Using FrontPage Navigation

[Ocean storm tackle 1]

Hi David

In the process of giving one of our sites a big makeover.

one of the processes of tidying things up I would like to remove the top ezimerchant navigation tag and replace with link bars provided through microsoft frontpage. I realise that removing the ezimerchant tags i will have to manually update the linkbar if there is a change

However The problem i seem to be having is the images that are created by using the Frontpage Link Bar system seem to get saved to a file called _derived

I have tried moving these image files into the template image folder but no luck in getting them to display in the generated site.

Any suggestions??? or is it just one of those things where its not going to work using Frontpage link bar system in conjunction with ezimerchant?

[dferguson]

Can you reply with a sample of the navbar code that front page is creating?

[Ocean storm tackle 1]

<!--webbot bot="Navigation" S-Type="sequence" S-Orientation="horizontal" S-Rendering="graphics" B-Include-Home="FALSE" B-Include-Up="FALSE" U-Page="sid:1001" S-Theme="DeepBlue 0000" -->

I am using FrontPage Navigation on another of my sites www.online-shop.com.au (http://www.online-shop.com.au)

and once uploaded the code looks something like this (snippet from a page on the online-shop domain)


<!--webbot bot="Navigation" S-Type="sequence" S-Orientation="horizontal" S-Rendering="graphics" B-Include-Home="FALSE" B-Include-Up="FALSE" U-Page="sid:1047" startspan --><script language="JavaScript"><!--
MSFPhover =
(((navigator.appName == "Netscape") &&
(parseInt(navigator.appVersion) >= 3 )) ||
((navigator.appName == "Microsoft Internet Explorer") &&
(parseInt(navigator.appVersion) >= 4 )));
function MSFPpreload(img)
{
var a=new Image(); a.src=img; return a;
}
// --></script><script language="JavaScript"><!--
if(MSFPhover) { MSFPnav1n=MSFPpreload("_derived/ext1029_cmp_slate010_hbtn.gif"); MSFPnav1h=MSFPpreload("_derived/ext1029_cmp_slate010_hbtn_a.gif"); }
// --></script><a href="http://www.online-shop.com.au/index.htm" language="JavaScript" onmouseover="if(MSFPhover) document['MSFPnav1'].src=MSFPnav1h.src" onmouseout="if(MSFPhover) document['MSFPnav1'].src=MSFPnav1n.src"><img src="_derived/ext1029_cmp_slate010_hbtn.gif" width="145" height="21" border="0" alt="Home" align="middle" name="MSFPnav1"></a> <script language="JavaScript"><!--
if(MSFPhover) { MSFPnav2n=MSFPpreload("_derived/ext1030_cmp_slate010_hbtn.gif"); MSFPnav2h=MSFPpreload("_derived/ext1030_cmp_slate010_hbtn_a.gif"); }
// --></script><a href="http://www.online-shop.com.au/about_us.htm" language="JavaScript" onmouseover="if(MSFPhover) document['MSFPnav2'].src=MSFPnav2h.src" onmouseout="if(MSFPhover) document['MSFPnav2'].src=MSFPnav2n.src"><img src="_derived/ext1030_cmp_slate010_hbtn.gif" width="145" height="21" border="0" alt="About Us" align="middle" name="MSFPnav2"></a> <script language="JavaScript"><!--
if(MSFPhover) { MSFPnav3n=MSFPpreload("_derived/ext1031_cmp_slate010_hbtn.gif"); MSFPnav3h=MSFPpreload("_derived/ext1031_cmp_slate010_hbtn_a.gif"); }
// --></script (continued)..............................

[Ocean storm tackle 1]

Would Also love to know if it is possible to incorporate a Frontpage theme to my ezimerchant template? (im hoping to use the same backdrop theme pattern as the online-shop website in the ezimerchant site)

Code that is produced looking at the source code is:


<!--mstheme--><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="_themes/slate/slat1011.css"><meta name="Microsoft Theme" content="slate 1011">

[dferguson]

Hi

Ok, Front Page webbots are not going to work within ezimerchant due to the way FrontPage works.

The themes are not directly compatible either - Front page does some pritty nasty tricks to get it all working (like relying on the hosting server to make stuff work) and it all breaks when you put the code into another application.

I would reccommend you checkout www.websitesforsmallbusiness.com.au (http://www.websitesforsmallbusiness.com.au) or www.practical-webs.com.au (http://www.practical-webs.com.au) as these two companies can do great customisation work for ezimerchant sites.

[Ocean storm tackle 1]

thanks David

i think I have worked the navigation part out. I ended up putting the _derived file and all other associated files into the build folder instead of the template folder and it seems to work now after generation. Will need to see if it functions properly live.

As far as the Frontpage theme, Havent been able to work it out so agree that might be a no go.

Thanks

[dferguson]

You could take parts of the theme - like the background image and put it into the ezimerchant theme?

[Ocean storm tackle 1]

yeah I worked that out and implemented it.
Seems to work well and look fairly good.

Frontpage navigation did end up working when we put the site live for about 12 hours but then went down.

I have used the frontpage navigation in non ezimerchant built pages of the website and the navigation that is used on those non ezimerchant pages automatically appeared on the website instead of the new navigation bar that i put up. I am not sure how it auto changed its self but for now until i work it out over the next few days when i find some time i have gone back to the ezimerchant navigation.

[dferguson]

Im not sure how the front page navigation features work, but I think that its dynamic in some way - the server's Front Page extensions need to know about all the pages so it can keep the links up to date.. As far as im aware this can only happen if the pages are managed from within Front Page - which you cant do with ezimerchant.