setting up the basics to the site design

[nav]

Hi.

I have just opened up actinic V7 catalog trial. While I wait for the persons business I am designing the site for to buy the paid verison. I have just installed the trial version to start some work on the site.

Ok, I have selected SMART in the design themes which is the look I wish to go for.

Now I would like to centralise the home page with a fixed width (at the moment the code when I preview the site shows)

<table width="100%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"><tr> <td align="left" bgcolor="#005555">


HOw do I set it so every page has a width of say 750 pixels and is cetralised?

Ie i know that the 100% needs replacing with 750 and to put the <center> and </center> tags in. But where is this done on actinic?

Thanks in advance.

[pinbrook]

Ok there are a couple of manuals you will find helpful

V7 Designer manual
V7 Advanced User guide

Both of these are on the actinic site under downloads.

The template manager on the advanced menu is also useful to learn which template controls which part of the design

[nav]

HI.

thanks for that. I know I am probs gonna be told I am doing the totally wrong thing here. What I have done is gone to Design then Options then Layouts tab.

Then from there selected the default overall layout, edited the 100% to 700 and then done the usual save and apply etc.

So when I go back into it it shows 700 (to make sure it has been saved). then I do a Web then Offline preview and the site is still showing with full width (ie also shows 100% when you view the source code for that page in IE)

[cdicken]

Bear in mind that the three columns in the Smart theme (left bar, bulk, right bar) will probably make the design wider than 750 pixels so your change will not affect it much.

If, in 'Design | Options | Layouts', you change the Layout templates used by the store to 'Sidebar down the left hand side' (or similar wording - I haven't got a copy to hand) then everything will be a bit narrower. If you then edit the overall layout template to replace 100% with 750 you should have a bit more success.

[nav]

Thanks Chris.

Yep changed every Primary template to as you suggested, then done web offline preview yet the front page of that P_index.html is still as normal with columns on both sides.

But then selected the home link on the left in the content tree and selected it from there. It has done it!

How come it did not happen from altering it in the design options for front page layout?

Thanks for the help...

[bullfrog]

Nav, I like your enthusiasm. I'm only a little ahead of you. I'm trying to design my sites based on 800x600 resolution, as I believe you are.

It sounds like you have already eliminated the right sidebars (Design, Options, Layouts, [whatever] Layout) by selecting 'Sidebar down the left hand side'.

What is easy to overlook is that when you do this, your primary template is no long ActPrimary.html, but is now ActPrimaryLeft.html. If you want to edit further after eliminating the right sidebars, forget about ActPrimary.html. Other templates change as well. Click the 'Edit' button for each to learn which template will be in use.

In this setup (Smart, no right sidebars), the main part of the page fits (almost) into a 800 wide resolution. The top header table is still 100%, but thats not bad because it works equally well with 800 wide or wider. If you feel compelled, you can still change it to 750 or whatever.

[nav]

Thanks for the comments bullfrog.

What I now need to be fully aware of is how the site is being saved. obvioulsy these html files are being saved as I save them. However what about other settings like selecting all the pages to have the left hand side one. Like when you go to close Actinic, it asks you about various options on what to back up etc.

Soon I will be installing this actinic onto the server that is being sorted for us that support actinic. So I will be asking you all about that soon

I think if I get past these niggles, actinic does by far look a very user friendly e-commerce package...