Adding informational pages

[Chris Hadden]

I don't see where I create basic informational pages for my web site. Isn't there a place that will allow me to instantley generate a new blank page. The category thing works great for products but what about pages not related to selling something?

Thanks

[jmestep]

If you are inside a category on the admin center catalog section, you can see an icon on the lower right to add a webpage. You can also add links with the other icon.

[Chris Hadden]

Yeah I see that but I don't really think that is what I want. Where do those pages show up if you create one? I did a test page under a main category but how do you navigate to it? In my case I don't think creating a page under a category makes sense anyway. I want to create doorway info pages so if for example I am selling painting supplies all that stuff I am selling should be under categories, but now I want to create a static page that might be "tips to painting with pastels" so my url reads www.paint.com/pastelpaintingtips.com ......is there no way to do this in the program..... without ftping a page you have creating it outside the ablecommerce software to the web root folder?....... This program has so many bells and whistles hard to believe they don't have a way to just rapidly create web pages not linked in some way to categories??

[mazhar]

Well this is simple, when you created a new webpage in some category there is a preview button available there. Click the preview button it will render your webpage, copy its URL and then place it to desired location to link it. For example you can place that link just like any other link on product description.

[Chris Hadden]

Per the last post... if I follow your instructions I get a page automatically generated with a name like this:

http://www.cameojewelrysupply.com/Webpa ... egoryId=27

That is not what I want as these are supposed to be a search friendly doorway pages. I looked for this page in my root directory and could not find it. I thought perhaps I could rename it but I do not know how or whether that would work.

As far as I can figure if I want to create a .aspx page that looks like the rest of the web site ( has the dynamic side bars, header and footer) I have to create a new content scriptlet for each page. So I create a scontent scriptlet called "tips on painting" once that is done I have to open my site with ftp make a copy of a page (such as the default.aspx) and rename the copy to "tips-on-painting". Then edit this content:

<asp:Content runat="server" ContentPlaceHolderID="PageContent">
<cb:ScriptletPart ID="HomePage" runat="server" Layout="Three Column" Content="Home Page" LeftSidebar="Standard Sidebar 1" RightSidebar="Standard Sidebar 2" Header="Standard Header" Footer="Standard Footer" Title="Home Page" AllowClose="False" AllowMinimize="false" />
</asp:Content>

and replace all "homepage" with "tips on painting"

Did I get that right? Is that how people are creating info pages? Excuse my total ignorance on this. I have used frontpage for 10 years. where I could create a page in 2 minutes, knowing no HTML press the publish button and it was done. That seemed very easy compared to the way it looks like I am supposed to do it here. Just trying to make sure I am not going about things the wrong way.. I appreciate any help.

[mazhar]

Yes you are right, in order to add new root level ASPX page read following topic
viewtopic.php?f=42&t=9473

Regarding use of front page, you can still design your content scriptlet in frontpage and then save it under scriptlets. Finally you can use it on ASPX page.

[Chris Hadden]

Thank you that was very helpful, I think I am finally grasping the way this software works. Once you understand the "scriptlet" thing it seems like it might be a good way to go. Ok so one question leads to another...... I now understand that I can create a category called "informational pages" and that category does not have to have any actual products in it. I can either use a "link" to a root level .aspx page I have created, or as you were saying before, I can use the "create a webpage" in that category. The difference in page addresses is something like this:

http://www.cameojewelrysupply.com/ship-W3C96.aspx

http://www.cameojewelrysupply.com/ship.aspx

What I need to know is whether root level page has an advantage over the "ship-W3C96.aspx" in terms of being seen and friendly to search engines? Does anyone know the answer to that? Is the "ship-W3C96.aspx" an actual page that resides somewhere or is it constructed on the fly out of the database? Thoughts on this appreciated. Thanks for all the help.

[jmestep]

ship-W3C96.aspx is created from entry saved to the database for the web page content. It is, but isn't "static". It is static because until you change the content, it should be seen as static. It isn't static because you are pulling content from a database.

[Kalamazoo]

Let's say you want to add an About Us informational page at the root and you have kept with much of the Standard AbleCommerce.

You can add new ASPX pages to your AbleCommerce site that can be used with the scriptlet framework. The simplest way to do this is to make a copy of a page (such as the default.aspx) and rename the copy. Then edit the content of the new file to provide the default scriptlet settings...

So you duplicate Contact Us and rename to About Us and then you can use the WYSIWYG editors.Then below from the HTML code of the Standard Header Scriplet you ADD the additional link. (It is down towards the end of this code)

Code: Select all

<table id="storeHeader" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0">
	<tr>
		<td class="logo">
                        <!-- CUSTOM - Removed store logo conlib -->
		        <!--<a href="~/Default.aspx">[[ConLib:StoreLogo]]</a>-->
		</td>
		<td class="headerContent" align="right" valign="top">
			<div class="shortcuts">
				#if($customer.IsAnonymous)
					<a href="~/Login.aspx" class="login">Login</a>
				#else
					<a href="~/Logout.aspx" class="login">Logout</a>
				#end
				<a href="~/Members/MyAccount.aspx" class="acct">Account</a>
				<a href="~/Members/MyWishlist.aspx" class="wishlist">Wishlist</a>
				<a href="~/Basket.aspx" class="basket">Cart</a>
				#if($customer.IsAdmin)
					<a href="~/Admin/Default.aspx" class="admin">Admin</a>
				#end
			</div>
			<div class="search">
				[[ConLib:SimpleSearch]]
			</div>
		</td>
	</tr>
	<tr>
		<td class="navigation" colspan="2">
			<div class="content" style="float:left;">
				<a href="~/Default.aspx" class="tab">Home</a>
				<a href="~/Search.aspx" class="tab">Product Finder</a>	
				<a href="~/AdvancedSearch.aspx" class="tab">Advanced Search</a>	
				#if ($store.Currencies.Count > 1 ) 
					<a href="~/Currencies.aspx" class="tab">Currencies</a>
				#end
				<a href="~/ContactUs.aspx" class="tab">Contact Us</a>
				<a href="~/AboutUs.aspx" class="tab">About Us</a>
			</div>
		</td>
	</tr>
</table>

We are still looking into how you can dynamically pull webpages from a category with only webpages and post them along the top without all these manual steps.

Thanks,

Phil Chrisman