ShopSite hates me :P

[Packer]

Hey Guys (and/or Gals),
I, like many people on here, am just stepping into the big wide world of ShopSite, and therefore, am embarking on some new problems along the way..

Ill keep it short

Website : *Removed by Packer*

The scenario:
My company recently purchased a ShopSite custom template from SD360.com, the site was designed, and handed over to us, with footwear as the example products, now im not too bad at web design myself, so its not like I dont understand anything thats going on, so I went about my daily business and started changing the look of the website (Graphics and Banners etc), I also created a few pages as extra categories as this was needed by my company.

Now (and this is where the problems start), we have a vast range of products all stored on a system called Syspro, we had all these products uploaded into ShopSite with a custom utility and I assume it all went well because the products are all there in the 'Products' part of ShopSite.

The Problem:
My problem is, when these products were uploaded, the previous products (i.e the Shoes) were deleted. And this is a problem because I needed the 'More Info' page as a template; I was using the 'Copy Page' button to make new More Info pages.

With these pages gone, I dont see how I can make more info pages look how they did before? Is there a template or something provided for us that im not seeing?

Another minor problem, that I assume should be fixed easily, is the way the products are displaying?

*Removed by Packer*

If You take a look at that URL, you should see them displaying in a rather dodgy format.

Any help will be UNBELIEVABLY appreciated !

Thanks for reading/helping.
Lewis.

[Jim]

First off the best person to help you with the template would be the developer. You might try contacting them for assistance

The normal ShopSite upload mechanisms do not remove products or pages from the store they will only add products or pages. So if your application removed them that is not a ShopSite function.

The More information pages are created by the product template that is assigned to the product. So using the Copy Page functionality would do nothing for or to the More Information pages (unless that page template overrides the product template which would be a special case). So if you assign the same product template to the products that the original products used and republish the store you should get the same look on the more information pages.

As for the cascading look on the page you refer to, see if changing the templates page and product) to the one that the store originally used and see if that fixes it. If not you will need to contact sd360 for assistance since they are the ones that created the template. (I don't think they would want you posting their template on the forum because then anyone could grab it)

[Packer]

Removed the links, but when you say grab, you mean copy the template or actually steal the files?

Ill drop the developer an email, thanks for the help !

Ill probably be back soon.

[Packer]

Just had an email back from the guy who ran the utility to upload all the products.

He's stated that it wasnt the utility thats deleted the pages and products, it was him. Our manager recommended it so we could begin with a 'clean sheet' so to speak.

So now knowing that the pages are gone, my question is this;

Imagine im starting from the beginning, ive created my product, uploaded my picture etc.

Now im trying to add a more info page, ive ticked the box, and named my file "productName-mi.html", should this page obviously generated by ShopSite, be styled or do I have to do something else?

I ask because the template I was given had maybe a hundred products with 'More Info' pages, and they were all formatted amazingly.

When I do it however, I literally get a white page, with product title, discription and price in the top left hand corner.

This makes me wonder whether its linking the template correctly.

Again, I really appreciate any help, and if you cant help I will get in touch with the Developer.

[Jim]

By "grab" I meant if you posted the entire template on the forum any one could make a copy of it and use it in their store.

As I mentioned previously the more information pages are created using the product template. If you assign the products that you uploaded the same template that the original ones used you should get a very similar look (size of the image and amount of text etc could make a difference). So on one of your products go to the Products > Edit Product Layout screen and select the template that goes with the template that sd360 created and use that one. Then publish the store and look at the more information page what was created. Note that the page the product is assigned to should also be using the sd360 created template incase that template overrides the product template.

[Packer]

I only posted the URL of our website.. No links to any files.

And thanks, you fixed it for me.. All I needed to do was change the Template to the SD one, I had no idea they even existed.

Appreciate it Jim,
Thank you!


...now, with the template we had about 10 links put on the very top of each page, our Managing Director has decided he only wants the 4 main ones, contact, about etc.

Is there an easy way to edit all 111 pages of our website? Or do i have to trudge through manually?

Cheers,
Lewis.

[Jim]

If they are all ShopSite generated pages you should not have to edit the html pages at al. How were those links put on the top of the page If they were included in the template you would need to edit the template and remove them and then republish. If they were included in the Header (Preferences > Header/footer) then you would edit that section and republish. If the links are because those pages were assigned to each of your store pages then you need to go to Pages > Assign Items and select the appropriate pages that you want a link to.

[JeremeD]

With these pages gone, I dont see how I can make more info pages look how they did before? Is there a template or something provided for us that im not seeing?

Lewis,

The problem most likely is that in uploading your products the correct product template was not specified by your export utility. The template that all the products should be using is named sd360_product_template.html

You can assign this template to all your products by clicking on products in the menu bar in shopsite, selecting all your products and clicking on the power edit button. From the list on the right select template. Select the global option below the two lists. Now, you'll be able to assign the correct template to all your products at once. Then do a full regen.

There are numerous fields in a shopsite record and others may have been omitted by your export utility as well.

Is there an easy way to edit all 111 pages of our website? Or do i have to trudge through manually?

Those links are in an include named sd360_inc_header.html . This file is found under Merchandising > Custom Templates > Includes. All you need to do is edit the links in that file and do a full regen to update all the pages.

If you are having a problem with our templates you can always contact SD360 directly by phone or email from the site http://www.sd360.com/. We can add the default page/product set so you can have examples to go by and let you know what's incorrect with your current products as well.