock if1/blockblock if2/block">

If that variable contains 1 .. 4, (which is easy to do if you use a List type variable) then no need for a BlockIf. Just use:

<span class="myStyle<actinic:variable name="PageStyle" />" >

[pinkequine]

Hi

Thanks for that, we were just talking here that it must be something to do with coding that accesses different CSS.

We've had a marketing review here, thanks in part to UKTI and Business link funding, apart from SEO and adherence to best practices, a big thing that came out of it was our site needs a major overhaul and should be geared to our target markets. We have clearly segmented markets for our products, but our site doesn't reflect this. Its also got a bit messy and despite me tidying it up, I just feel its not working like it should.

We've almost "by accident" done quite well, but I think the overall opinion of our marketing expert was "could do better"

[meden]

personally I think that if you would benefit from 2 or more dramatically different 'themes' then you would be better off with seperate sites as you are aiming at different customer bases...

[Darren B]

woooooooosh

[pinkequine]

lol

Hi we did look at separate sites, but we do have customers that may buy something from each range, we figured if a customer would have to checkout twice if they wanted something from a different range, then we'd wind them up and they may not buy at all.

If you look at this site www.joulesclothing.com you can see that each range has different colours, the colour of their logo changes as well. I think if we had a professional range with a pink childrens theme it wouldn't work.

Especially in our industry people are very Clique about where they sit, but that doesn't mean overall they wouldn't buy for relatives, friends etc that fit into a different category, it just makes them feel comfortable in the section of the site they click on.

Our stuff is expensive as well ( especially the professional range) so it needs to look the part.

[leehack]

Stick with one site definitely Denise, easier for everything. Even if the different areas of the site have to look drastically different, that is still no reason to split the site IMO. Only valid reason i would say to run more than one site (when using actinic) is if you have a particular requirement for more than one URL, maybe for sale further down the line etc.

Actinic and multi-sites is just hassle with no unification whatsoever.

[pinkequine]

I agree

As soon as I threw the idea of separate sites (ok for me to design would be easier to do) there was uproar from everyone here, a big no no, it was either - do it properly or scrap the idea.

I expect I will try to do the CSS, having worked with tables and plain HTML , I think CSS is just brilliant. But for the rest I may be calling on one of you guys , I just dont have those skills.

Lets hope our marketing guru likes the ideas!