I've been using v5.0 on a Windows 2k server for the past months (it's been a
long road), and making extensive use of the custom templates and custom
design (sorry Shopsite, but I found the built in templates to be ugly and
unwieldy
...). In the process, I have discovered a few tricks that havehelped me out.
1. Problem - More Info Page (from default product templates)and Search
Results Page have different widths than the rest of the site.
Solution - Insert <TABLE width="whatever the rest of the site
is"><TR><TD> tags at the bottom of the header, and closing tags at the top
of the footer. You can also add font tags, etc, this way... This solved my
width problems, as well as ensuring my fonts looked cohesive (another way to
adjust fonts is to add tags in the store text preferences...but this also
added the tags to the title of the search page, which was not desireable)
2. Problem - Many products on our site cannot have prices due to
manufacturer's restrictions
Solution - Shopsite allows you to turn off the price for a product in
the default templates... but I needed to add a "call or email for price"
thing. So I made a custom template that included an IF/ELSE tag so that
when the price was turned off, it printed out the "call or email" statement.
Also, in my custom template, it refrains from adding the shopping cart
buttons if the product's price is turned off. In addition, I also had to do
a global edit on those products "add to cart" and "view cart" options, and
used a 1x1 blank gif image, and used a "space" character under the text (if
you don't use the space, [Add to Cart] still shows up on a search,
regardless of whether you are having the site use the image or not...)
3. Problem - Cannot layout products in columns using the custom templates
Solution - Wait for v6.2 release
4. Cannot customize the format and layout of the product on the More Info
Page from the default product templates, or the format and layout of the
search results...
Solution - Wait for v6.2 release and hope they changed that
Basically, there are alot of ways to change and customize your layouts with
Shopsite - most of the solutions I have run into were not obvious at all,
and seemed a tad inconvenient. Especially since many of these changes and
features are what a merchant would want to use, not a shopsite partner
(speaking as a merchant). While I think Shopsite is a great product, and I
realize there are many changes taking place everyday, I think a little bit
more attention to lay-out and appearance of the resulting websites would be
beneficial. Comparing Shopsite to other programs I have used, the default,
"no-effort" sites that can be created are simply boring and unnattractive...
unless you do something like copy the layout and design for the "advanced
site" examples
Just my $0.02! I am a fan of Shopsite despite some of my negative comments!
Thanks,
Ben
Sewvacdirect / Texas Sew Wares