Ecommerce Templates > General Help > Using Golive
Using Golive with Ecommerce Templates
The first thing to do when you've opened up Adobe GoLive is to go to File > Open from the top menu and browse to the folder where you extracted the template to
and locate the .site file. You should then see the listing of all the files and folders that make up your GoLive shopping cart.
NOTE (for CS2 users)
If you receive a message that the site file was created in an unsupported version then in GoLive CS2 go to New > Site > Create
Site > Site from Existing Content > From a Local Folder of Existing Files. Navigate to and choose the sitename folder, make
sure it finds the index page of the site (or navigate to that as well). Continue with the site wizard. This will create a new CS2
site file for the store.
You'll find the package has some sample pages, the store .asp/php pages and a number of folders. To make site-wide changes to the design, adding your company name,
changing the menu etc. you'll need to work from the components. These can be opened by double clicking on the various components that make
up a page. Once you've made the changes, save the file and you'll be prompted if you want to update all the files using this template - agree to the prompt
and you should be able to see the modifications you've made.
Now that you can see how the general design changes can be made, this is how you would proceed.
- Get your general design done locally, more or less the look you need for the site - don't worry about the products and links
for the moment. The ecommerce templates come with .png files, so changing colors, titles and company name etc is simple -
Adobe have a 30 day free trial available for Fireworks if you don't
already have it.
- You don't need to make any design changes to the files in the vsadmin folder as you'll be the only one using those pages
for adding product information, shipping stuff, categories, credit card processors etc.
- Now you can upload all your site to your Windows enabled server - you can do this through GoLive itself or using a specialist FTP program.
- This is where the fun starts - you'll probably want to get some categories and products on your store so you'll have to log into
the admin section - chances are that first of all you'll need to change the path to your database in the file vsadmin/db_conn_open.asp
or vsadmin/db_conn_open.php - here's a quick way of checking to get the path correct for the ASP
ecommerce plus
templates. Once you've done that upload it to the admin folder.
- Now that's done log into your online admin control panel at www.yourdomain.com/vsadmin/login.asp or www.yourdomain.com/vsadmin/login.php
- and the first thing to do is change the default username and password so no-one else can get in.
- Take a look around the various options, the ecommerce templates come with some sample products, categories and descriptions and
although they will need to be deleted, they should give you a good idea of how the system works.
- That's about it, you can now start setting up your shopping cart and site in general - check the instructions for the
ecommerce plus
templates and if you run into any difficulties, take a look at the help
files or contact us here.