General questions
ASP Plus version for Windows
PHP Plus version for Unix/Linux
Dreamweaver issues
Frontpage issues
GoLive issues

General

I'm lost - how can I get started?
How do I add links to individual products and categories?
How do I change the link colors and underlines?
How can I edit the graphics and colors?
I need to change hosts - any recommendations?
Where can I get the updaters?
Can I resell your templates?
How do I add a buy button to my non-store pages?
How do I edit the text on my store?
How do I format my text in the product descriptions?
Why do I get an error on all my store pages?
I add a product to my cart but it shows as empty, why's that?
What is the function of the "Authorize" button in my orders admin page?
Why don't all my categories show up after I've added them through the online admin?
Why am I able to add items to the cart, but when I click checkout I am left with a message stating that page can't be found?

I'm lost - how can I get started?
Best place to get going is by reading through the appropriate Getting Started doc, checking out our help files and posts on the support forum - if that doesn't get you started please post here.

How do I add links to individual products and categories?
Once you have your products and categories added through the online admin section, browse your store and copy the URL of the product/category page from your address bar and paste it into the link box you have in your HTML editor. This should look something like this /proddetail.asp?prod=ref001 or /categories.asp?id=1

How do I change the link colors and underlines?
These are set in the style sheet, usually called style.css - you can change the hex values there...(more details)

How can I edit the graphics and colors?
All the templates come with .png files and blank gifs, these can be found in your /images/extras/ folder - the .png files are editable in Fireworks, there's a 30 day free trial available here www.macromedia.com. There are instructions for modifying the .png files in our Design Issues doc. The rest of the colors are cell backgrounds and can be changed within your HTML editor.

I need to change hosts - any recommendations?
We don't do hosting ourselves but you can find a number of recommendations here on our hosting page.

Where can I get the updaters?
The updates are available here. Free for the first 6 months and 29.95$ for a further 6 months, please email us if you have a change of address.

Can I resell your shopping cart software?
For the time being, the only avenue is through our affiliates program or reseller program, which will give you a 20% return on each purchase made through your affiliate link.

How do I add a buy button to my non-store pages?
The first thing you need to do is to get the products on your store as you will need to copy and paste some code.

Open the page on your store that has the product information that you want to include on another page this will typically be http://www.yourstore.com/products.asp?id=1 and view source. You’ll need to scroll down the page and find the code between the <form>….</form> tags – it should look something like this…

<form method="POST" name="tForm0" action="cart.asp">
< tr>
< td colspan="2">
< p>This inkjet printer really packs a punch for the home user. Full color prints at photo quality. Perfect for everything from letters to the bank manager, to printing out your favorite digital family pictures.</p>
< /td>
< /tr>
< tr>
< td width="59%" align="center" valign="middle">
< b>Price:</b> <span id="pricediv0" name="pricediv0">$95.00</span>
< /td>
< td align="right" valign="bottom">
< input type="hidden" name="id" value="inkjet001">
< input type="hidden" name="mode" value="add">
< input type="image" src="images/buy.gif" border="0"></td>
< /tr>
< /form>

This will give you a product description with a price and buy button. Copy the code between the form tags and then paste it into the place where you would like to display the information. That’s about it – you may need to edit the text or add a photo to get things looking good, but that’s all...(more advanced tweaks in our advanced doc)

How do I edit the text on my store?
All the default language generated by the store can be edited in the file /vsadmin/inc/languagefile.asp/php - the most recent additions are always added to the top for people who have already made changes and are updating their store version...(more details)

How do I format my text in the product descriptions?
You can add any valid HTML to the product description field, for examples, take a look at our Advanced Tweaks doc.

Why do I get an error on all my store pages?
Please take a look at this check-list:

• For the ASP version, are you definitely on a Windows server, which supports .asp pages and an Access database? -> Check with your host.
• For the PHP version, are you sure your host is running a minimum of PHP 4.1 -> Check with your host
• Have you set your database connection? -> .asp details - .php details

If that doesn't solve your problem, please post on our support forum.

I add a product to my cart but it shows as empty, why's that?
There are 2 known reasons for this happening:

• Your cart page is in a frameset -> Remove the page from frames.
• You don't have cookies enabled in your browser -> In Internet Explorer go to Tools > Internet Options > Privacy

If that doesn't solve your problem, please post on our support forum.

What is the function of the "Authorize" button in my orders admin page?
You'll see this button if someone has gone through checkout but hasn't made it back to your store, this may be because they're just playing around with the cart, have decided at the last moment not to purchase or there was a glitch on the Processor's site. Only hit the authorize button after you've checked with your Payment Provider and are sure the payment has been made correctly. You can set the amount of time that unauthorized orders appear on your store in the admin section.

Why don't all my categories show up after I've added them through the online admin?
This is probably because you haven't added any products to the categories - once you associate a product with a category, they should show up.

Why am I able to add items to the cart, but when I click checkout I am left with a message stating that page can't be found?
If you have selected a payment method that requires SSL like Capture Card or Authorize.NET AIM method, this will mean that by default the checkout phase will look for the checkout page on your site on an HTTPS connection, like for instance . . .
https://www.yoursite.com/cart.php or https://www.yoursite.com/cart.asp
If you are testing and don't yet have an SSL certificate installed, or are using your hosts shared SSL connection then you can override this value using the pathtossl parameter in your vsadmin/includes.php file, or vsadmin/includes.asp file.

Version ASP

I'm not receiving email confirmation of orders - what's up?
Why do my orders disappear in the orders admin page?
How do I make my database secure and non-downloadable?
How do I change the order of my products and categories?
How do I add/remove email a friend option?
How can I place products side by side?
Why does the log-in page reappear every time when trying to access the admin section?
I've forgotten / lost my admin password - how can I retrieve it?
How do I check if the session variables on my server are working correctly?

I'm not receiving email confirmation of orders - what's up?

• Please read through our email troubleshooting

...and if the mails are still not arriving please post in our support forum.

Why do my orders disappear in the orders admin page?
If a payment is not authorized then it will be automatically deleted after the time you specify in your admin main page.

How do I make my database secure and non-downloadable?
if you are using FrontPage, you can right click the folder the database is in in the FrontPage folder list and choose Properties...
Then, make sure the "Allow files to be browsed" option is not checked.
If you are not using frontpage the options are to use a folder that is outside the web root. For instance, when you log in via FTP you might see folders like
/htdocs - your web root.
/logfiles - your web log files
/database - specially for your database files.
If you have a folder like this "database" folder, (often called "private" or similar), then you are very much advised to use it.
If neither of the above is true then you have to ask you host to set the security settings on the database folder so that files can not be browsed, and the database cannot be downloaded.

How do I change the order of my products and categories?
You can choose the order of products by opening up the file includes.asp and find the line sortBy=1 - this will sort the products alphabetically and is the default. To sort by product id use sortBy=2, to sort by price (most expensive first), sortBy=3 and cheapest first sortBy=4. The categories can be ordered in the admin section by choosing from the drop downs..(more details)

How do I add/remove email a friend option?
Open includes.asp and find the line useemailfriend=true - change it to useemailfriend=false if you don't want to use this function...(more details)

How can I place products side by side?
There are several layout options available, just make sure the one you choose will fit nicely in your browser - for a full list take a look at this page.

Why does the log-in page reappear every time when trying to access the admin section?
The usual reason is that your store is hosted on a Unix / Linux server and the host is using something like chilisoft.asp which doesn't support an Access database. We do have Plus versions available for Unix / Linux servers so please contact us if this is the case.

I've forgotten / lost my admin password - how can I retrieve it?
If you've forgotten the password to your admin section, then the easiest thing to do is to download your database and have a quick look in the admin table in Access 2000.

How do I check if the session variables are set correctly on the server?
Try this test to see how your session variables are. Firstly, copy this into notepad and save it as a file t.asp

<html><body>
< %session("testsession")="this is a test variable"%>
The test session variable is set.
< /body></html>

. . . Now copy this into notepad and save it as t2.asp

<html><body>
The value is now set to "<b><%=Session("testsession")%></b>"
< /body></html>

Then upload both to your webserver. Open the file t.asp in your web browser by entering the url http://www.yoursite.com/t.asp and then click the "refresh" button to make sure the page isn't cached.
Then, in the same web browser change the URL to the t2.asp page like http://www.yoursite.com/t2.asp
If the session variables are working correctly you should see something like . . .
The value is now set to "this is a test variable"
If the session variables are NOT working correctly you will see something like . . .
The value is now set to ""
An ASP session should last for 20 minutes by default from the time of the last page refresh. So wait 10 minutes and then refresh that t2.asp page and the value should still be set.

Version PHP

I'm not receiving email confirmation of orders - what's up?
Why do my orders disappear in the orders admin page?
How do I change the order of my products and categories?
How do I add/remove email a friend option?
Why can't I run the createdb.php file?
I've forgotten / lost my admin password - how can I retrieve it?
Why do I get an error running the UPS wizard?

I'm not receiving email confirmation of orders - what's up?
Make sure that the email address in the admin main page is a valid email address on the server. Sometimes emails cannot be sent to an address outside of the domain if the "From" address is not on the domain and valid.

• Also please read through our email troubleshooting

...and if the mails are still not arriving please post in our support forum

Why do my orders disappear in the orders admin page?
If a payment is not authorized then it will be automatically deleted after the time you specify in your admin main page.

How do I change the order of my products and categories?
You can choose the order of products by opening up the file includes.php and find the line $sortBy=1 - this will sort the products alphabetically and is the default. To sort by product id use $sortBy=2, to sort by price (most expensive first), $sortBy=3 and cheapest first $sortBy=4. The categories can be ordered in the admin section by choosing from the drop downs..(more details)

How do I add/remove email a friend option?
Open includes.php and find the line $useemailfriend=true - change it to $useemailfriend=false if you don't want to use this function...(more details)

Why can't I run the createdb.php file?
This usually happens when either the database connection hasn't been set correctly in vsadmin/db_open_conn.php or if that has been done then check with your host that your server is running a minimum of PHP4.1.

I've forgotten / lost my admin password - how can I retrieve it?
If you have phpMyAdmin or something like that installed you can check in the admin table. If you don't have that, or don't know how to use it, try creating a new file called t.php and add the following to it

<HTML>
<BODY>
<?php
include "vsadmin/db_conn_open.php";
$sSQL = "SELECT adminUser,adminPassword FROM admin WHERE adminID=1";
$result = mysql_query($sSQL) or print(mysql_error());
$rs = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
print "The username is : " . $rs["adminUser" ] . "<BR>";
print "The password is : " . $rs["adminPassword" ];
mysql_free_result($result);
?>
</BODY>
</HTML>

Then, upload this to your web, and put it in the root directory of the store, then open in your browser. The most important thing to do is to remember to delete the file from your web after using it, as otherwise anyone can get your password.

Why do I get an error running the UPS wizard?
When starting with the UPS wizard you may receive an error message like this:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: curl_init()
... it probably means that the cURL component is not installed on your server. cURL is required for connecting to the UPS server. UPS requires communication over a secure (HTTPS) connection and cURL is the only way to do it really. if it's not available, check wiith your host to see if they would add it. It's quite simple, free and there are details here . . .
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.curl-init.php

Dreamweaver

Why do my images not show up when I preview my page locally?
Why can I see the site correctly on my PC but on a friend's there are no images?
How do I define my site?

Why do my images not show up when I preview my page locally?
It could be that you have your image paths set to "Relative to Root" - this probably wouldn't be a problem on your server, but locally it'll more than likely stop the images from showing and the paths not working. A path which is relative to the root would look like this /images/mygif.gif - if it's relative to the document it would be in the form of ../images/mygif.gif - you can choose the form you want by selecting from the drop down in the window that appears when you add an image.

Why can I see the site correctly on my PC but on a friend's there are no images?
This is probably because the the path to your image files is pointing to your hard drive rather than the images on your server, the most likely cause is that the site hasn't been defined...(see below)

How do I define my site?
Open Dreamweaver, and go to Site>New Site. Give your site a name and then browse to where you extracted the template to. If you want to upload your files via Dreamweaver then you'll need to add the FTP information that was given to you by your host.

FrontPage

Why can't I add pages in Navigation View?
Why are parts of the pages missing, like the navigation and news sections?
How do I change the wording of "home" on the nav bar?
Why is all the formatting missing when I upload my site?
How do I give my database write permissions?
How do I make a back-up of my site?
How do I stop Frontpage overwriting my database and database connection files?

Why can't I add pages in Navigation View?
First of all remember that the PHP version doesn't use Frontpage navigation and that some templates rely solely on include files rather than a Frontpage theme. For the ASP version, for some reason you can't add child pages below a .asp page but you can get round this Frontpage quirk by renaming the page with a .html termination, dragging in the new page to Navigation View and then name the parent page with the .asp termination again.

Why are parts of the pages missing, like the navigation and news sections?
This is probably because you have the PHP version and unfortunately PHP and Frontpage don't mix too well, but we have found a way around this.
The first thing is to get the page open in Frontpage :-
In Frontpage go to Tools>Options>Configure Editors
Choose "Add"
Put PHP for file type
Put the same information as you have for htm, html etc. - this is usually
Editor Name: FrontPage
Command: frontpg.exe
Save

Now you can get the pages open you'll see that the include files are "missing" - this is because they are PHP includes not Frontpage includes but you can work on them directly from the files in the includes folder - to view your changes locally you can download this utility http://www.totalpconline.com/phprocketaddin/?page=orders.html or work live on the server and on saving your page you can check it in your browser.

There's more information in our getting started doc available here as well as our PHP help section.

How do I change the wording of "home" on the nav bar?
In Frontpage go to Tools > Web Settings > Navigation and change the wording there.

Why is all the formatting missing when I upload my site?
This usually happens when for some reason the theme gets detached from the site. Connect live to your site through Frontpage and go to Theme in the top menu and go through the themes until you find the one that matches the name of your template.

How do I give my database write permissions?
When you log on to your admin section you may get a message saying that write permissions haven't been enabled - if so, follow the instructions here.

How do I make a back-up of my site?
Open your site live on the server by going to File>New>Web from the top Frontpage menu and typing in the URL of your site, and then giving your name and password. Your site will now open up on the server so you can publish back to your hard drive by hitting the publish icon and choosing a back-up location on your hard drive

How do I stop Frontpage overwriting my database and database connection files?
The simplest method is to take them out of your Frontpage web on your computer and save them somewhere else on your hard drive. Alternatively you can right click on the file and Select Properties > Workgroup and select "Exclude this file when publishing the rest of the web".

GoLive

Why do I get a little green bug icon in my site file list?

Why do I get a little green bug icon in my site file list?
This means there is an error on the page - usually an incorrect path - if it's showing on all pages it's probably located in one of the components. You may find that some files in the vsadmin folder show a green bug and due to the include structure, these can be safely ignored.