Completely lost

[LucyJodi]

Hi there,

I am trying very hard to set up my store, but am completely lost. Is it possible to work on templates from Dreamweaver. I'm having a hell of time, just figuring it out.

Also, if I didn't use dreamweaver and decided to work online, how do I add categories to each item, for example a drop down with sizes, or colors or order information.

Please help, I'm helping someone who is supposed to be paying me for the help, and at this point I've spent more time on trying to figure it out then what she is going to pay me. I'm at my wits end.

Thanks,
Lucy

[Jim]

Yes you can use Dreamweaver to create custom templates for ShopSite. However you need to think more broadly than creating a single html page like you would normally create with Dreamweaver. What you do is create the layout in Dreamweaver and then replace blocks of content on the page with the ShopSite template tag that will display the content. Dreamweaver doesn't understand the ShopSite template tags so it displays things oddly. What I usually do is create the layout in a tool like Dreamweaver. I then edit the html that it created in a different program and add the ShopSite template tags there. The template tags are all described in our online help at
http://shopsite.com/help/10.2/en-US/sc/pro/custom.templates.html At the bottom of that page are links to tutorials, Tag References, a tag cheatsheet, cookbook and a description of the built in templates.

The "cookbook" is snippets of code that you can use in creating your template. The Tag Referenced defines the syntax of tags and lists the various tags which pull data from the store's database or configuration files. The Cheatsheet is an abbreviated form of the tag reference. as well as number of videos on using ShopSite. More information can be found in the ShopSite template tutorial at http://www.shopsite.com/templates/tutorial/

This video http://www.shopsite.com/tutorial/merchandising-customtemplates.htm gives a quick over view of adding template tags to an existing design.

For your second question about "categories to each item, for example a drop down with sizes, or colors or order information" That feature is called order options in ShopSite. In the merchant interface to ShopSite (backoffice) click on the Products buttton (or icon in the navbar) and then select the product from the list and click the Edit Product Info. Scroll about half way down the page to a section titled Ordering Options. There are 2 field in the section The first Order Options Description is for descriptive text to display above the options. You would enter something like "Choose the size and color you want". In the second field you enter the options for the product with each option on a separate line and a blank line between different type of options. Here is a brief example
size;n
Small
Medium
Large

Color;n
Red
Blue
Green

(The ;n after Size and Color indicate that these are titles for the option and a choice must be made before the shopper will be allowed to checkout of the shopping cart.)

You can have as many option choices as you need for each option. The number of options (size, color, etc) is not limited if you are using the Basic options as listed above. ShopSite 10 sp2 added Advance Ordering options which gives you more control of options but limits the number of option classes to 4 per product. Advanced options allow you to track inventory on a per option basis as well as specify different price, sku, weight for each option.
More information on options is available at http://www.shopsite.com/help/10.2/en-US/sc/pro/ordering.options.html


Post again if you have specific questions.