Page Templates

How AShop HTML Page Templates Work

If you have not already seen the tour of AShop Deluxe, go back and look at the section about page templates. It describes how page templates are included by the program. The AShop page templates are simply HTML pages with the AShop start and stop tags inserted where the AShop content is to appear. They can include HTML, images, links, CSS, and JavaScript just like any other web page but they can not include PHP or any other server side code. If you are using a WYSIWYG HTML editor such as Dreamweaver, you can add the AShop script folders to your website and create the AShop templates just as you would any other page within your website. You can even use the "Create New Page From Template" feature and update the AShop template pages along with other pages that are attached to the Dreamweaver Templates.

AShop page templates are HTML web pages with comment tags

<!-- AShopstart --> <!-- AShopend -->

inserted into the HTML code. For the page templates, AShop's dynamically generated content appears between the two tags.

In addition to the start and end tags you will also need to add some code to make the templates use the right CSS file. Without this the layout and design elements of your AShop will not be activated and the shopping cart will be presented as unformatted text. Add the following line to the head tag of your templates to use the dynamic CSS file:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="<!-- AShopcss -->" type="text/css" />

Alternatively, use the following line to use a static CSS file, which you can modify to control almost every aspect of the design of your AShop pages:

<link rel="stylesheet" href="includes/ashop.css" type="text/css" />

Note: If a template is not present, AShop will generate a catalog page anyway and the default logo.gif image, which can be uploaded through the Layout menu, will appear at the top of the page above the dynamically generated content. When a page template is present, it's body tags, such as background, text, and link colors override default page settings made in Layout. Colors, fonts, and borders within the dynamically generated content are still controlled through the administration panel, regardless of whether a template is present unless there is a style sheet that overrides it.

There are five templates used for the retail shopping cart and affiliate pages. If the wholesale shopping cart is activated, it has an additional 4 templates. The page templates can have the same or different content, depending on your needs.

Example templates are included in the distribution package for new installations. The template examples are not included in distribution of updates.

Retail Shopping Cart & Affiliate Page Templates

The following templates are located in the templates directory of AShop.

The <!-- AShopstart --> <!-- AShopend --> tags indicate where the shopping cart content is rendered on the page.

catalogue.html – used by the product catalog and search pages.

cart.html – used by the basket and checkout pages

delivery.html – used by the digital goods delivery pages

thankyou.html – used by the payment confirmation page

affiliate.html – used by the affiliate sign up, login, and support pages

IMPORTANT! Many payment gateways will host your payment confirmation page through their SSL connection. When they do this, they take a snap shot of your page and nest it within their page at their URL. If this is the case, the hyperlinks within the thankyou.html template must use absolute URL's for links to work and for images to appear. In addition, image links should be https links so that browser secure/non-secure content warning messages won't appear for customers when the payment processor redirects to the thankyou (payment confirmation) page.

Note: Other comments that you can use in your page templates are <!-- AShopname --> which will display your Shop Name and <!-- AShoplogo --> which will display your Logo Image.

Wholesale Shopping Cart & Sign up Page Templates

These templates are used by the wholesale pages.

wscatalogue.html - used by the wholesale product catalog and search pages.

wscart.html - used by the wholesale basket and checkout pages.

wssignup.html - used by pages where wholesale customers sign up for an account.

Shopping Mall Page Templates

mall.html - used by mall.php, the member shop directory.

membersignup.html - used by pages where members sign up for an account.