CMSCart Manual

Sites

Creating and Selecting Sites

Go the Administration Home area (www.yoursitename.com/admin/adminsites.php). Type in the name of the new site you want to create in the "Add a new site" entry, and click "Add". This will create a new empty site for you to work on. You can create as many new sites as you want in this area. You can view all existing sites by looking at the "Site" dropdown. To work on a site, select it in the "Site" dropdown. You will now see the various actions you can perform on a site.

Site Design

Site Design is seperated into Templates and Pages. All templates must be created or deleted in Template Design, although existing templates can be modified through Page design as well. If you are designing a template to be used on multiple pages, it is suggested that you do all initial design through Template Design so you have access to all Template operations. Page design will allow you to create and delete pages, modify Templates, as well as add and modify both shared and page specific content. You can access either Template or Page Design at any time from the site actions on Administration Home. Keep in mind that when editing Templates in both Template and Page Design, those changes will be reflected on all pages using that template.

Site Operations

There are four main operations to perform on a site: delete, backup/restore, lock, and active.

Deleting a site will delete the entire site from existence. All templates, content, files, and pictures contained in that site will be removed. It is strongly suggested that you back up all work on a site before deleting it (see next operation).

Backups can be done on a site at anytime. Backing up a site consists of packaging up an entire site (including all templates, content, pictures) into a .zip file. This backup routine can serve two purposes. The site package can be moved to a different location (such as different host site) to be restored, or it can be saved in a different location so that you have backups of your site. To restore a site backup, upload the zip file using the utility at the top of Administration Home, and you will be asked to specify a name for the site. Whatever name you enter, the site being restored will be entered into the system as that sitename. If the sitename you are trying to restore already exists in the system, you must rename it. Restoring a site can take a while, so be patient. If the site file you are trying to restore is larger than 2MB, the php.ini (or in some other way) may need the upload_max_filesize changed. Most site are good with a setting of 10MB.

Once uploaded and submitted, you can select the site from the Site dropdown and activate it. The site will now be visible.

The restore operation can also be used to make a duplicate of a backup. Simply specify a new name for the site, and you will have an exact copy that you can now modify without altering the original.

If the restore does not work then one reason can be that the sites, upload, admin/backups and part_pics directories do not have sufficient rights and must be set accordingly. If restore cannot be done for some reason, it can be done manually by an admin. The site zip file is uploaded to the server. It is then unzipped and the resulting site directory is placed in the sites folder. With the site directory there will be a sql file. Log into mysql and execute that sql file for the cmscart database as explained in the install file.

Locking a site hides the options for modifiying the templates or content within a site. This is useful if you want to clearly specify which sites you do not want altered. To unlock a site, select the site and select "Unlock".

Setting a site active allows you to select which site you want to appear on the front end. Only one site can be active at a time, and a site can be set active at any time. To use this operation, select the site you want to make active, and select the "Active" button. Now if you go the front end website and reload the page, you will see the site that you have set active. Go back to Administration Home and make another site active, and it will display on the front end.

Site Map Functions

On Administration Home, once you have selected a site, you can produce an XML or text file site map. This will give you a full structure of your site available to save locally. You will see two buttons for this functionality, one for Generating XML and one for Generating TXT Site Maps. Click either one or both, and save them locally. If you don't save them at this point, you run the risk of overwriting them the next time you produce a sitemap for the same site.

Site File Upload

On Adminstration Home, once you have selected a site, you can upload files to be held within the site for reference. At some points in the site, you may want to include different files that the built-in facilities do not cover. The site file upload facility makes up for this. For instance, if you want to link to a PDF for viewing or downloading, simply upload the PDF at the site level, and refer to it in a link in your pages. To refer to the files uploaded, they are stored in the "sites/[yoursitename]/content/images/" directory.