Creating a custom theme

[chris1234]

Hi,

A little background since this is my first post Im new to using Actinic but fairly experienced with creating xhtml/css based websites and have said I would help a friend design a custom theme for a parts website, since they have bought the actinic software.

Could I just ask how the designers here work with it? Could you outline the steps you go through as Im missing something.

Currently I have my usual site created that I import into dreamweaver. All links to images and to my css file are to the root level as this works best with actinic?

Then using the actinic dreamweaver plugin I register the design and that takes it over into actinic ok. All apart from the images!? I have then tried pasting my css for my design into the actinic stylesheet. All my images are in the root of the site1 folder along with my original index.html and styles.css files.

I just cant get actinic to show any of my css background images!

I hadnt originally included single quotes when i registered the design, only adding them after, would i need to re-register the design?

My css image links are:

background: url('body_bg.gif') 0 0 repeat-x #CCC;


Cheers


Chris

[leehack]

BG images are defined in site options, only thing you need to sometimes change is the backward slash to a forward one if in a sub folder. There's a setting in the same place to define whether a color is used or not, so you are either using a color or a BG image in other words. BG color is set in the theme config menu.

[chris1234]

Thanks for your reply. Dont have access to actinic at the moment, as only have the one copy. Am planning to try and get the basic site into actinic again this evening.

How are all background images defined in site options? I need to define them in my own css styles. Here's a link to the site I'm trying to 'actinic' http://www.cjbcreativedesign.co.uk/gparts/

All of the links to pics are to the site root, so i have dropped all of the pics required into the site1 folder of actinic. Where do you put your images used in your actinic designs?

[chris1234]

Thanks for your reply, I did post a quick reply but its not showing up, maybe as i linked to the page im trying to 'actinic'?

The design im trying to actinic uses css to define the background to not only the page body but most of the main design elements. I would guess that all these cant be defined in site options?

I'm guessing that this is just a css path issue. And the way I have defined all images as being in the site root.

Sorry I dont have access to actinic at the momemt as only have one copy, but am planning to try again with it this evening.

[leehack]

Make sure your css is loaded after actinic's so no overwrite is occurring. In DW i set the actinic site1 folder to be the site folder. In this folder i have the external design and external css file. I also have a sub folder called designImages and sit anything design related in there. I can reference that folder either in my design, my css or within actinic then, without any problems.

Defining your own body tag is fine, but you can't discount the actinic body declaration playing a part unless you do something about it. Firebug the site so you can see what's happening.

[G.W.Green]

All of the links to pics are to the site root, so i have dropped all of the pics required into the site1 folder of actinic.

If you have linked to the main site root (i.e. the document root of the online site) you will have to manually upload your images. If you wish to Actinic to upload them, you will have to link them to images within the acatalog folder online as this is the only place that Actinic will upload anything other than the site root index page.

[chris1234]

Fixed

Eventually fixed the problem by linking all my pics used in the design to a "designimages" folder (sure i read somewhere in the actinic documentation that it liked all images in the root) and then making sure I had added the single quotes to the css links before I registered the design with actinic.

Everything just came straight into actinic fine after that.