[ic] Setting up a tiny store...

[Marty Tennison]

Hi Cliff,

Well the gist of this is going to be bad news because of question #4, but
here goes.
>
> 1) How do I use only the order section of Interchange?  That is,
> a user sees a popup menu on my webpage (a form/post) which takes
> her directly to the checkout page?  That is, I don't want to
> engage categories or left/top menus.

You can't use just the order portion of IC without adding item data into the
system.  Everything in IC is based on the database so if no database exists,
all the logic is broken.  If you are adding item data to the products table,
then you can use the "button builder" tool in the admin screen to build
order buttons for each item.  Then, just paste the button builder code into
your static HTML pages.  If you do not want categories and such, just remove
the category_vertical component from the page and any other components and
paste your static HTML into the page content section.  You can do a lot of
research on the template capabilities of IC, that's where the information
you are looking for is found.  The ic doc on templates is actually pretty
good.

> 2) How can the top navigation menu be entirely eliminated?  In
> the foundation store, this says, "Home, Login, Your cart..."

Sure, Just modify the region templates. Usually found in
templates/foundation/regions.  You'll see three there, NOLEFT_TOP,
LEFTONLY_TOP and LEFTRIGHT_TOP.  Again, templates doc will help.

> 3) How do you set a shared SSL for the checkout page?  I can't
> find a way to set this using the Wizard.  The Administration part
> *lists* the Secure URL, but I can't find a way to *set* it.

This is sticky.  Manny many emails have passed through this server
addressing just that issue.  There are a lot of variables, my best advice is
to search the IC mail list archives for SSL and secure server, you will find
more there than you care to know probably. :)

> 4) Can Interchange be set up and managed using ftp and the
> administrative interface, but without shell/telnet access?  The
> Interchange documentation assumes shell access, but my ISP
> doesn't support this.  (Aargh - I know, change ISP's ...)

It is theoretically possible (I've heard) to setup an IC system via ftp and
CGI but I would never attempt such a thing unless I was threatened with
castration. :)

Marty Tennison
Developer
www.sediva.com