Welcome to our Content Management System w/optional catalog and shopping cart.
This is the simpler of the two Content Management Systems currently supported by CyberStrategies and its partners. To keep it simple all changes you make to either the pages (content) or catalog are "published" immediately (i.e., there is no separate "Publish" step). When you click on the Add, Update or Delete buttons your changes go live right then. There is no waiting. However, you may sometimes continue to see the old versions of pages. This is because certain entities, including certain web browsers, try to make things go faster by re-displaying an old version of the page they have cached rather than ask the net of the current copy. If its your browser, just clear the cache (see your we browser's help file under "clearing cache") or just wait for a day or so. The system marks all pages as dynamic (i.e., go back and check for a new version every time) but this is often ignored.
Recent Changes:
- If you use Microsoft's new Edge Browser (instead of Firefox or Chrome) an updated version of the content editing widget will be used. It is functionally equivalent except for image alignment. To float text around an image you need to select the image and then select one of the 1st to entries. 10/05/2016
- Support for Gift Cards is now available. Requires special configurations. 9/30/2016
Errors fixed:
- Discounts on orders through PayPal did not reflect the discount in the Shipping and Order documents although the correct amount was being charged. 5/5/2016
Open Issues:
- The built in content editor widget does not work correctly with Microsoft Edge Browser. Please use FireFox, Crome or Internet Explorer. 9/20/2016
Documentation changes:
- None
What is Covered
Warnings: This help system is undergoing validation. Please click here report any problems and areas that need further clarification. Also, this help system and the content management system it supports require that you enable Java-script.
Note: click here to learn how to set up your web browser to eliminate unneeded alerts. You need to do this once for each computer and browser you will use. Internet Explorer 9 if the titles and instructions in the text editor do not display properly, make sure you have setup your browser to eliminate the alerts.
This document is designed to help two groups of people. Those people (i.e., Site Designers) who will be constructing the site and over time modifying its look and feel. The second group are those people who will be adding words, pictures and products to the site (i.e., Maintainers). At the top of each page in this help system we will indicate who needs to read that particular page. The system works by taking the design elements and adding in the page specific information and sending the result out as the requested page in the form of HTML which is the common language of the web. This HTML is what the various web browsers (e.g, FireFox, Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer) use to build the pages you see.
- '{' and '}' will stand for the open angle bracket "<" and end with a close angle bracket ">" in HTML code respectively.
- # will stand for one or more numbers.
- LLLL will stand for an arbitrary string of letters. The document will make clear if the under-bar character "_" or spaces may be included. As a general rule the names of files, including images and documents, should not include spaces or any characters other than letters, numbers and a single period. On the Internet Case does matter, e.g., 'A' is not the same as 'a'.
- The term tag has two similar meanings.
- An HTML tag refers to text which a web browser uses to perform special actions (e.g,
uses the HTML tag:
{img title="but_focus.gif" src="/media/Simple_Help_Images/but_focus.gif" alt="focus" width="10" height="10" /} - Content management/catalog tags (see next page) which are special elements either the site designer or maintainer insert to tell the system to generate specific HTML before sending anything to the browser (e.g, the list of pages on the left of this screen are called out by the Tag: |.TOC:simple_help.|). The system will determine what information needs to replace a given tag on the various pages, e.g., on all the pages in this help file the table of contents is generated using the same tag even if pages are added or removed.
- An HTML tag refers to text which a web browser uses to perform special actions (e.g,
- What is a content management system (CMS)? Basically this is a system which separates the information (words, pictures and other media) from the appearance of the site.
- (Site Designer) Appearance or structure consists of outlines (called templates) of the various site elements, supporting style sheets and supporting graphics.
- (Everyone) Information or content: words, pictures, web compatible documents (e.g., .pdf's). For sites with catalogs of products, the actual category and product information
- There are three advantages to this. First, because you can use a system similar to a word processor to change what is on each page, you don't have to chase down a web designer each time you need to change information. Second, changing the appearance of the site does not require re-entering the information already on the site. Finally, when you add or remove a page from the system, the navigation (e.g., the table of contents) automatically reflect this change.
- Remember, anytime you press "Add", "Update", or "Delete" your changes are published live.
- Both the templates and the content can use short hand "Tags" to pull out information out of the database. For example the current page's title is |.btitle.| for body title. Tags will be explained in detail later. They are always in the form of |.TagName something.|.
- What is a catalog? Basically any grouping of things which can be arranged under one or more categories. Usually these are items that can be purchased, so the catalog supports a shopping cart, purchase page and order processing and tracking system. Unlike the content part of the site, the fields in the Category and Product table can have site specific meaning. Additional fields can be specified in the site's database if required. Images associated with a specific product or category will be automatically removed when that product or category is removed from the system.
- Text editor: certain information can be entered using a text editor which provides an interface similar to a word processor. Its use will be described later.
- How is the information stored? (knowing this will help understanding why the system works the way it does)
- Most of the information is stored in a series of rows in various database tables (think of a spreadsheet with sheets and rows) The tables correspond to the sheets. Within each table there is a row for each entry (e.g., if you have 15 categories then the category table will have 15 rows in it). The fields in each row correspond to the columns in a spreadsheet.
- There is one table for Products, one for Category and two related tables for the Content. The system generates a special unique identifying number for each row in the table (e.g., for pages its PID {page ID}, for Products its PRID {product ID}, and for Categories its CatID {Category ID}). Because the system generates these numbers they are guaranteed to be unique, it also enables the system to very efficiently get the information out to display the page.
- To access the information about a specific product, category or content the site designer or maintainer will use a tag to reference the given information. Since the system knows the current product ID when it sees the tag |.PRID.|, the system will know to substitute the current product's ID number for it.
- Media (e.g., images, documents, 'pdf's) are stored on the server's (i.e., special computers connected 24/7 to the Internet) disks. In the case of the media loaded through along with a product or category, these have a name associated with the type (i.e., Product or Category), the system generated ID, and finally Field Name (e.g., Category_1_CatSpare2.gif). They can be accessed either by tag or using a drop down list in the editor. Remember, for the world to see your media it must be on a web server somewhere on the Internet. The hard drive on your desktop/laptop doesn't count. The system provides several systems to get the media from your computer up to our servers so the world can see it.
- Most of the information is stored in a series of rows in various database tables (think of a spreadsheet with sheets and rows) The tables correspond to the sheets. Within each table there is a row for each entry (e.g., if you have 15 categories then the category table will have 15 rows in it). The fields in each row correspond to the columns in a spreadsheet.
- Added features:
- The system also supports a media library with various folders for organizing the media you want to put up on the system. Selected media folders can be flagged as media galleries which allow the easy arrangement of thumbnails with links to the full size images and the arrangement of these thumbnails into an easily browsed gallery.
- Hidden Content Pages can be used to hold certain common elements so that they can be easily edited. For example the contact information at the bottom of this page is contained in a hidden page's content area. This allows changes to common elements on the to be done without touching the templates. Similarly in the catalog's shopping cart page can contain site owner editable content which can be easily changed based on the questions which site visitor's have. Finally, if the same information is need on several pages it need be changed only once (e.g., is a group of products can't be shipped in certain months).
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Sections of Help File
- Site Configuration: what site designer needs to know to set up a site.
- Page Content: how the information section of the site is built. Of interest to both designers and maintainers.
- Media Library: an explanation of how to set up folders/directories to hold your media, including how to create galleries.
- Catalog: for sites with a catalog attached, how to build and maintain a catalog, shopping cart and buy page as well as the flow of shopping from a visitor's perspective.
- Lists of "tags" and their usage. (see site configuration section for an explanation of what a tag is and how its used).
- Change Log which lists what has changed.
