Adding ancillary web pages

[evanst58]

If I want to add other HTML pages crafted say in Dreamweaver, where do I put them so I can preview and link to them locally as part of the site and they would get uploaded to the hosted site ? Also so that NETQUOTEVAR elements would work in them e.g. the navigation elements & My basket functionality

e.g. in SiteHTML, PreviewHTML

[garyhay]

Tom which version of Actinic are you using

[evanst58]

Thanks I'm using version 7

- also could I extend my question to how I cope with images & other assets not "introduced" throught the Windows client app - - - or perhaps I just FTP everything in place manually ??

[cdicken]

The best way to put these 'anciliary' pages is to save and edit them within the 'Site1' folder on your PC. That way, the links you create to them from the Actinic templates will be direct links and also the pages will be picked up by snapshot backups created by Actinic. They will also automatically be uploaded from the 'Site1' folder into the 'acatalog' folder online.

What I don't know is whether any images used by the pages will be uploaded automatically. If they aren't then you can select them in 'Advanced | Additional Files'.

[garyhay]

Chris

I think you are underselling the benefits of V7.

I am using sections to provide content pages.

See here for an example. It just takes some thinking out

[evanst58]

Auto upload of HTML page

Dear Chris & Gary

I've tried saving a page in the root of Site1, hoping it would get processed and rendered up to the web site & it doesn't work. i.e. it does not get copied into either SiteHTML, PreviewHTML or FTP'ed up.

I must being doing something basically thick - should all "unrecognised" assets e.g. .html, .jpg, .pdf etc be processed in this way ?

[cdicken]

Have you tried adding the pages to the 'Additional Files' list - this would at least ensure they get FTPd up.

[evanst58]

Additional files

Thanks Chris - didn't know that feature existed but I don't think it will solve this.

I guess what I was after was to make a non-shop page with NETQUOTEVARS embedded that would be rendered by the software and output to preview & the site. Asking too much or being naive ??

I think what I'll do is to hand build my pages so they look identical to but sit along side the "shop" & just link & out of it. If nothing else, this will increase my understanding of how the product makes pages.

[cdicken]

OK - here is how you do it.

Take your custom page and save it in the 'Site1' folder (it sounds like it is already saved in there).

Then in Actinic, create a new brochure page (or section - it's up to you). If you are doing a brochure page, select your custom page within the 'Layout' field of the brochure details. If you creating a section, select your custom page within the 'Overall Layout' field in the 'Layout' tab.

This will now mean your custom page is being used to lay out the contents of the page/section in Actinic (although these pages will not have any contents).

You can now add Actinic variables into the custom page, and they will be parsed by Actinic when you preview and generate the store for upload.

See how you get on with that.