Customising online catalogue home page

[alexwren]

Hi,

This must be easy because I can't do it...

I am using v6 catalog and have enabled the brochure pages which form the structure of the site.

Now I would like to add some text to the top of the catalog home page (i.e. domain/acatalog/index.html) and also to the top of each sub menu page. I need the text to be different for each page.

I have worked out how to do this for the product pages (using act_productline.html but if I use act_sectionline.html it loops and shows my text under each sub category icon... Also I have found the template section for "top level section link layout" but this still has the looping problem

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance.

Alex

[sticky]

Try the 'Act_Primary.html' template (or Act_PrimaryLeft.html depending on set used). You should be able to put it in the centre column above the NETQUOTEVAR:BULK table.

[alexwren]

Not sure you understand me... or I haven't expained myself well enough...

I am looking to have different text in each section and sub section. If I put in it any of the primary templates then it will be everywhere.

I have sussed products but cannot get sections to work in the same way.

Alex

[sticky]

Ahhh apologies, I missed that bit.

Only thing I can think of is to create a slightly different template for each section/sub_section, Act_Primary_1.html, Act_Primary_2.html, etc. Of course this is may only work if you don't have 200 sections ;)

[alexwren]

Is it not possible to do this an easier way using selectable section templates?

[harlequin]

if i have got you right, as above on your primary template instead of writing the message directly which as you say would mean its on all pages and not editable easily, put a custom variable

CUSTOMVAR:MESSAGE

then go to Advanced>Custom Properties and add a new property called

MESSAGE

then you have a variable variable if you see what i mean

if you go to Design>Options>Defaults and on the properties area if you click the little + sign and from the dropdown choose MESSAGE - in the value field you can specify an 'overall' message for the sections/subsections where you dont specify an individual one.

for every section or subsection, under the advanced, go to the properties tab, click the little + sign and from the dropdown choose MESSAGE

in the value part put your message, you can use straight html code in the value part to ensure your message is displayed correctly...

let us know if you get stuck or if this helps at all..

ps. one other irritating issue is if you are on actinic business, you will need to tick the box next to 'use as customvar' which is next to the value column in properties, actinic catalog always uses as a customvar

steve q
harlequin domains
www.harlequindomains.com
0800 0832077
Actinic Hosting, Design and Marketing is all we do.

[alexwren]

Thanks for that I will give it a go.

At the moment I am trying to engineer my site for search engines so am having fun battling with Actinic to let me do what I want it to do.

Ideally I am trying to add section header text (key word rich), I am using Actinics control of the meta tags and I am also adding some additional code which I require to be different for each section.

I think I am going to use a combination of your suggestion and the one Sticky suggested (thanks for that) using multiple act_primary templates. Although this did seem high maintenence at first it does give you the option to easily customise each pages head and body without having to tackle the actinic gremlin each time...

Thanks for all your suggestions - if anybody has any other perls of wisdom for search engine optimisation I am interested.

Alex