Newbie question - can I do this?

[dsellers]

I've been reading through the manual -very impressive program. I have some experience with html, JavaScript, and php. Is it ok is I create my own custom templates, and use my own navigation (to link all of the pages together - toolbar, etc) and use my own css styles?

I am thinking if I only use the "cart related" tags in the templates, I could save time and create all of the linking & css in DreamWeaver (which would be easier). I know this wouldn't give me the back office control that many people probably like, but this isn't important to me as I can just make changes in DreamWeaver and upload the updated template.

This approach is hinted around to throughout the help info, but I just wanted to get some feedback before I start.

[Jim]

Yes you can do that. ShopSite templates are just html pages with the custom template tags in them in places where you want to pull information from your ShopSite store settings. So as long as you have the appropriate format for the tags and the appropriate html you can do almost anything in the template.

[dsellers]

That's great news! A quick question regarding this - I see the product pages in the main directory on my site (when viewing via ftp, etc), but I don't see the checkout page, thank you page, etc.

I need to know where these exist in my site directory so that I can correctly configure the links and ss includes in the custom templates that I am creating. Any ideas on where I might be able to find info on what the paths are for the different files within the cart? Thanks for any help.

[Jim]

The shopping cart screens are generated by cgis based on the ShopSite template assigned to them. You would need to either put your links in the template itself or in one of the text fields used on the pages (Commerce Setup > Order System > (Shopping cart, Checkout, Confirmation,Thank You) and then a field named Text at Top of ... or Text at bottom of ...