Custom template Help - Very confused

[mustangfanatic]

So I am trying to create a custom template. I understand how it works and that you need to add tags. If you take a look at my site www.s197performance.com. You will notice that the only pages that are run by shopsite is my shopping pages. I have three vehicle categories on the front page, Mustang GT, GT500 and Mustang V6. Once you click on the vehicle that you desire it takes you to a page with parts categories. There is a seperate parts category for each vehicle. So they are all a little different. This page is not in shopsite. For the links on my custom template shopping pages, I want the links on the side just like the front page but also include the parts categories. The thing is that the links on the side need to go to the parts specific to each vehicle. How do I do this? If you notice my shopping pages now on the sidebar it has a long list of all the shopping pages that I have. But I dont want it to say GT, GT500 or V6 in front of the page names for the links. On the side bar I want link name Engine, Exhaust, Induction/Fuel, Interior Accessories, Exterior Accessories, Brakes, Power Adders, Suspension, Drivetrain and Computer . This are the only links I want on the side bar. But like i said these links have to go the specific parts page for each individual car. I am very new to this so please bear with me. Thanks.

[Jim]

Any page links in your shopping cart will have to be hard coded to where you want them to go. This can be done by either adding the links themselves to the template or by using an include file that contains the links.

From what I under stand of your question, it sounds like you want the links to go back to generic pages (i.e. Engine, Exhaust, Induction/Fuel, Interior etc.) not to pages for a specific car, is that correct? That is probably the only way you would be able to do it since I don't think you could regenerate the links in the cart based on what car part they added.

So do you have the main pages for Engine, Exhaust, etc that are general and not specific to a particular car? If so then you will need to create the links so they go to those pages. If you don't have those pages there is no way to create links to them since they don't exist. I looked at one of the ShopSite generated pages and the links on that page all go to product specific pages. Maybe you need to add another higher level of pages that is the general category (i.e. Engine, Exhaust etc.) that would then have links to the specific type of Engine i.e. GT, GT500, V6 etc.

[mustangfanatic]

I think I understand what you are saying. I have the main category page for each car (gt, gt500 and v6). These pages aren't shopsite pages.

I think I am getting caught up with the code that I must add in for shopsite to read the template. If I want my own links, do I need to add shopsite code? I have custom made buttons for the links that I want, should these buttons be in my images in shopsite?

[Jim]

You don't have to use the ShopSite generated code, you could put the links in your pages yourself. However if you have lots of pages to create it may be easier to create the ShopSite template that will do all of that work for you.

You can use your custom buttons for the links by putting the Button in as the link graphic and when ShopSite generates your page the appropriate button would be used..