Site Check

[asprott]

We have just launched our first e-commerce site, so we need a site check.

PRAM CENTRE.co.uk (http://www.pramcentre.co.uk)

Any feedback would be great.

Thanks

Andrew

[TraceyG]

Hi Andrew,

I've just taken a look and it is a very nice and clear site.

However, you seem to be suffering from the same problem as this customer (http://community.actinic.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3627)

[asprott]

Thanks for the reply Tracy, Im glad you liked the site, it was certainly a core aim to make clear and simple.

I've gone with your first suggestion (javascript:window.scrollTo(0,0)) so much neater than using anchors and of course it works properly.

Anyone else have any feedback?

Andrew

[NormanRouxel]

Looks great. Pity I last needed a pram about 22 years ago :(

I liked the Cascading Menu (very similar to NorTree but with more special effects) so much that I've gone and integrated it into the Actinic section tree structure, so you won't have to manually alter it if you add / remove sections. I'd not come across this one before but it seems to be very up-to-date.

Here's my first cut at the integration. If you have a spare system see if it works for you.

One point on the Menu. It seems to be the only way into your product pages. Spiders (and people with brain damaged browsers) won't be able to follow that so you may want to consider making an additional normal hyperlink that takes people to the products.

Norman

[NormanRouxel]

Ooops. I left out a line in the attachement above. Here's the updated one.

Norman

[NormanRouxel]

Final (?) update. This makes all levels (including sub-levels) of the site clickable.

Norman

[NormanRouxel]

Ooops. Infinite loop on sites with huge section structure. Now fixed.

Norman

[NormanRouxel]

Ooops (again). Cleaned up generated URL's when using sitebase. Fixes problem with extraneous / on return link from cart scripts.

Norman

[NormanRouxel]

Another update. This has parameters that make centering and fixing the menu in place more intuitive. Done at last?

Norman

[asprott]

Hi Norman

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated, glad you like it.

More thanks for implementing your the Actinic Section Tree solution with this menu system.

I think the menu system looks good, I especially like the flexibility of using CSS with it. A nice tool that I used with it was codetrim from the same site, which strips out comments, spaces, etc from your JavaScript for implementation.

As for your point regarding spiders, that is a concern which had occurred to me (unfortunately, way down the development phase). Without losing the benefits of the design (and not starting again) I think we may have to live with it for the moment. What I have done is, in addition to submitting the homepage for search engines/indexes I have also submitted the site map in an attempt to overcome this. This aspect is something we will have to keep an eye on.

Thanks again for your input and your work. At the moment I only have one system, but it is something I am looking at to get another, then I should be able to properly try out your system.


Andrew

[NormanRouxel]

Glad to be of use. Steve Quinn on this forum has already got a site up using NorCascade. That was fast. See it on http://www.compuonline.net/acatalog/index.html

He's not using the fastest code yet so it will probably be improved soon.

Norman

p.s. Regarding the products link to acatalog you could always put a small text link somewhere unobtrusive, or turn one of your images (like the PRAM CENTRE.co.uk one) into a link.

[asprott]

That is very quick of the mark, good to see you're work has been of use already.

I will certainly have a think about a subtle way of getting the section links onto the homepage, after all we want to maximise the number of users we can get.

Andrew

[TiggyPig]

Norman, is it hard to transfer from NorTree to the cascading menu?

[harlequin]

hi all, mark in my honest opinion the cascading menu is not much different to normenu for ease of use, simply remove the old (easy to see) nortree code from your page, and follow normans readme for the new one...

the major difference (and there are quite a few significant ones) is you dont (yet ;), Norman,) have a simple program to edit the variables, this time you gotta get your hands dirty and truth be told actually, theres not much need for a g.u.i. , all the changeable parameters in normans j.script file are easily understood after 10 mins of looking....

i got a version working at www.compuonline.net/acatalog

sites not finished by the way har har so dont judge anything other than the dropdowns...

one other massive difference ive noticed and i dont know if normans tweaks to nortree fixed this for nortree but with the cascading menu, after you have loaded the menu on one page and then go to another, the drop downs then appear BEFORE all the content has loaded, an old issue where i.e. rebuilt the menu every time...now its cached, hurrah!

anyway, i think theres loads of mileage in the cascading variety for all the neat formatting and tricks you can get up to with it...roll on a years development of that in the same way normenu grew is what i say!

ps. one of my clients has just told me you can run nortree AND norcascade at the same time, how about that then !!!! She wants to know can she keep both......

steve q
harlequin domains

[Jan]

Hi Andrew,

I looked at the site last week and thought it was a very nice clean site. I couldn't even find a spelling mistake to report back!

Well done.

Regards,

[harlequin]

i did mean to mention i thought your site was very nice and neat, and clean, well thought out and lots of effort, lets hope it makes you a fortune :D:) ,

ps. if i use the word 'clean' it is a high honour in my books...

steve quinn
harlequin domains

[chrisbrown]

Really great looking and functioning site! The cascading menus are like lightening for me. This has inspired me. I feel a redesign coming on... :)

[asprott]

Thank you for all the feedback, great to see so much positive feedback, makes all those long hours worth while.

It is also great to see people making use of the cascade menu and even better, Norman's development of the menu for Actinic users.

There have been a a few orders so far, so fingers crossed. Now this is done, I'll have to start looking for a new job, hopefully someone who is looking for e-commerce work.

Regards

Andrew

[jxm28788]

Nice. But how did you do the 'top 5 products'? Do you just add that manually, or is there a way of doing it automatically using actinics stock control?

[asprott]

Originally posted by jxm28788
Nice. But how did you do the 'top 5 products'? Do you just add that manually, or is there a way of doing it automatically using actinics stock control?

The top 5 was done manually. This was for speed reasons as well as controlling what appeared (you may want a broad range of products represented). I never investigated an automated approach, especially because the company I am working for decided not to use the Actinic stock control facilities.

The initial list for the site launch was decided arbitrarily by the business owner.

They are currently deciding for future lists, whether to base these on the Actinic Sales reports or on the overall sales figures (as they have two high street shops as well) for the business.

I imagine the answer you were hoping for was that it does it automatically. I'm sure it could be automated as all the info required is held in Acintic Database.

Cheers

Andrew