A: Page design templates are used to control the appearance of pages in your web site or store, for example:

• Web site pages

• Shopping cart pages

• Product and department pages (if you use Catalog Manager)

• Customer login and registration pages (if you use Customer Manager)

• One page order pages

• Order confirmation pages and email

Each of the webpage schemes offered on the Website Manager - Site Appearance page or the graphics schemes offered on the Shopping Cart - Store Appearance page is actually a set of page templates. Choosing a different website or graphics scheme switches the set of default page templates for all pages in your web site or store.

The list of templates available will vary depending on whether you are using Website Manager, Shopping Cart, Catalog Manager or Customer Manager. Only the templates you can actually use are listed. For example, the Department and Product page templates are only listed when you use Catalog Manager.

Once you select a webpage or graphics scheme you can use the default page design templates for that scheme just as they are, or you can replace some of the templates with new ones that you design.

You can also create multiple templates for store department, product, and one page order pages. This allows you to have several different page designs in your store for these pages, each tailored to a different presentation of your products.

Templates are replaced by importing new ones. As soon as you replace a template the new template is used in your store. If you do customize templates, or create additional templates, remember that changing the graphics scheme for your store will reset all templates to the default set for the new graphics scheme.

• Page templates are used to define how different types of pages in your store appear. Each page type has a default template in the current graphic scheme. This default template can be replaced with a customized page design in a template that you create and import.

• To edit any existing template use its Edit button.

• To delete any template you have added use its Delete button.

• To add a template for a new type of product page, select Product and click Add Template.

• To add a template for a new type of department page, select Department and click Add Template.

• To add a template for a new type of One Page Order page, select One Page Order and click Add Template.

A: To modify any existing template, first export it to a local file. You can make changes to it in notepad or with an HTML editing tool. In your templates you should use the simplest possible HTML to create the effects you want.

If you do use an HTML tool to create or modify a template you will need to test those templates very carefully. The HTML code output by some tools does not work well in a template. Microsoft® FrontPage® for example, may split blocks of HTML code that must occur on a single line to be processed correctly within a template.

• Click Export to download the current template for editing on your local system.

• To replace an imported (custom) template with the original default template for the current graphics scheme, click Replace with Default. (You will need to re-import the custom template to use it again.)

• When creating a new Department, Product, or One Page Order Template enter a descriptive Template Name for it. Template names can be modified later for these newly created templates, but not for default templates.

• Enter a Template Description when creating a new template. When importing a template, you should change the description to indicate what has changed in the new template. Click Update to save any template name and description changes.

• To import a custom template file into your store, give the complete path of the file or use the Browse button to select it on your local system. Then click Import Template to upload the file. The new template is applied to your store immediately.
  
  Always keep a backup copy of each custom page template that you use in your store on your local system. The only way to recover a template that has been replaced is by importing it from your backup. Custom templates are replaced when a new template is imported, when you click Revert To Default, or when a new graphics scheme is selected.
  

• For any buttons or other standard images used in your custom templates, enter the base image path, on the Shopping Cart > Store Appearance > Configure Store Images page. You can also enter custom button image names and image sizes for your store on this page.

Changing the graphic scheme will replace all imported custom templates with the default template for that type of page in the new graphic scheme. You must re-import your custom templates to use them in a new graphic scheme.

A: Templates are page designs. They are made up of standard HTML coding plus a special set of template tags (substitution parameters), for example RetailCart FAQ. When a page from your store is requested by a customer's browser, its page template is processed and each template tag is replaced with appropriate information. This creates a page of HTML code that is sent to the browser. For example, each RetailCart FAQ is replaced with your store's name as entered in the Site Title field on the Merchant Info page.

Template files use a default extension of .htx, though this is not required.

Each time you make a change to a template you should test it thoroughly before using it in your store. Since template changes take effect immediately, you should close your store before importing new templates. You can access your own store from within Merchant Back Office with View Store. When testing templates, make sure you view pages using several different browsers (different browsers may treat the same HTML code in different ways). At the very least, you should view your pages with Microsoft® Internet Explorer® and Netscape®.

Always keep a backup copy of each custom page template that you use in your store on your local system. The only way to recover a template that has been replaced is by importing it from your backup. Custom templates are replaced when a new template is imported, when you click Revert To Default, or when a new graphics scheme is selected.

A: You can create additional template tags here to suit your special requirements for substitutions in page templates. For example, you might want to create a special template tag for a slogan you want to repeat several places in your store.

User-defined template tags are called out with in a template. For example, a tag that you created named "Slogan" would be called out with . Template tag names are case sensitive.

• Use Add Tag to create a new user-defined template tag.

• Search for matching tag names by entering a string and clicking on Search. Use an asterisk (*) in the string for wildcard searching. A blank field matches all tag names when you click Search.

• Modify an existing user-defined template tag with its Edit button.

• Delete an existing user-defined template tag with its Delete button.

• Use Delete Tag to delete multiple user-defined template tags with a single command.