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View Full Version : a Few questions b4 I get myself into a mess :)

thagodfather
October 15th, 2003, 04:48 AM
Ok, I am interested in this. But I dont have any experience setting up a php shopping cart LIKE THIS, EVER (only Static HTML Pages), I dont have any programming skills, But I do understand HTML quite well.

I wanted to create a store for my family member but wanted experience creating dynamic shopping carts. So I am looking in to Squirrelcart.

First, I have the home page of my site. which is basically gonna be my Main logo, some links, to the categories, etc. When clicked, it will take a user to a certain category, very basic. THU OUT MY SITE, I PLAN TO HAVE VIEW CART, CHECK OUT, MORE DETAIL. thats about it.

What I dont understand, is the default template page and its purpose. Is it possible to edit this default template in Dreamweaver or front page, and remove some of the selections I dont want or need, like , the such box, New Products, best sellers, etc. I dont quite understand the point of the DEFAULT TEMPLATE. Explain this to me a lil further?

I am aware that it has over 55 template files, like, a detailed view.php (think that whats it called) of the products, a template for the look of checkout page, etc. Can, I open these particular file in Dream weaver, put in in tables to create my own look, then save it for upload? I understand that I will not edit the code it self (thank god). is it ok to edit the looks of it, but as long as I dont effect the main coding?

I think the answers to these questions will convince me to choose this interesting product.

Thanks in Advanced.
thagodfather
October 15th, 2003, 08:09 PM
Wow, no Help :( :( :( :(
Jamie
October 15th, 2003, 11:40 PM
Hi,

Thanks for checking us out.

There is technically no default template. Let me try to explain how this works. Squirrelcart is theme based. Each theme has a unique name, such as Squirrelcart, Brushed Steel, etc...A theme is a set of template files that can be applied to the cart to alter the look of it. There are a few themes that come with the cart. The theme named "Squirrelcart" is considered the default theme. You can set the name of the theme you want to use in your store settings.

Each theme has a corresponding folder in the "squirrelcart/themes" folder, like so:

squirrelcart/themes/squirrelcart
squirrelcart/themes/brushed_steel
squirrelcart/themes/supersquirrel
etc...

Now, here is where some people get confused. Because squirrelcart is the default theme, the folder contains all of the template files the cart needs. By "default" I mean that in addition to squirrelcart being set as the theme the cart uses after installation, it is also special. The cart is designed so that you do not need to modify every template file in order to customize the cart. The first step in customizing is making your own custom theme, and it's corresponding folder. Then, to custom the look of the product display for example, you would copy the "show_product.php" template file into your new custom theme folder, and modify it. You only need to put files that you intend to modify in your custom theme. If the cart needs a template file for something, it will first look in the theme you have set in your store settings (your custom theme). If it does not see the file it needs in there, then it looks in the "squirrelcart" theme.

One more thing to mention is that the templates fit together to form whatever page happens to be dynamically created by the cart. For this reason, you are not going to find any templates that control the look of an entire page. Each template controls a component only. In other words, the show_product.php template is not going to contain an opening and closing <html> tag, <body> tag, etc...
It will only contain the code used to display a single product. The cart will then use this code multiple times for each product in a category (after you click on it!).

Thanks,
Jamie
thagodfather
October 16th, 2003, 04:39 PM
Hey, thanks a lot, for you explanation, very imformative.

So lets say you have a category called, "SHOES". and I insert 25 pictures of this particular category into the database. How do I decide how many I want showed up on that page? For example, when a user click the category, "SHOES", i ONLY WANT about TEN pictures of shoes showing up, and a 1 , 2, 3 etc, so a user can click # 2 and #3 to see the rest of the ITEMS. How exactly would I do this?
Jamie
October 16th, 2003, 05:57 PM
No Problem!

This is controlled by the "Products Per Page" setting in the store settings. You can see it in the admin demo. This setting controls the products per page for the entire store, not just one category. We will be adding the same field to the category records for people that would like to set this on a per category basis as well.

Thanks,
Jamie