Frontpage & Actinic Catalog

[CraftyJoy]

I am about to take the plunge and purchase actinic catalog, but would like to know if it is possible to use Frontpage as my home page together with other pages and photogallery etc.

From one of these pages I would like to have a 'Go Shopping' button to link to actinic. Is this possible and what if so how do I upload actinic, can I try it with my trial version.

Joy

[jont]

Hi Joy,

welcome to Actinic. You may like to check out http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?t=13134 which covers Frontpage and Actinic. You will see I ran FP alongside Actinic for sometime. It is possible (especially if you have FP2002) but not as simple as using DreamWeaver... best to work in HTML view for most of the time when moving the Actinic codes around. If you just want to use FP as the homepage and leave the Actinic templates alone then all is fine.

You can create your own homepage in FP with a link to "shop" or even link straight through to the individual products or sections. Download the Advanced User Guide from http://www.actinic.co.uk/support/downloads.htm and it will tell you the HTML code to use on your homepage. When you have created your Actinic and homepage set the homepage in Design | Options | Misc.

You can either add the hompage files to Actinic under Advanced | Additional Files so each time you upload Actinic it will add the external pages as well or you can do an upload via FP - I tend to prefer using the latter but others add the files into Actinic. If you use FP to upload simply upload the Actinic pages with Actinic and then upload the homepage via FP

[CraftyJoy]

Thanks, I have downloaded the Advanced Guide but can't see the section regarding HTML code for my homepage. It's probably cos I don't know what I am looking for!

When I have mastered this will I be able to use my own hosting to check this out and if so what other information will I need. Presumably I will have to go to Advanced|Network Setup| and change a few things but don't know what.

Thanks Joy

[jont]

If you are using FrontPage (or any web editor) to create the home page then you need to refer to the user guide for that particular package - the HTML will be automatically generated in the background if you work in design or the WYSIWYG mode. In FP if you enter text and images with the "normal" tag selected and then click on the "HTML" tag you will see all the underlaying code needed to create the page.

In the Actinic user guide there are sections advising how to link directly to products. For example if you have a product with a reference of XYZ you would use the following as the hyperlink (in FP highlight the text or click on the image and press CTRL +K) and use the following:

http://www.domain.co.uk/cgi-bin/ss000001.pl?PRODREF=XYZ&NOLOGIN=1

The NOLOGIN=1 allows for unregistered people to gain access to the product.

When you switch to your hosting company ask them for the settings required for Actinic or search this forum as a range of the more popular hosting companies have been detailed on here.