[ic] Product html files

[John Clayton]

It's good to know I am not alone, thanks.

-----Original Message-----
From: interchange-users-admin@interchange.redhat.com
[mailto:interchange-users-admin@interchange.redhat.com]On Behalf Of
Jason Balicki
Sent: Friday, October 26, 2001 4:14 PM
To: interchange-users@interchange.redhat.com
Subject: Re: [ic] Product html files


John Clayton wrote:
>
> Hello we are using IC 4.8.2, have it installed, have it working and are
> trying to modify the Foundation catalog.  Everything is fine except for
the
> dynamically produced pages.  For example for each product item we add to
the
> catalog it produces a new html page based on that item's SKU (00029.html)
> for item with SKU of 00029.  Does anybody know where these are being made
or
> stored so that we can change the style of the page (logo, links and
> background)?  I am assuming that it has to do with one of the *.pm files,
if
> so which one?  Can this be done?

John, I'm just starting to work on Interchange myself, and it seems like
you're where I was about a week ago, so I just wanted to give you a few
pointers I wish I had then...

First, as others have pointed out, the pages are generated dynamicaly
and are not stored, per se.  You can edit the flypage.html to change
some things, but I think what you were asking was how to change the
look and feel.

If you haven't yet, get the tutorial and follow the steps, it'll give
you a good background on what's going on in ic.  The docs available
*are* good, they just don't hold your hand, that's what your fellow
users are supposed to be for. :)  Get them now and they'll make sense
to you later.

Anyway, foundation is a fully functional store, as I'm sure you're
aware,
but it's just one implimentation of many, many ways you can do things.
IC has a tag language that's damn comprehensive, almost a programming
language, IMO.  (It's got loops and if-then's and all that. :)

Here's what I've figured out so far about the foundation store:

The "look and feel" of the site is defined in a few places, some of
it is in /var/lib/interchange/foundation/templates/foundation/theme.cfg
(I'm assuming an RPM installation, these files may be in different
places if you've done a source install.)  In theme.cfg you can change
things like color of the menu bar, side bar, links, etc.  (The css, if
you know what that is -- I don't know how much HTML and whatnot you
know, sorry if I'm seeming rudimentary.)

Ok, now, foundation has a few templates that define the top, left, right
and bottom of every page you see.  Each dynamic page can either be
a left only, left-right, and noleft with corresponding templates in
/var/lib/interchange/foundation/templates/foundation/regions/.  In there
you'll see the files:

LEFTONLY_TOP, LEFTRIGHT_TOP, NOLEFT_TOP, LEFTONLY_BOTTOM,
LEFTRIGHT_BOTTOM,
and NOLEFT_BOTTOM.

These are pretty much self explanitory, but if you edit these then
you'll
see the corresponding changes on the dynamic pages that contain them.

The easy thing to do is change them and see what happens.  It's good to
know some HTML, but you'll see some ic tags in there too.  Leave them
alone for now until you understand that tag language.  You can tell an
IC tag because they are surrounded by '[' and ']'.  Oh yeah, MAKE
BACKUPS
of every file you edit.  Preferebly BEFORE you edit it. :)

In /var/lib/interchange/foundation/pages are the, well, pages.  You
can make changes to the pages themselves here.  You'll see a lot of
things
like "__SOMEVAR__" -- those are defined in a file called variables.txt
in /var/lib/interchange/foundation/products/.  Don't change
variables.txt
by hand unless you really, really need to.  The admin UI is pretty good,
though it does have some quirks.  It can seem overwhelming, but you'll
get the hang of it.  If you screw it up (I did) you can uninstall the
RPM and reinstall to your hearts content and try again.  (You may have
to clean up /var/lib/interchange/foundation after you uninstall the
RPM though.  Make sure you back up things you want to keep to some
other directory, then copy them back after you've reinstalled.)

That should get you going on the customization of foundation, and it
really is good enough for a basic store.  You may want to make a new
catalog for testing purposes so you can try building one from scratch,
that's what I'm doing at this point -- my boss wants a live store by
Nov. 7th, so I'm just going to use a modified foundation and take
time to customize a catalog to switch to later.

I hope I helped, good luck... I may ask *you* some questions later on
when you know more. :)

Also, if anyone else on the list notices something I've got wrong,
PLEASE
tell me.  As I said, I'm new too...

--Jason Balicki
Sr. Network Engineer
ASI Computers, Maryland Heights, MO
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