Affordable Linux Web Hosting by Onalaska Web : Adding Products

This Section covers adding new products to your store's database using the add products screen of the store manager.

To access your store manager, type in the URL for your web site but change the end to: /protected/manager.cgi For example if your have a the store address http://www.iMegaMall.com/cgi-bin/store/agora.cgi, then you would change it to http://www.iMegaMall.com/cgi-bin/store/protected/manager.cgi to access your store manager.

If you have already protected your store manager section with .htaccess you will get the login screen above. If you are using your store manager section for the first time and/or you have not performed the .htaccess function yet, you will get the logon screen as seen in the image below.

Once logining into the store manager, you will be presented with the following options:

Add Product: use this section add products to your store's database as well as upload product images for each individual product listing.

Edit Product: Use this section to edit individual products, pricing, links to extra information pages, links to larger or detailed images, list product options (such as color, size, etc) and change the product's images.

Delete Product: This will delete a product from the store's database permanently. Caution: Once you click on the delete button, even by mistake, the listing is deleted. If you delete by mistake, you will have to re-enter the product from scatch using the add product section.

Cart Display: This section allows you to change the display of the cart contents table that the customer sees at checkout (and view/edit cart functions) as well as cart content items that are included/excluded in the confirmation emails that you and they receive. In other words, this manages the individual cells of the cart contents table and also manages what to include in the confirmation emails. To change the background colors for the cells of you check out area or cart contents table, see the store layout manager.

Commando: This section is for more advanced users and allows you to use Unix commands in cases such as when you do not have telnet of SSH1 (or SSH2) access. It's not guaranteed to work, but it does come in handy. Use with caution! We are not responsible for damages caused by this function/section.

HTACCESS: This section will set up .htaccess protection for you store manager section (basically the protected directory). Click on the link to set this up. This will setup the usename and password for the directory protection. Note: username is limited to 8 characters or less. You will still have to modify the manager.cgi file manually to change the password and username in that section as needed.

Orders: This is the online order log that tracks the orders generated by your store.

Database: This section allows your to update the database's numbering length (pad length) after products have been added or a database has been uploaded. This is were you export your database to .csv format so that you can edit your database in programs such as MS Excel and Lotus spreadsheet programs. Import functions are also available for .csv and pipe delimited databases.

Program Settings: This section comprises three separate areas: Main Settings, Shipping Settings, and Tax Settings. These sections allow you to administrate many functions regarding the gateway youu wish to use, taxes and shipping costs, shipping modules and many other store administration options.

Payment Gateway: Here you will be able to setup the specifics for the main gateway you chose in the main settings section of the Program Settings menu.

PGP/GPG: Setup and install PGP/GPG functions. Used to encrypt email orders sent to you and/or to use secure email reading capabilities. The iTransact nor the AgoraPay payment gateways do not require this section to be setup unless you are customizing for advanced report back functions. Authorize.Net SIM, 2Checkout, Standard PayPal, eWay, Linkpoint Basic (aka LinkpointHTML), PayFlow, Intellipay, PlugnPay nor PsiGate do not need this area configured. If you do not upload a key and use Offline for payment processing your emailed orders will only contain half of the customers credit card number. The other half will need to accessed from your "Store Manager". Uploading a security key will allow you to view the complete credit card number after decrypting the email. GPG provides plug-ins form most email clients that make this a very easy one-click task.

Simple Options Editor: This allow you to create and edit simple options files. First you can create option files and palces them automatically in the "html/options" directory or your store. Once you have created or edited the desired option files, you then go to the product add or edit managers and select the options file desired for each individual product you with to include them within. NOTE: this will only edit option files originally created in this manager. Variable and/or complex option files must be created manaually and uploaded to your html/options sub directory of your store.

Store Layout: Here you will be able to setup the store layout, such as background colors, text colors, messages found throughout the cart (except on order pages those are handled in the payment gateasy managers), body tag attributes, "cart contents" table attibutes, and many other items related tothe general store layout. Headers, Footers, the main store page, and productPage.inc files are still edited either with store header/footer managers (standard headers and footers only) or done manually. See the Store design and layout section of this manual or the Cool Tips & FAQ area for more information and great tips.

Tracking: This section allows you to see the various URL entry points for your store that people first visit your store at, as well as the site they came from they came from and what type of browser they use. Information is generic and does not track individual users or their personal information. Error Log: This section allows you to see errors generated by the program during the course of operation. It comes in handy when trying to figure out many errors or why certain aspects of AgoraCart don't seem to function properly.

This box will automatically fill in with the next product number following the highest listed in the store's database. Don't worry about the "*" symbol in the product number. You may also enter any number you wish to keep it uniform with your existing product codes. You will have to experiment if your product numbers are not numbers to make sure that they appear right in your store and the number is captured during checkout. For simplicity, please use numbers only. Note: these characters are not allowed in the Product ID: !,#,@,$,%,&,*,(,),{,},{,},|,\,/,=,+.-,?,<,>,~, commas, colons, semi-colons, periods, and spaces.

By default the product number is limited to 4 or less characters and will advance in numerical sequence starting at 0001. If you need more characters, you will need to adjust the pad length setting found in the main settings section of the Program Settings menu.

Enter the price you wish to charge for the product in the top box. Do not add the "$" sign. You should enter the price in x,xxx.xx format (examples: 1,999.95, 349.00, 19.95)

The next box has two ways info is added. If you signed up for online shipping accounts, you can directly interface with USPS, UPS and FedEx using the SBW module found in the shipping section under the Program Settings menu and enter the weight of the item plus a little extra weight for packaging. The shopping cart will then interface with your shipping carrier and figure the shipping in real time. Otherwise, you can add a dollar amount for extra shipping, a handling fee or insurance costs for the individual product. You can change the cart display, from the store manager menu, to title this function as you like (such as: Handling and Insurance). Remember that the main shipping costs are added and setup thru the shipping settings section in the Program Settings menu. This section is for extra costs you wish to add to a product if you are not using real time shipping, otherwise enter the product's weight.

Choose the options file you wish to use for the product. If there are no options available on your product, leave it empty or choose the blank.html file.

Options files allow you to post a single listing for products with multiple colors, sizes, models, gift wrapping, etc. You may also charge additional costs for differing options that the customer selects. You may have as many options and option menus as you wish, but more than two option menus are not recommended due to store layout spacing.

Version 4.0K and above now come with a simple options editor (downloaded separately from the download page ... use the links on this page) that will allow you to configure two drop down boxes with several items per option box. Pro Members can download an options editor that will allow 3 drop down boxes as well as allow a few more items per option box.

Enter the product category you wish the product to fall under. This is case sensitive so you will need to be consent for products that fall under the same category. If you use the same category name but with different letter cases, they will be treated as separate categories. For example, if you sell shirts and you type in Shirts for one product, SHirts for another, and SHIRTS for yet another, these three products will be classified as three different product categories.

You may use a single word or use multiple words connected by an underscore character (multi_words) (cannot use this method if auto-generating category links - only if you hard code your category links can you use this method). If you use spaces to separate multiple words, you will get an error or results that you did not expect. Note: these characters are not allowed in the Product ID: !,#,@,$,%,&,*,(,),{,},{,},|,\,/,=,+.-,?,<,>,~, commas, colons, semi-colons, periods, and spaces.

Enter the product name. This will be the text that is bolded above the product description and the text used to identify the product in order confirmations and in store searches. Make sure the product is identifiable to you and your customer. Note: these characters are not allowed in the Product Category: !,#,@,$,%,&,*,(,),{,},{,},|,\,/,=,+,?,<,>,~, colons, and semi-colons.

Enter the product image name that will be used to show off your product to shoppers. Make sure you get the case correct, as well as add the extension type (.gif, .jpg, .png, etc). If the case for the graphic extension or file name is not correct, you image will not show up in in your store. If you are using a store layout that does not use images, skip this step. If you do not enter an image name, a default image (no image available) will automatically appear if your store has image layouts for products.

These two boxes allow you to upload two images for the product being added, usually a regular image and a smaller one to be displayed when the customer checks out to complete the order. To select an image to upload, click on the "browse" button which will bring up a new box. Make sure you select "all files" in the bottom option box before proceeding to find your graphic on your hard drive, otherwise you will not be able to see it. Go to the directory where your graphic is located (such as c:\myfile\images\filename.gif) and select the file you wish to upload. the graphics will automatically upload to the correct location once you press the "Add Product" button.

We suggest that you keep main product images under 170 pixels in width and smaller images less than 70 pixels in width.

Enter a description for your product here. It can be as long as you wish. You may use html to color text, link to a detailed spec page, link to a large photo/image, separate lines, change text styles, etc. We suggest that you read a html book or an online html tutorial if you wish to add html functions. Also consult the online Cool Tips & FAQ section for tips you can use to enhance this section

If you wish to have a detailed description, we suggest that you create a separate web page for that product, upload it to the "pages" directory which is within the "html" directory and place a like under the products brief description. You can then access the page by using the link: agora.cgi?page=pagenamehere.html . This way people can look at the specs and not lose their shopping cart information.

These fields are for advanced users only. But you will need to fill out one of the fields to complete the product addition process.

User 1: here you will enter the name of the small product image that is used during the checkout process. Type: %%IMG%% then the image name. Example: %%IMG%%imagename.gif

Other user fields can be used for just about anything, including inventory tracking, indicating special, indicating sub categories, indicating profit generated, indicating a vendor or manuafacturer, indicating a wholesale price, and more ... whichmakes AgoraCart very flexible. Due to the complexity, we cannot cover all it could do, but needless to say, these user fields make your capabilities boundless.

Now you are thru entering product information. Now press the Add Product button. When you are finished adding products, press the "Done Entering Products" button and you will be returned to the main store manager menu.

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