Page
Generation
Templates
Email
Sales
Tax & Shipping
Search
Java
/ Java Script
Databases
Payment
Systems / Third Party Integration
Other
Technical Questions
Page Generation
Q.
How can I upsell my products?
A. Upsell currently is only
supported for creating static pages. The upsell feature as
described below will not work with dynamic product pages.
The upsell feature requires some modification of our standard template
sets. The steps you need to follow are below.
Select the template set that
you will use.
Go into the template set
directory.
(usually data/SmPageGen/contbasic) This will take you into a specific
template set. From here, make a copy of one of the product page
templates. These include pages such as normalleft.html, onsaletop.html
(any page with the words top, left, right, or bottom are product page
templates). Name this copy upsell.html.
Go up one directory to the
directory where the page generation executable and template set
configuration files are located. You will need to modify the template
set configuration file that corresponds to the template set that you
chose.
Open the template set
configuration file and look for the following line:
ProductPage1.
This lists all of the possible product page templates that are
available. There should be about 24 listed here. Go to the end of this
section and add a line similar to:
ProductPage25 Upsell
Template;contbasic/upsell.html
This will make the upsell
template available in the pull down list when you select the product
page style for each SKU.
Now that you have done this,
you need to make a change to the upsell.html page that was created.
Currently it will add an item to the cart and then link to the display
cart page. The syntax for this can be found on the upsell.html page as:
<form ACTION="ADDPRODUCT#scpages/showcart.html"
METHOD="POST">
To be able to use the upsell
feature this should read as:
<form ACTION="ADDPRODUCT#p-%%product.upsell%%.html"
METHOD="POST">
Once this is done you will
need to select the upsell template for a given product and enter the SKU
of the product that you want to link to for the upsell item.
Go Back
Search
Q.
How do I exclude certain directories
from being indexed?
A. In the swish.cfg file, add
the following line:
FileRules pathname contains
directory_name
For example to exclude the _vti directories in FrontPage the correct
line would be: FileRules pathname contains _vti
Go Back
Q.
How do I exclude certain files from
being indexed?
A. In the swish.cfg any of
the following options could be used:
FileRules pathname contains
admin
FileRules filename is index.html
FileRules filename contains # % ~ .bak .orig .old old.
FileRules title contains construction example pointers
FileRules directory contains .htaccess IndexPrefixOnly p- c-
Go Back
Q.
When I index my store certain words are
not indexed. How can I specify which words I want indexed?
A. In the swish.cfg file,
specify any of the following rules:
MinWordLength 3 #
Specifies the minimum length of words to index. Anything shorter than #
will not be indexed. Default is 3.
MaxWordLength 30 #
Specifies the maximum length of words to index. Anything longer than #
will not be indexed. Default is 30.
BeginCharDigit yes #
Allows a digit to be the first character of a word. Default is
"no."
EndCharDigit yes #
Allows a digit to be the last character of a word. Default is
"no."
IgnoreAllNumbers no #
Ignores words that are all digits. Default is "yes."
IgnoreAllVowels yes #
Ignores words that are all vowels. Default is "yes."
IgnoreAllConsonants yes #
Ignores words that are all consonants. Default is "yes."
MaxRepeatNumbers 4 #
Ignores words that have more than this many consecutive digits. Default
is "4." Set to -1 for no limit. Set to 0 to allow no numbers
in words. For example, with the default setting of 4 #, the word
"test12345" would be ignored.
MaxRepeatVowels 4 #
Ignores words that have more than this many consecutive vowels. Default
is "4." Set to -1 for no limit. Set to 0 to allow no vowels in
words. For example, with the default setting of 4 #, the word "testaeiou"
would be ignored.
MaxRepeatConsonants 5 #
Ignores words that have more than this many consecutive consonants.
Default is "5." Set to -1 for no limit. Set to 0 to allow no
consonants in words. For example, with the default setting of 5 #, the
word "testqwrx" would be ignored.
MaxRepeatChar 3 #
Ignores words that have a character repeated more than this many times.
Default is "3." This number represents the maximum number of
times a single character can appear consecutively in a word. If a word
was "testaaaa" it would be ignored, but "testedtxt"
would not be ignored since the "t" characters are not
consecutive. Set to -1 for no limit. Set to 0 or 1 to disallow any
repeated characters in words. If -1, the limit of MaxRepeatConsonants,
MaxRepeatVowels or MaxRepeatNumbers will apply, unless those are also
-1.
Go Back
Q.
When I index my site common words like
"a" and "the" are indexed. How do I remove common
words?
A. To remove common words,
add the following line to the swish.cfg file:
IgnoreLimit 50 100 #
This automatically omits words that appear too often in the files (these
words are called stopwords). Specify a whole percentage and a number,
such as "80 256". This omits words that occur in over 80
percent of the files and appear in over 256 files. Comment out to turn
off auto-stopwording.
Go Back
Q.
If I choose dynamic pages, how do I
control which columns in my product database are indexed?
A. By default SoftCart will
index the following columns:
SKU
Description
Marketing Description
If you would like to add or
remove any columns to be indexed you will need to add the following line
to your store config file:
DBIndexFields Column_Name1:
Column_Name1: Column_Name1
Go Back
Q.
When I do a search in my store the
graphics and links on my search results page are broken. How do I fix
this?
A. On the search
page/template you will need to specify full URL's for both the image
sources and the links on the page.
(e.g. <IMG SRC=http://www.domain.com/images/graphic.gif>)
Go Back
Q.
Can I change the number of search
results that are returned?
A. Yes. In the wwwwais.cfg
file please add the following line:
MaxHits 40 #
Where 40 is the maximum number of results to return
Go Back
Q.
How can I change the text of the search
results?
A. In the wwwwais.cfg file
add the following line:
SortType score #
This determines how results are sorted. This can be:
score
lines
bytes
title
type
Go Back
Q.
Do I have to use the icons on my search
results?
A. No. In the wwwais.cfg file
you can modify the following line:
UseIcons yes #
Define as "yes" or "no" if you do or do not want to
use icons.
Go Back
Q.
I would like to change the number of
products that are listed per page. How do I do this?
A. You will need to open the
template set configuration file for the template that you are using. In
this file there is a line that reads:
MaxProdPerPage x
To change this value, simply replace current value (x) with the maximum
number of products that you would like to be displayed per page
Go Back
Q.
I am in the process of adding new
products to my website, but I do not want to make them available yet.
How do I do this?
A. In the template set
configuration file, add a new ProductPage line. For this new line,
specify a name of the template set, but do not include a path for the
input file. An example would be:
ProductPage25 No Page:
When your store is generated, the product page for this product will not
be created.
Go Back
Q.
How do I access additional data from my
product database in a template set?
A. Open the html page in the
template set that you want to add the data to. Insert the following tag:
%%product.column_name%%
where column_name is the field in the database that you want to call.
Go Back
Q.
In my template set I want to add a link
to an external website (e.g. http://www.mercantec.com). However, when I
generate my store and follow the link I get an error. How do I fix this?
A. To use links to external
websites you will need to use the SoftCart tag, NOPARSE#. Sample
of html to link to an external website would be:
<A HREF="http://www.mercantec.com">Link</A>
To be able to link to this website inside of your store you will need to
change this link to read as:
< A
HREF="NOPARSE#http://www.mercantec.com">Link</A>
Go Back
Q.
Bookmarks in my pages are not working.
I am linked back to the index.html file. How do I fix this?
A. A standard bookmark in an
html page is <A HREF="#HERE">. To be able to use
bookmarks within your store environment the link needs to be either:
<A HREF=#HERE>
(without
the quotes) or
<A
HREF="page.html#HERE">
Go Back
Q:
How can I create sub-categories with SoftCart?
A: SoftCart does not have a
built-in feature to create sub-categories. You can create products with
specific attributes under a category, but not an entire sub-category of
products. However a module can be developed to provide this
functionality. An aftermarket third-party vendor called Olment offers
such a module, and you may visit their web site to find out more
information: http://www.olmnet.com/softcart/sc.shtml
Please note that Commerce
Blvd is not directly affiliated with Olmnet and does not provide this
listing as an endorsement of these products, nor does it make
representations or warranties concerning the content of these sites.
Commerce Blvd will not provide support for these
products or it's functionality with our hosting services. Please consult
the product vendor directly for more details.
Go Back
Q:
How do I sort my SoftCart Categories and Products?
A: For your convenience, an
aftermarket third-party vendor called Olmnet offers a module to provide
this function. You can find out more information about their products
at: http://www.olmnet.com/softcart/sc.shtml
Please note that Commerce
Blvd is not directly affiliated with Olmnet and does not provide this
listing as an endorsement of these products, nor does it make
representations or warranties concerning the
content of these sites. Commerce Blvd will not provide support for these
products or it's functionality with our hosting services. Please consult
the product vendor directly for more details.
Go Back
Templates
Q.
I would like to collect additional
information on my online order page. How do I make this available in my
templates?
A. By default SoftCart will
pass all information that it collects on the online order page. If you
add a new field to your online order page called Address3:
<INPUT
TYPE="TEXT" NAME="Address3" Value=""
Size=30>
You will need to make a change to your order delivery templates to
capture this information. The tag that you will need to add is <Field_Name>.
In the example that we used above the tag would be <Address3>.
These tags are case sensitive so you will need to verify the spelling of
the field names.
Go Back
Q.
How do I access additional data from my
product database in my order delivery templates?
A. To access additional data
from your product database you will need to add the following tag to
your order delivery templates:
<Product.Column_Name>
Replace Column_Name by whatever column you need to access.
This tag needs to be places
between the <Product> and tag in the existing template. For
example, the following tags will access a column called Password from
the product database:
<Products>
<Product.Password>
</Products>
These tags are case sensitive so you will need to verify the spelling of
the field names.
Go Back
Q.
How do I call the credit card
authorization and transaction numbers in my templates?
A. The tags to use to be able
to call these fields are:
<CCAuthNumber> Credit
Card Authorization Number
<CCTransNumber> Credit Card Transaction Number
Go Back
Q.
What are the possible tags available to use in my templates?
A. Product Tags
|
<Date>
|
Prints the date in
mm/dd/yyyy format
|
|
<time>
|
Prints date and time
the order it was taken
|
|
<cartID>
|
Shopping Cart ID
|
|
<Geography>
|
The geography
selected by the user
|
|
<ShopName>
|
The name of the shop
specified in the configuration file
|
|
<Products>
|
Signals the beginning
of the section that will be repeated for each item in the
|
|
<ProductSKU>
|
SKU (or item number)
for the current product
|
|
<ProductQuantity>
|
Quantity purchased of
the current product
|
|
<ProductVariation>
|
Variation data for
the current product
|
|
<ProductDescription>
|
Description of the
current product
|
|
<ProductPrice>
|
Price per unit of the
current product
|
|
<ProductTotal>
|
Subtotal price before
shipping and sales tax
|
|
<ProductShipping>
|
Shipping per unit of
the current product (Line Item shipping model only, otherwise
0.00)
|
|
<Product
Weight>
|
Weight per unit of
the current product (WeightTables shipping model only, otherwise
0.00)
|
|
<Product#>
|
Position in cart for
the current product
|
|
</Products>
|
Signals the end of
the section that will be repeated for each item in the cart
|
Total Tags
|
<TotalLineItems>
|
The total number of
product line items (not including shipping and sales tax)
|
|
<TotalTax>
|
Total sales tax for
the order
|
|
<TotalShipping>
|
Total shipping amount
for the order (WeightTables, PriceThreshold, and
QuantityThreshold shipping models only, otherwise 0.00)
|
|
<GrandTotal>
|
Grand Total for the
order, including taxes and shipping
|
EDI Tags
|
<EDIDate>
|
Prints the date in
YYMMDD format
|
|
<EDITime>
|
Prints the time in
HHMMSS format
|
|
<TotalLineItems>
|
The total number of
product line items (not including shipping and sales tax)
|
Go Back
Q.
I am not using a template to format my
orders. When I download my orders the credit card number is not
included. Why is this and how can I
fix it?
A. By default you are doing a
credit card check in SoftCart using the "ccnum" parameter,
which does not pass the credit card number field. To include the credit
card number you will need to use a template to format the order
delivery.
Go Back
Q.
I am using a template to format my
order delivery and when I download my order I receive the message
"Credit Card Was Approved" where the credit card number should
be. How do I do this?
A. If you are using a credit
card authorization program (e.g. CyberCash) then SoftCart will not pass
the credit card number to any back end application. You will need to add
the settlement program to receive your credit card information (if
necessary).
Go Back
Q.
I would like to offer gift services to
the shoppers who come to my store. How can this easily be done?
A. You simply access the
online.html page inside your template set. You will see code that looks
something like this:
<font
face="ARIAL"> Please place any special shipping
instructions in the box below. <br>
<textarea name="ShippingInstructions" rows="4"
cols="50" wrap="VIRTUAL"> </textarea></font>
Change the text that says:
"Please place any special shipping instructions in the box
below", to meet your needs.
It is advised to make sure
that you leave the name of the tag, which is: <textarea NAME="ShippingInstructions"
as this tag is used in the back end templates. It would would require
more coding to change the back end templates that the online form writes
to. It is not necessarily involved, but is a lot easier to leave it
since it doesn't appear anywhere the customer could see.
For the changes to be made,
generate your store with the new template file.
Go Back
Q:
Are additional SoftCart Templates / Third Party templates available?
A: An aftermarket third-party
vendor called Olmnet offers additional templates that are compatible
with SoftCart. You can find out more information about this service at: http://www.olmnet.com/softcart
Please note that Commerce
Blvd is not directly affiliated with Olmnet and does not provide this
listing as an endorsement of these products, nor does it make
representations or warranties concerning the
content of these sites. Commerce Blvd will not provide support for these
products or it's functionality with our hosting services. Please consult
the product vendor directly for more details.
Go Back
Email
Q.
When I try to place an order offline I
receive a message saying that the mail server refused the message. What
do I do?
A. Some SP's limit access to
their mail servers. Please contact your SP to see if they have set up
any filtering rules on the mail server that you are trying to use.
Go Back
Sales Tax & Shipping
Q.
I use both FedEx next day and Standard
Mail to deliver my products to my state. How do I set up my shipping
zones to accommodate this?
A. A shipping zone is a very
general term. You can use whatever you want for each zone. To set up
your store use the example above you could create two zones, one called
"Illinois - FedEx next day" and a second zone called
"Illinois - standard mail". You will then be able to enter in
the shipping charges for both of these zones to meet your shipping
requirements
Go Back
Q.
I have my shipping charges set up, and
when I add an item to my cart the shipping charge is displayed. However,
after I add more to my cart I loose my shipping charges. Why?
A. For each shipping zone you
will need to enter a maximum value. The shipping amount that you will
need to enter is the word "max" and the shipping charge for
this amount will be whatever you want to charge for shipping. An example
would be:
10 1
Max 2
This will charge $1 shipping
between 0 and 10 and $2 for anything over 10. This applies to the
following shipping models:
Price Threshold
Weight Threshold
Quantity Threshold
Go Back
Java / JavaScript
Q.
I have published my sites to various
search engines and people are going directly to my product pages without
first entering the front door. When they try to buy an item they receive
a file not found error message. What can I do to resolve this?
A. Attached is a brief
JavaScript that will check to see if the shopper has been assigned a
session ID and if not, automatically reload the page so that the shopper
can buy the product with a cart ID. This script works in Netscape
browsers 3.0 and above and IE browsers 3.0 and above as well. Please
place this script in between the <head> tags in your documents.
<SCRIPT
LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
<!--
if (location.pathname != "/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/store2/product2a.html")
window.location="/cgi-bin/SoftCart.exe/store2/product2a.html?E+mystore2";
while (location.pathname != "cgi-bin/Softcart.exe/store2/products2a.html")break//
-->
</SCRIPT>
You will need to modify each
of these lines to reflect the following on your site:
the CGIBinDirectory:
the example is cgi-bin
the name of the executable:
the example is SoftCart.exe
the path and name of the page that you are using this script on
(this will change from page to page):
the example is for product2a.html in the store 2 directory
store2/product2a.html
the configuration file that you want to invoke
the example is mystore2
This will check to see if
SoftCart is in the URL (i.e. that the shopper has a session ID). If not
it will automatically reload the page but invoke SoftCart and assign
them a new session ID (in effect every page will have a front door link
built into it).
If the shopper does have a
session ID then nothing happens and the shopper continues shopping. The
page does not reload and everything is fine.
Go Back
Q.
My Java applets will not work inside of
SoftCart. When I go to my site without using SoftCart the Java works
fine but when you are on the system with SoftCart I get the following
errors. Why?
When using Netscape
Navigator:
"applet can't start erro.java.lang.class.error"
When using Internet Explorer
"load:class tickertape not found"
A. It is possible to run
applets within a storefront, however, it is necessary to use the "CODEBASE"
parameter as part of the Applet tag.
Following is a sample applet
code:
<applet code="NervousText.class"
codebase="/uwest" width=200 height=50>
<param name=text value="Your Logo Here">
</applet>
A brief summary of the Applet
tag:
<applet> specifies a
Java applet. Everything until the </applet> tag is part of this.
If you wish to have some text displayed by browsers that do not support
Java, or have Java "turned off" specify it between the
<applet> and </applet> not enclosed by <>.
code= specifies the file
which contains the Java "bytecodes." You can think of this
files as the complied Java program (but it's the same on all platforms
that support Java).
You can't specify a URL here;
you just specify the name of the file (usually SomeClassName.class).
codebase= Here you can
specify a URL to a directory that contains the class file specified in
the "code" parameter. THIS IS REQUIRED FOR CORRECT OPERATION
WITHIN A SOFTCART STOREFRONT. Since the "current directory" is
lost because SoftCart parses every page, it causes the "can't
start" errors described above.
You can specify it as
mentioned above - with an initial '/' - as in: codebase="/store1"
codebase="/store2/applets"
etc.
codebase =
"<http://www.mystore1.com/store1>"
codebase = "http://www.mystore2.com.store2/applets"
The width and height
parameters simply tell the browser how much of the page to reserve for
the applet.
The rest is the parameters to
the Applet. These should not cause any problems, unless they specify
URL's. If they do, they should be absolute, not relative. There is not
away currently to get SoftCart to parse these.
Go Back
Database
Q.
What is the database capacity of
SoftCart?
A. Using the ASCII tab
delimited data file that comes with SoftCart, stores can support up to
about 7,500 products in a database. For more than 7,500 products we
recommend using a relational database. On Windows NT SoftCart provides
an ODBC interface allowing connections to any ODBC compliant database
such as Oracle, Sybase, or Informix. In addition for the UNIX
environment, we would suggest using the Mercantec Product API to develop
a direct connection between SoftCart and the existing relational
database. This has been done for Oracle, MySQL, and Sybase by third
parties
Go Back
Q.
I have a site with over 5,000 products
and I do not want to use the user interface to enter in my products. Is
there a way that I can simply upload my database to my website?
A. Yes. By default SoftCart
reads from a tab delimited text file. Save your current database as a
tab delimited text file. This is easily accomplished through most third
party spreadsheet/database applications by doing a "Save As"
and then specifying a tab delimited format. When you save this file,
save it as product4.pdb. You can choose any name you want, but
there will be additional configuring if you save the file under a
different name. Once you have saved the file you will need to upload it
to your server. You can do this through many applications like an FTP
program or through your html editor if it supports a Publish/Upload
option. You will need to upload this file to the data/shopdata/products
directory on your server. The location of this directory will depend
upon where the software was installed at installation time. Once you
have located this directory you will then need to upload the file
"product4.pdb" to this directory. If you are given an option
of either uploading the file as "ASCII" or "binary,"
select "ASCII" as the file format.
Go Back
Payment
Systems/ Third Party Integration
Q.
Can I use Clear Commerce with any
merchant account or bank?
A. No. Clear Commerce can only be utilized by opening a new
Bank One merchant account directly through the store manager. This
option is most convenient for those who do not already have a merchant
account, because it offers the account with Bank One at no set up fee
and a special low percentage rate.
Customers who already have a
merchant account may use the CyberCash module with CyberCash services,
or they may develop a customized module to connect with an alternative
payment system. Note that these options are only important if you wish
to use an online, real-time processing method.
Go Back
Q.
What types of modules does SoftCart
support?
A. The two ready-made modules that are provided for the
SoftCart online transaction option are CyberCash and Clear Commerce.
Each of these modules is sold as a connector to the corresponding
payment service, and we are able to provide support for those two types
of payment gateways. The third module offered is the QuickBooks (QB)
module, which links your online store directly with your Quick Books
accounting system for download. The QB module is only compatible with
QuickBooks ’99, but Mercantec is currently working to provide one that
will support more recent versions.
Go Back
Q.
Can Commerce Blvd
and Mercantec provide support
for a third-party payment system?
A. The flexibility of
SoftCart’s API allows you to develop your own customized module (also
known as a payment gateway) to connect to another outside payment system
for real-time transactions. Some payment systems may even offer you a
ready-made module which they will support. (You should contact that
third-party service for more information.) Commerce Blvd is only able to provide
debugging support for the ClearCommerce module provided by
Mercantec.
Go Back
Q.
Where can I find out more information about Cybercash and if it will
still work with Softcart?
A. Mercantec is handling direct inquires about Cybercash and how to
acquire an account with them. Please contact Mercantec for specific
questions as to the status of Cybercash availability.
Go Back
Other
Technical Questions
