Screen: ShopSite > Merchandising > Custom Templates

Custom Template Tag Specification

Custom templates are text files that contain standard HTML tags and ShopSite custom template tags. Custom template tags define where information from the ShopSite databases is to appear. You can use these tags to define page templates, page links, product templates, more info page templates, search page templates, tell a friend templates, gift certificate templates, customer registration templates, and shopping cart templates.

The custom template tag specification help pages provide complete reference information about the available tags and how to use them. Once you are familiar with the tags, you may be able to use the short version as a reminder of the tags and their basic output.

Template Tag Format

All ShopSite custom template tags have the same basic format:

[-- TAG INFO --]

When a store that uses a custom template is published, ShopSite searches the template for tags with the above syntax and replaces them with information from the appropriate databases, based on the instructions in TAG INFO. ShopSite publishes all standard HTML tags just as they appear in the templates.

HTML authoring programs and browsers should display the ShopSite tags as regular text. This helps while developing and debugging templates by letting you see a template with the tags as placeholders.

Other notes on formatting tags:

• Tags are not case-sensitive.
• A tag may not extend over more than one line. That is, there cannot be any carriage returns or line feeds within a tag.
• Many tags have optional parameters, which are shown in in curly braces in the help, like this: {parameter}. Do not include the braces when using these parameters. A parameter in italics is a placeholder showing where you need to provide a real value.
• The following tags must appear on lines by themselves; all other tags can be placed on lines that contain other text, other tags, and HTML.
  • [-- LOOP x --]
  • [-- END_LOOP x --]
  • [-- DEFINE x --]
  • [-- END_DEFINE x --]
  • [-- ITEM --]
  • [-- PRODUCT --]
  • [-- LINK --]
  • [-- IF --]
  • [-- ELSE_IF --]
  • [-- ELSE --]
  • [-- END_IF --]
• Add comments to a template by beginning a line with a '#'. Each line of the comment will need to begin with this character. Putting a space (or any other character) before the '#' will prevent the comment from being read as such, displaying the content.

  Example comment:
  #This places the 'Add to Cart' button
  #to the side of a product, instead of
  #below it.

Template Tag Definitions

To keep the help pages to a manageable size, the custom template tags are divided into groups:

Global Tags
Page Tags
Product Tags
Search Tags
Tell A Friend Tags
Shopping Cart Tags
Gift Certificate Tags
Customer Registration Tags

ShopSite Help and Resource Center Last updated: March 01, 2010 Give Feedback

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