AbleCommerce Shopping Cart Software

I am not the one usually maintaining the site, but I have been asked to help.
I was working on the Order confirmation email template and triggers under 7.03 build 12458. There was a pre-existing copy of the Order Confirmation template before I started.

I wanted to create an Order Cancellation template based upon the Order Confirmation one. I copied the Order Confirmation template and changed the name of it to Order Cancellation and added the Order has been canceled text to the first message line. I changed the trigger to be Order Cancellation only then stated to simplify the message by removing the shipment items. I ended up with an error (left in a #end tag where I should not have).

But I when I went back to the original Order Confirmation template to get the original code, I saw that the code had been updated with my changes there as well. When I looked at the copy of the Order Confirmation that existed before I started to make changes, that template had been updated as well.

How does that happen?

Do I need to make a new template form then copy the code into it?
How can I get the original code to replace the now modified Order Confirmation template for this build?

Also, when going thru to test the template, I selected an order and selected the template, but there is no preview button, only cancel or send. And the send only goes to the billing email address selected, there does not appear to be a way to override that email address and send to myself for example or a different email address for approval before implementing changes. Where did the preview button go, and how can I override the email address to be used but keep all the other message data?

ron

I see now how to change the email address for the message test by checking on the icon next to the email address. Just need to look harder I guess.

I am wondering if messages that use the same Content File reference have the same message content. I have gone back in and created a new email template but referred to the same Content file for it. When I changed the message content on the one-it changed the other templates referring to the same content file. Is that the basis for the message editing? If I need a slightly different message, I have to create an HTML Content File to correspond if sending in HTML format?

I was also able to recover the original template from a back up of the templates file I made locally, fortunately.

I still have a problem in that I do not have a message preview button.
ron

As far as that icon to change the email address to test/preview email messages, it does change the email address on the order. Is there not just an email override to allow testing without messing up the order?

And regarding the preview, if the preview is just a view of the unpopulated template, I have found how to do that, but I would think there would be a way to preview the populated message. Is there not?

With the shortcomings, from my point of view, noted above, the main remaining question revolves around changing different messages referencing the same content file. If a message associated with a given content file is changed, is it clearly understood or documented somewhere that all messages with that content file are also changed? Is that normal behavior?
ron