Previous Next Section Links not working

[AndyBorrett]

We currently have our site laid out in SPP fashion with every product in its own section. We use the Link to Next Section and Link to Previous Section layouts with no problem at SectionLevel 2 ie;
Bracelets (Level 1)
Silver Charm Bracelets (Level 2)
Special Silver Charm Bracelet (Level 3) - This is where the Product itself is.

The Next and Previous links are currently set to only show at Section Level 2 but if I change the BlockIf to show at Section Level 3 then the variable SectionPageNameNext is not populated so the link goes back to an empty page.

Does anyone know why this happens or where SectionPageNameNext gets its value from? I have looked in the variable reference guide but it says it is generated automatically.

Update: I thought it may possibly be because I don't fill in the Page Name field under Page Settings - I let Actinic generate them. So I added an html filename for a couple of sections but it still didn't work.

Also forgot a URL in case it helps anyone:
http://www.seriouslysilver.co.uk/aca...Bracelets.html
(The Section Level 3 next and previous links are hidden at the moment to stop confusing customers)

Update2:
After restarting Actinic the Next link is now working providing I manually enter a filename for Page Name.

Is this what is to be expected or do I have a fault somewhere?

[AndyBorrett]

Solved

I am sure there must be an easier way so if anyone knows...

The Next and Previous Section Links do get their information from the Page Name field under Section Details for the Section - if you leave these blank, like I have always done, then it doesn't work.

I knocked up an Update Query in Access to fill in the missing sPageName field in the Catalog Section table to be the same as they already were as created by Actinic. The format is:
Store_Name_Section_Name_SectionID.html

After restarting Actinic your Next and Previous Section links should work fine.

If anyone from Actinic reads this I would have thought this classes as a bug for fixing in a future release.

Tip: If you want to hide the Previous link on the first page and the Next link on the last page of a section simply wrap up the layout in a BlockIf to test if the value is empty.

<actinic:variable name="SectionPageNamePrev" /> != ""

[leehack]

Actinic creates the page name from the section title usually. I have seen problems on these where older upgraded versions had these blank sometimes, perhaps you have a historical problem more than a current one?

Whatever you do, don't start each page name with the store name though, that's a one way ticket or at least a large installment to SEO oblivion. Drop the section ID too.

[AndyBorrett]

Hi Lee,
You might be right about it being an upgrading type bug rather than one that would effect everbody. I can't remember if I upgraded from Version 7 to 9 or whether it was a fresh install of v9 as it is a couple of years ago now.

I did think about dropping the Store Name and SectionID but was worried about Google getting its knickers in a twist when a few hundred pages changed their name - might be time to bite the bullet as not many of the individual pages are ranked very high anyway.

What does everyone else do - enter file name manually or leave Actinic to it?

[leehack]

If your pages are ranked high then yes for sure leave it as is, not worth the upset. If not good results, maybe a time to set things up perfectly now and take any hit there is. The page name gets filled out auto from the section name, so fill out your section name, then go the page name tab and give it a sanity check before applying. Fill out all fields in fact before applying and get into good practices IMO.

[AndyBorrett]

It would appear that Actinic fills in the page name field for new sections but not existing ones.

It probably has something to do with the fact that all new products we add come from an import spreadsheet via a Hierarchical import so I will look into my spreadsheet before importing anything new.

Its amazing what you can learn from trying to do something that initially seems very simple - thanks for the advice.