Design Guide

[Wilbo]

Hi there,

I've just downloaded the trial version of the designer software and I'm trying to get to grips with it - and struggling!

I've made a series of html templates: a home page, an information page (for about us, etc), a catogry page (that lists products in a category) and a product page (to view individual products). I want to turn these into an actinic site but I'm finding everything very confusing.
I've read everything I can find but I can't seem to find a simple guide to getting started with templates.

Can anyone give me a link or suggest anything?

Thanks!

[leehack]

You'd have to be a on a deathwish to create a layout for each of those purposes, create one overall layout for ALL of those pages and then use inner layouts to do the different things inside of that. You're not differentiating between an outer and inner layout I suspect.

[Wilbo]

Ahh, now we're getting somewhere! I'll google inner layouts and see what I can find.

Thanks

[Wilbo]

So whats the best way to do this then?
I'm using the dreamweaver plugin. I followed the getting started tut about designing with dreamweaver, I guess I should do that again but this time with a generic outer layout template and then I have to create inner layouts?
Do I do that in the same way? Or do I need to create them in the designer software?
There has to be some documentation somewhere, if someone could point me to it I'd be grateful.

Thanks.

[leehack]

Create outer layout in DW, register it with actinic, make sure INNERLAYOUT is included in the central container (main area). Then stop, study site options and the design library, understand how that all works, then start working again. Each area of actinic is a template (layout) and selectors generally place these on pages where you want them.

Do not try design until you understand variables, selectors, list layouts, site options, conditions, blocks, blockifs, design library and the design tab, without a knowledge on those, you will be up the creek.

[meden]

There has to be some documentation somewhere, if someone could point me to it I'd be grateful.

Thanks.

I suspect the reason there is no definitive in depth documentation beyond the knowledge base and AUG is because the software changes dramatically so often - it would be a nightmare to maintain and keep upto date

[leehack]

I don't agree with that Mick, I design in exactly the same way in v10 as I did in v8, very little change if any at all in what 4-5 years?

Actinic do design days, but the best way by far is to read all you can and then do trial and error and play with the system. It takes many designers years to get to grips fully with this system and use the power of it fully, that's not something any book could ever teach you.

V7 to V8 was a massive change, v8 to v9 to v10 has largely been the same, all that's changing is new features are being added, they're very easy to document as you have to write the inbuilt help on them anyway.