Custom Templates

Screen: ShopSite > Merchandising > Custom Templates

Custom Templates

Every screen or page of your store a customer can see is controlled by a Custom Template. A group of templates designed to work together to create a common presentation for the entire store is called a Theme. Each custom template contains a combination of HTML and ShopSite Custom Template Tags. For more information about making your own Custom Templates, you may want to see the Custom Templates Tutorial.

ShopSite comes with several Custom Templates, many of which are used by the various built-in Themes you can pick from. You can also create and upload your own Custom Templates for any or all the screens and pages of your store. The Custom Templates can be grouped into four categories:

Pages and Products
Shopping Cart
Advanced Features
Includes

Custom Template Management Click the Custom Template Category name button to manage Custom Template files for that category. Some categories only have a single type of Custom Template file, others have more than one file type. For each file type, you can use the following options to manage those files:
Upload Template	Click this button to upload a template file you created on your local computer.
Create New Template	Click this button to create a new (empty) template in your Back Office. You will be prompted to enter a name for the new template. To help you get started with your template, ShopSite automatically puts the reqiured [-- DEFINE --] tags in the new template.
Copy ShopSite Template	Click this button to copy one of the built-in Custom Templates. You will be prompted to give the copied template a name. The copied template will appear in your list of Custom Templates that you can view and edit.
Edit Template	Click this button to edit the selected template file in your browser. The template file contents will appear in a text box from which you can make changes to the template file.
Copy Template	Select a template file from your list, then click this button to make a copy of the selected template. You will be prompted to give the copied template a name. The copied template will appear in your list of Custom Templates that you can view and edit.
Delete Template	Select a template file from your list, then click this button to delete the selected template. You will be prompted to confirm the action, then the template will be deleted from your Back Office. You should make sure you are not using a template before deleting it.
Preview	Some template file types allow you to preview how a screen would look using the selected template file. Previewing a screen does not use actual information from your store, and has no affect on anything in your store.

You can switch between the various template type categories by using the category name buttons at the bottom of each of these screens.

Page and Product Templates

Page and Product templates control the display of store pages and products displayed on those pages. Click the Page/Product button to manage template files for these screens.

There are two template file types, the Page Template and the Product Template. A Page Template contains information used to generate Store Pages as well as the links for those pages. A Product Template contains information used to generate the Product when it is displayed on a Store Page or on a Product More Info Page. The product template has different sections controlling the product's appearance depending on whether or not the product is a Sub-Product of another product.

Shopping Cart Templates

The Shopping Cart Template controls the appearance of the Order System Screens, including the initial Shopping Cart screen, the Billing/Shipping Information screen, the optional Confirmation Screen, the Thank You screen, and the email receipt. You can preview how the shopping cart screens would appear using this template by clicking the Preview button.

Advanced Features Templates

The templates for Advanced features control Search Templates, Tell A Firend Templates, Gift Certificate Templates, and Customer Registration Templates. Advanced features can be turned on or off, so you do not need to make templates for features you are not using. Each template file contains information for generating the customer-facing screens and email messages for that feature.

Includes

Custom Template files contain lots of information, and some of that information is used in more than one place. Custom Template Includes allow you to create separate files that can be included in your templates. For example, you may have a single Style Sheet that will be used for every customer-facing screen. You could upload that Style Sheet as a single include used by every template, rather than making the style sheet a part of every template. Include files can contain Custom Template Tags.

ShopSite Help and Resource Center
Last updated: June 13, 2007
Give Feedback