How to add links, etc., in sidebar

[Brewhaus]

I am quickly finding Gold to be a little harder to customize than 7.0.7, because we had Scriptlets to play with (don't get me wrong- I do see several improvements). Given that there does not appear to be the option of adding simple text or links within the left sidebar, how do we go about doing this? We need to add a couple of graphics with links, but are baffled on how to go about this. Obviously, it is best if this can be done without customizing the regular files, as a future upgrade would require us to re-do any customizing.

[NC Software]

I have not seen a single person praise Gold. I look forward to your feedback before I go forward with Gold (waiting for R6 now). Little birdie (conscience) tells me I am going to regret it as 7.0.7 works just fine, just not compatible with .NET 4.5 which I need.

[Brewhaus]

My biggest issue is the SEO issues that we have recently found within 7.0.7. In fact, that is the only reason that we are looking to move to Gold.

[NC Software]

7.0.7 is/was a great product, what a shame to let it go. Support .NET 4.5, add a few tweaks here and there such as for SEO and you'd have a happy customer base. Upgrading a store is a royal pain much less these frequent R builds. They think they are doing a favor, get it right the first time. It's not like updating an app or Windows software. It's vulnerable and potential for disaster.

[Brewhaus]

I agree 100%. I have no idea why they re-wrote the software almost from scratch...again. I had to pay for and/or recreate all of our customizations once before. Having to do this again just to stay with the 'same' software makes me a very unhappy boy, and even the old ConLib files do not function, so it is a total rebuild. The thing that I think they did not consider is that, by making people go through this much for an upgrade (it is more of a migration to new software, really), people will look at other software, as well. By staying with patches for bugs and simple upgrades they maintain loyalty. The only reason that I did not consider a move to other software is that I do not have the time to learn a new back-end and train people on it. They may be counting on that, but there are probably just as many customers who can and will move, or at least look around. When you give customers a good reason to look at the competition it is never a good thing. Probably half of the remaining people will just avoid the upgrade, hence no profit for AC, and let's face it, it is all profit driven (just like the rest of us).
If they really feel that the software needed such an overhaul, then they should have built a complete migration tool into it, so that it upgraded themes, etc, before launching it. THAT would have virtually ensured that people stayed with AC, and far more likely would have made the upgrade.
Sure, I like some of the new features, such as the mobile site option, but for me it was 100% based on SEO, as it appears that recent changes in Google and Bing algorithms have picked up on a couple of issues with the previous version's page writing, and that knocked the heck out of our rankings. The new version appears to have addressed at least the couple of issues that we found (we checked for that before even starting to work on the design), so hopefully that will get us back on top!

[jguengerich]

I'm a new AbleCommerce user, so I can't comment on anything pre-Gold or on upgrading to Gold. Also, I don't know if the following is exactly what you are trying to do, but it sounds like it might be. I did the steps below using Visual Studio Express 2012 for Web.

You could copy one of the controls in the ConLib that implements ISideBarControl (look for ISideBarControl at the end of the class declaration line in the .cs file). For example, BasketShippingEstimate is a SideBarControl.
Change the copied .ascx file's name (right-click, Rename) to something else. In the .cs file, rename the class (right-click, Refactor, Rename). Then modify it to meet your needs. In your case, it sounds like you could delete most of what is there (ASP and code) and put in your links. Then go to the Admin part of the store and choose Website > Layouts. Click on each Layout that you are using, and add your new control to the Left Sidebar Controls section.

[mazhar]

In order to add custom HTML to sidebar you need to add user control. I am attaching the sample user control. The user control need to extend from CommerceBuilder.UI.ISidebarControl interfance. This will enable the Layout editor to available this control in sidebar controls list.

Just extract the zip file and then place files into your conlib folder. Edit CustomHtml.ascx file and put your custom HTML in it. FInally go to Layout editor and edit the layout in which you want to have this in sidebar, edit sidebar control and CustomHtml control should be available there.

[dmurphy4]

I have used pre-Gold 7.0.3, Gold RC4-RC5.

We are on the edge of deploying our new site built with RC5 (recently upgraded from RC4). As a front-end developer I see several improvements: SEO, - mobile responsive templates out of the box, fixed and dynamic redirects. The scriptlets have been done away with because the nVelocity syntax was waaaay slow and was overused. I've experienced faster page load times already.

RC5 has improved the way layouts are generated (from RC4).

If you have a need for a custom page that requires custom layouts beyond the capability of the default templates, my advice is to create a new page in the root folder and reference the fixed layout files. From there you can add references to conlibs. Took me a while to figure that out.

[Shopping Cart Admin]

Hello All,

GOLD is a big step forward in the evolution of AbleCommerce and is designed to be a better developer tool and with recent releases we've made it easier for non-developers. We will continue this in future releases as well.

AbleCommerce 7.0.x was released on 06/24/2008 and we'd started work on it in 2006. So many of the design constraints were based on what was considered best practices 7 years ago, which in Internet years is a LONG TIME. HTML/CSS standards have changed dramatically and the ideas behind proper ASP.net coding have evolved as well.

There is no way we or anyone else for that matter could provide a conversion tool to migrate 7 year old technology to today's standards it's just not possible.

[Brewhaus]

Thank you, Mazhar. That worked perfectly, and was a very simple option.

[NC Software]

Mazhar,

Is that covered in any documentation or wiki "how to" for example?

[NC Software]

Mike,

Quite the contrary, software life is much longer. My VB6 app from circa 1998 release, started circa 1996 is still popular and going strong. AbleCommerce 7.0.x - 7 is still very young and very good. E-Commerce platforms shouldn't turn over in complete rewrites but maybe every 10-15 years I would imagine. It's .NET 4, easily .NET 4.5 capable, it's up to date, not old by any means. Going 5 to 7 was as different story but the same effort as going from 7.0.7 to 7.0.8.

Doesn't matter, for those of us that want to be on the cutting edge we'll bite the bullet. The question is how many do you shed in the process. It's side tracking this topic, which is how to customize which is what we all need to be proficient on. Hopefully AC can devote resources into youtube video tutorials, extensive documentation beyond screen shots repeating what we already know, and wiki articles if necessary. Educate is important and you have a ton to discuss via newsletters or webinars if you so choose to train your customers and prospective customers, something I feel that you've always fallen short on. Education = marketing.

[mazhar]

Mazhar,

Is that covered in any documentation or wiki "how to" for example?

There is a help topic in help docs which can be found in FAQ list. Here is the link to PDF guide http://help.ablecommerce.com/developers ... rGuide.pdf

[Brewhaus]

We have run into another layout issue- we cannot change the footer for several pages, such as the shopping cart, contact us, currencies, product finder, etc. We were only able to change it for the home page, category pages, and product pages. Even though we updated the file to be used for One Column, Right Sidebar, and Three Column layouts, it did not change on the pages noted. I know that we could make changes to the ConLib file, but it is far better to use a custom file in the ConLib/Custom folder so that it is not over-written with future upgrades. How do we change these pages to use our customized footer?

[jguengerich]

I think it has to do with some pages being based on Layouts\Fixed\*.master instead of Layouts\*.master. Not sure what is the best way to change it to make it as upgrade friendly as possible.

[Brewhaus]

If we must change the default footer file in the ConLib folder it is not the end of the world, as long as we only need to do this for one or two files. We just don't want to see having to rebuild numerous customizations with the each upgrade.

[kwikstand]

Is it possible to put controls in the main column, below the product / category content?

When editing layouts, what is the "Header Controls" and "Footer Controls" for? There are no controls available.


Thanks,

Scott Kahle

[ForumsAdmin]

There are two ways you can do this.
1. Header/Footer controls (as you probably tried)
2. Editing the main page content

In Layout editor, header/footer area will allow only the controls that are marked to be header or footer compatible controls. This is done via IHeaderControl and IFooterControl interfaces. Any control that declares to implement IHeaderControl will be visible to be added to header area. Any Control that declares to implement IHeaderControl will be visible to be added to footer earea. You are not seeing any controls to be added in these areas because you will have no controls marked with these interfaces.
If you know the control you want to add to the Header area, just make sure it has IHeaderControl in class declaraction.
If you know the control you want to add to the Footer area, just make sure it has IFooterControl in class declaration.

See ConLib/StoreHeader.ascx(.cs) and ConLib/StoreFooter.ascx(.cs) for examples of header and footer controls.

-

The other way you can add content to the main content area is to edit the actual display page that displays the page.

[kwikstand]

This is kind of pointless. There are NO controls available in Layout editor. Not even Google Analytics for the footer.

Also, I sometimes need to edit code in the footer for promotional widgets, SSL Certifictae bages, etc. This was easy in AC 7. How can this be easily done in Gold?

[Brewhaus]

Did you try Mazhar's solution in the post above (viewtopic.php?f=65&t=17437#p74773). That allowed us to add things like our BBB link, link to our blog, etc. Or, you could simply customize the footer file (this is how we made changes to the footer on our Gold DEV site).

[lbjones]

So there is no WYSIWYG way to edit sidebar content? It all has to live in a Conlib file? Yikes. There needs to be some way for clients to easily edit this information from the admin panel, without modifying/uploading .ascx files...

[kwikstand]

I used Mazhar's custom HTML control, but that is for the side bar. It implements ISideBarControl

Why are there no controls for the footer or header? There are many times one may need to add code to the footer, like Google Analytics, misc. widgets, etc.

It was easy to do in AC7, but not so in Gold. Why?