Hammocks youtube playlist on website

Handmade Hammocks is still an Actinic ecommerce site so presents its own environment of challenges for maintenance work. Most recently the feature has been updated to dynamically show Actinic content pages in the navigation menu.

This means the client can update content more easily using the Actinic UI without having to edit template files in dreamweaver.

Similarly the embedded video on the website homepage has now been updated to show the Hammocks Youtube playlist by adding the embed code to the Actinic home page template, removing the need to manually edit the template file in e.g. Dreamweaver (or your preferred code editor of choice)

Here's a quick how-to:

1. Create a youtube playlist

Log in to your youtube account
Click on 'my videos' and look for 'playlists' in the left-hand menu
Click on '+ new'
Give the playlist a title, description and some tags, then save.

2. Add videos to youtube playlist

Your list of uploaded videos should show with checkboxes beside them
Check the boxes of the videos you want to appear in your playlist and choose 'add videos'
At the top of your video list, click the 'add to' button and select the new playlist from the list.

3. Embed youtube playlist on website

Click on 'playlist' on the left-hand menu, this will list your playlist(s)
Click on your playlist title
Above your playlist, click on the 'share' button
Copy and paste the code for a straight link to playlist
OR
Click on 'embed' to customise the size, privacy and HD/https options a bit (seems to be a minimum player width of 200px)

4. Paste generated code into the right place.

5. Look at what you've done just to check it's worked ok before doing the next thing on your list

Galloway Velvet - Actinic exercise

Actinic is an ecommerce platform that Callisti has mixed feelings about. On one side it promises so much in terms of administrative control of the shop, with marketing features and template control but on the other it is full of antiquated code and table cells that need manually edited in a behemoth design and layout management system.

That being said it is conceivable to customise the theme and make it look as un-Actinic-like as possible.

Variables, Layouts and Fragments.

Also there is the site snapshot feature which lets the designer send an export of the site files to the client so that they can import to their own installation of (the correct version of) Actinic. It's quite unique in the world on online shopping carts and doesn't use a mysql database which is fresh.

Hammock the week

After convoluted development process using Actinic v9, Handmade Hammocks website is now refreshed and taking advantage of some Kit Allen design work and integration with google services.

The ecommerce website sells handmade hammocks that meet Fairtrade standards to meet the prinicples of ethical trading. The company is based near Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and ships internationally

Callisti has gained a lot of experience working with the nuances of Actinic development from different locations, development by remote access, and all the joys of site exports, missing files, huge folders of backup files, cgi-bin dramas, incompatible server platforms, and payment gateway issues. The reward is a sweet-looking ecommerce site that now has more SEO potential for the new season, and a clean working environment after some thorough administration work.