HELP

This page is used to change your preferences as to how certain areas of the store operate. Normally, these setting do not need to be changed. However, you may adjust these settings if needed.

CAUTION: Please be very careful when making changes to this section of the store. Make sure you understand completely how each setting affects your store. The default settings are listed first.

Shipping Notification Email
When active, this feature automatically sends the customer an email telling them their order was shipped. The email will be sent automatically when an order's status is changed to "SHIPPED".

To activate this feature, click the YES option in the first field. Then complete the other fields to control the title and the format of the email text.

Shipping Notification Email - Format
When email is sent for this section of the store, two e-mail formats are available for use. This setting tells the store which format to use: "Send as Plain Text" or "Send as HTML E-mail".

TIP: Since not all e-mail programs can read HTML e-mail text, it's recommended that you select the "Send as Plain Text" option.

IMPORTANT: If you choose "Send as HTML E-mail", be sure the email text fields below contain properly formatted HTML to allow the E-mail messages to display correctly.

Shipping Notification Email - Title:
Enter the title of the email you want used when the store sends the Shipping Notification Email to the customer.

If you want to include customer specific information in the email's title, you may use any of the following data markers (the double brackets before and after the data markers are required):

{{ORDER_NUMBER}}
{{REFERENCE_NUMBER}}
{{FIRST_NAME}}
{{LAST_NAME}}

Title Example:

{{FIRST_NAME}}, Your Order Has Shipped (Order Number: {{ORDER_NUMBER}})

The store will substitute the customer's actual first name and order number for the data markers above. This will result in the following email title:

John, Your Order Has Shipped (Order Number: 109283849)

Shipping Notification Email - Text:
This field contains the body of the email. Please enter the desired text and data markers to control the content and format of the email's body or main text.

Please see the example below for samples of the text and the data markers that could be used (the double brackets before and after the data markers are required):

We thought you'd like to know that we shipped your items today, and that this completes your order.  Thank you for shopping at www.yourstorename.com, and we hope to see you again soon.
 
 Shipping Method: {{SHIPPING_METHOD}}
 Shipping Cost: {{SHIPPING_COST}}
 Tracking Number: {{TRACKING_NUMBER}}
 
 Order Date/Time: {{ORDER_DATE_AND_TIME}}
 Order Number: {{ORDER_NUMBER}}
 Reference Number: {{REFERENCE_NUMBER}}
 
 SHIP TO INFORMATION
 =========================================
 {{FIRST_NAME}} {{LAST_NAME}} {{COMMA}} {{TITLE}}
 {{COMPANY}}
 {{ADDRESS_LINE_1}}
 {{ADDRESS_LINE_2}}
 {{CITY}}{{COMMA}} {{STATE}} {{ZIP_POSTAL_CODE}}
 {{PROVINCE}}
 {{COUNTRY}}
 
 Day Phone: {{DAY_PHONE}}
 Night Phone: {{NIGHT_PHONE}}
 Email: {{EMAIL_ADDRESS}}
 
 {{COMMENTS}}
 
 {{TAX_ID_NUMBER_INFO}}
 {{CUSTOM_INPUT_FIELDS}}
 
 ITEMS ORDERED 
 =========================================
 {{ITEMS_ORDERED}}
 
 =========================================
 Subtotal: {{SUBTOTAL}}
 {{COUPON_INFO}}
 {{PURCHASE_DISCOUNT_INFO}}
 Shipping: {{SHIPPING_COST}} - {{SHIPPING_METHOD}}
 {{SALES_TAX_INFO}}
 
 ORDER TOTAL: {{ORDER_TOTAL}}
 
 PAYMENT METHOD 
 =========================================
 {{PAYMENT_METHOD}}
 {{PAYMENT_METHOD_NOTES}}

Shipping Notification Email - Send Copy To:
When the store sends Shipping Notification Emails to customers, you can elect to have a copy of the email sent to you for tracking / safe keeping. If you would like this feature to be active, just enter your email address in this field. Leave this field blank if you do not want this feature active.

Shipping Notification Email - Send Test Email To:
If you would like to test this feature to see how the email and data markers work, enter your email address into this field. When you click the SAVE CHANGES button at the bottom of the page, the store will create a sample Shipping Notification Email based on the configuration you entered and send it to you.

NOTE: in order for this feature to work, there must be at least one existing customer order in you store's database which is used to fill out the email's message text. The store will use the first customer order it finds to fill out the sample email. NOTE: This test email will NOT be sent to the customer -- only to you.

Show Shipping Pieces
This option allows you to control whether or not the store displays the number of shipping "pieces" (items) as part of the customer's order. This field is required.

When set to "YES", the store will display this information as part of or include it inside the following: View Order Page, Packing List Page, Order Confirmation Email, and Shipping Notification Email.

Show Shipping Weight
This option allows you to control whether or not the store displays the total shipping weight as part of the customer's order. This field is required.

Footnote Free Shipping Items
This option allows you to control whether or not the store footnotes items in customer's order that are eligible for free shipping. This field is required.

When set to "YES", the store will display this information as part of or include it inside the following: View Order Page, Packing List Page, Add to Cart Product Page, View Shopping Cart Page, Order Confirmation Email, and Shipping Notification Email.

Packing List Page HTML:
This field allows you to edit or change the look of the packing list print page that appears inside the View New Orders and View Processed Orders options on the Main Menu.

Be careful when editing this page's HTML code. The store expects to find certain markers within the HTML code which it needs in order to insert data from the customer's order. Marker Text is always in UPPER CASE text and markers must start with a double curly brace and end with a double curly brace.

TIP: If you clear the contents of this field and click the SAVE CHANGES button at the bottom of the page, the store will insert the default HTML code for the packing list page.

Auto-Resize Thumbnails
When the store displays a list of products to a customer, it normally displays small images (called thumbnails) for each product. The store can automatically adjust the size of all thumbnails (for uniformity and a cleaner look) or use the images' natural size.

This field controls whether or not the store auto-resizes the image thumbnails and is required.

Auto-Resize Width and Height Settings
When auto-resize is active, the store will use the pixel width and height values specified in these fields (40 is recommended for both). Pixel sizes must be between set between 5 and 500.

Thumbnail Link Action
When the store displays a list of products to a customer, it normally displays "clickable" small images (called thumbnails) for each product. This option allows you to control whether thumbnails link to a generic page that shows each product's full size image, or links to each product's detail information page (for ordering). This field is required.

No Photo Available
When a product's web page is displayed, the store attempts to display the product's full sized image. If one is not available, a substitute graphic is normally displayed that says "Sorry, No Photo Available". This setting lets you control whether or not the replacement image is displayed for product's that don't have a full sized image defined for them.

Credit Card Format:
This settings controls how credit card numbers will be displayed when you are viewing NEW or PROCESSED orders (from the Main Menu). Normally, credit card numbers are displayed with "dashes" in them for processing (like 4111-1111-1111-1115).However, you also have the option to display them without the dashes (4111111111111115).

Credit Card Checksum Calculations:
This controls whether or not the store performs checksum validation on credit card numbers entered by customers during checkout. This feature validates that the customer entered a valid credit card number during local or remote SSL checkout.

This setting should always be YES unless you are accepting foreign credit cards (UK Switch Cards) that don't use the standard Visa, Master Card, or American Express numbering format.

This setting applies only to stores that are NOT using Real-Time Credit Card Processing.

Strikeout Normal Price:
When on sale, the store normally displays both the product's "normal price" and the "sale price". This setting lets you control whether or not the store displays the product's "normal price" with a strike through effect. A strike through effect is shown as a line drawn through the price so it appears as if it's been "crossed out".

Example: ~~$19.95~~

When this feature is active, the strike through effect will appear on both the product's Add To Cart page and on the "Specials" page.

NOTE: not all browsers display strike through effects properly.

Show On Sale Savings:
When a product is on sale, this setting allows you to control whether or not the store shows an additional line of text below the product's sale price (on the product's Add To Cart page only). This new line will show how much the customer will save when purchasing the item.

Example: You Save $1.25

Show Sale Expiration Date:
When a product is on sale and has an auto-expire date configured, this setting allows you to control whether or not the store shows an additional line of text below the product's sale price (on the product's Add To Cart page only). This new line will show when the product's sale price expires.

Show Out-of-Stock Products:
When inventory is being tracked on a product, the store will normally still display the product to the customer even when it's out-of-stock. The customer will still be able view information about the product, but will not be allowed to order it (since no "Add To Cart" button will appear).

If you DO NOT want out-of-stock products to appear to the customer (only those that are NOT allowed to be backordered), then set this field to "NO".

NOTE: any out-of-stock product that IS ALLOWED to be backordered will still appear to the customer regardless of which setting you chose here. This setting only affects out-of-stock products that are NOT allowed to be backordered.

Show Product Weight:
If you DO NOT want to show the weight of each product on the "Add to Cart" page, then set this field to "NO". Otherwise, select the "YES" option and the weight defined for each product will be shown to the customer.

NOTE: If a specific product's weight field is zero or blank, the store will still NOT show the weight even if this flag is set to "YES" (since the product has no weight).

Add to Cart Action:
This option allows you to control what happens when a customer clicks a product's ADD TO CART button. Normally, the store shows the VIEW CART PAGE immediately after this button is pressed so the customer can see what is now stored in their shopping cart basket.

However, this preference item allows you to change that behavior and simply re-display the product's detail information page. If you chose this option, the shopping basket is still updated but the normal VIEW CART page is not shown to the customer.

Add Products By Item Number:
The YES/NO option allows you to control whether or not the VIEW CART page displays an additional field whereby the customer may add products to their cart by product item number (SKU number). This field will be shown just above the list of items in the customer's shopping cart and will look something like this:

HTML Code for Add Product By Item Number Feature:
The second field contains the HTML code to be used for the form. CAUTION when making changes to this code! The store is expecting certain form field names within this code as well as a properly named form button.

If you wish to reset this HTML code to the store's default, simply clear the contents of this field and click the SAVE CHANGES button at the bottom of the page. When this field is empty, the store will automatically insert the default HTML code for this feature.

When active, the customer may enter an item number and quickly view the product's Add To Cart page. The store must show the Add to Cart page so the customer may select and complete any product options associated with it. In addition, the customer will most likely want to review the product's description, price, sale info, quantity, etc.. before ordering.

For some search engines, activating this feature may help with search engine indexing of the products in your store.

NOTE: for browser compatibility, the product's name must be "URL encoded".

Override Page Titles:
This field controls whether or not the store automatically replaces the default page titles (e.g. the store's name) with the name of the department, category, sub-category, or product currently being displayed to the customer. The default setting is "NO".

This field only affects the store pages that display departments, categories, sub-categories, and products - not the other pages in the store. Activating this feature may help in search engine submission and processing.

NOTE: this feature assumes that the skin page being loaded and processed has a properly formatted title block in its HTML source code. In order for this feature to work, the title block must contain the following EXACT HTML:

Show Email Shopping List Feature:
The YES/NO option allows you to control whether or not the VIEW CART page displays an email form to allow the customer to email a list of their shopping cart contents to a friend. The customer must have at least one item in their shopping cart basket in order for this form to be displayed.

HTML Code for Email Shopping List Feature:
The second field contains the HTML code to be used for the email form. CAUTION when making changes to this code! The store is expecting certain form field names within this code as well as a properly named form button.

When this feature is active, the view cart page will show an email form that the customer can use to send a friend a list of their shopping cart contents. This form will normally be shown just below the View Cart Page's buttons. It will look something like this, except it will be formatted using the current skin's style sheet (colors/formatting):

Email Shopping List to a Friend:
Friend's Name:
Friend's Email Address:
Message to Friend:
Your Name:
Your Email Address:

NOTE: The store will automatically send the store manager(s) a blind carbon copy of this email when sent by customers. This allows you to monitor the email being sent from your store.

SMTP Server Type:
Even though the Basic Store Administration option on the Main Menu requires you to provide a "path to sendmail", this may not be the actual mail program that is being called when email is sent. The default setting is "Sendmail".

If the web server is redirecting sendmail commands to another email program (like EXIM or QMAIL), you will need to change this setting so that order confirmations emails will function properly. You will need to select one of the other mail programs shown.

If "sendmail" is the actual email program on the web server, you must select the "Sendmail" option.

CAUTION! Do not change this setting unless told to do so by a Technical Support Representative. If this setting is wrong, the store will NOT be able to send email properly.

Email Product to a Friend:
This allows you to control whether or not a special clickable "Email a Friend" icon appears on each product page in the store. When clicked, this icon will take the visitor to a special store page where the customer may send, via email, information about the product to a friend. This can be an effective marketing tool for your store.

Below is an example of the email form presented to the customer.

EMAIL PRODUCT TO A FRIEND
(all fields are required)
Friend's Name*
Friend's Email*

Your Name*
Your Email Address*
Product:	(Product's Name Inserted Here)
Email Subject*
Email Message*	I found this product online that I thought you might be interested in.

The store managers will receive a copy of the customer's email to his/her friend. This allows the store managers to monitor this feature for email abuse. It also allows the store managers to capture the names and email address of the customer and their friend.

SECURITY CODE: the store will automatically insert an additional field called "Enter Security Code". This is done to help stop spammers from hijacking your form and using it for email "spamming" purposes. A random 5 digit security code will be shown each time this form is displayed. The customer will be required to enter a matching code number before their email will be sent.

Feature Active?
Icon Image:	Use Default Icon
Display Icon After:
Just Before Icon:
Icon Alignment:
Default Email Text:	I found this product online that I thought you might be interested in.

FEATURE ACTIVE:
This turns the Email Product to a Friend feature ON or OFF. Select YES to activate the feature or pick NO to turn it off.

ICON IMAGE:
This is an upload field which allows you to change the icon being used for this feature. Click the BROWSE button to open a file selection window on your computer. Locate the JPG, GIF, or PNG image on your hard drive, highlight the image file, and click OPEN to place it into this upload field. When you SAVE this page's contents, the store will upload the selected image from your hard drive to the store's database. Once uploaded, the icon image will appear out to the left.

USE DEFAULT ICON:
Click this checkbox to remove your custom icon and revert back to the store's default icon.

DISPLAY ICON AFTER:
This drop down list presents several choices and each one represents a different location on the product ADD TO CART page. By selecting a location, you are telling the store where on the product page to insert the clickable icon.

NOTE: if you choose the option called "Inserted {{EMAIL_FRIEND}} marker", then a marker called "{{EMAIL_FRIEND}}" must exist on the skin template's "product" page. Otherwise, the store will not know where to insert the clickable icon. Normally to make this work, you would customize your skin template and add the {{EMAIL_FRIEND}} marker to the skin's product page. Then the clickable icon would appear on each product page in the store. Optionally, you could insert the {{EMAIL_FRIEND}} marker into each product's LONG DESCRIPTION field but that would mean editing every product record in your store.

JUST BEFORE ICON:
If you would like to insert a space or a new line just before the clickable icon, select one of the choices available. This tells the store to insert a space or a line break just before placing the clickable icon on the product's add to cart page.

ICON ALIGNMENT:
This tells the store how you wish the clickable icon aligned on the product's add to cart page. The choices are NONE (which means use the default alignment for the skin's product page), To The Right, To the Left, or Centered.

DEFAULT EMAIL TEXT:
When the store displays the "Email Product to a Friend" form, this text will be inserted automatically into the email message's text field. This will be the "default text" for the field, and the customer may change it prior to sending their email to a friend.

Default Search Type:
When a customer enters a search phrase that is surrounded by quotes, the store always performs an "exact phrase" search.

However, if the customer simply enters multiple search words without any quotes around them, the store does not know whether this is to be an "OR", "AND", or "QUOTED" search.

This field controls what the "default search type" is when the search words entered do not have any quotes around them.

TIP: For most stores, it's recommended you set the default search type to be an "AND Search".

An "OR Search" looks through the product records and looks for a match to ANY of search words. If any one of the search words matches, the product will be show as part of the search results page. Example: if you are searching for HARD DRIVE, then either the word HARD or DRIVE must be found.

An "AND Search" looks through the product records and looks for a match to ALL of search words. If it finds a match for each one of the search words, the product will be show as part of the search results page. Example: if you are searching for HARD DRIVE, then both of the words HARD and DRIVE must be found.

A "QUOTED Search" looks through the product records and looks for an exact match to the search phrase entered. If it finds a match for the exact phrase, the product will be show as part of the search results page. Example: if you are searching for HARD DRIVE, then the exact combination of words HARD DRIVE must be found together.

NOTE: for searches, longer words containing the search word as part of its characters will be considered a match. Example "hardware" would be a match for a search word of "hard". Store searches are NOT case sensitive.

Search Meta Tags:
This field controls whether or not the store includes each product's meta tags when performing a search. Most stores will want to include meta tags in product searches and therefore, the default setting for this flag is "Yes".

If your meta tags are designed in such a way that they are causing the store to generate invalid search results, then you need to set this flag to "No".

Admin Time-out:
As you know, the store's administration system has an automatic time-out feature. If you remain idle for more minutes than is allowed, you will be required to sign on once again. This setting controls the number of minutes used by the store for the automatic time-out feature. Normally, this is set to 15 minutes but can be adjusted to one of the other settings available.

Dotted / Dashed Lines Control:
This option allows you to control the size of the various dashed and dotted line separators used in the store. All entries are required and must contain a value from 1 through 200.

The store's default values at 14 for the Dashed Line Size and 20 for the Dotted Line Size.

Static Index Page:
This field controls whether or not the store automatically generates a "static" version of the store's Welcome Page. The default and recommended setting is "NO".

When this feature is active (set to YES), the store will automatically replace the normal "redirection" web page called "index.htm" (which exists in the store's main program directory) with a new page called "index.html". The "index.html" page will contain an exact "static" copy of the last Welcome Page displayed to a shopper.

The default setting is "NO" and is recommended for most stores. When this feature is OFF, the store uses the normal redirection method in the default file called "index.htm". The store's Welcome Page will be generated "dynamically" each and every time it is requested by a customer.

NOTE: this static "index.htm" page will only get generated (updated) when the store's welcome page is displayed via the main "Qstore.cgi" script.

TIP: Keep in mind that items on the store's dynamic Welcome Page change from time to time depending on what a shopper is adding to their cart and the current state of inventory in the store. While using the static "index.html" page will help with search engine submission, the static page will not properly reflect a specific customer's shopping cart contents nor will it show accurate information regarding the store's featured items.

IMPORTANT - the store will NOT allow both an redirection "index.htm" and static "index.html" file to exist in the store's main program directory. It will automatically remove the file that is invalid based on this field's current setting.

Display Counter:
This controls whether or not the store displays a counter at the bottom of the store's pages and what text to show in front of it. You control the counter's "prefix text" using the input field provided.

The counter will display the total number of times the page has been visited (shown). The number will appear as a series of images representing the number. The counter will be inserted into the skin page just above the copyright notice at the bottom of the page.

This field may contain properly formatted HTML commands for additional formatting control.

IMPORTANT: the counter will NOT be incremented when testing the display of store pages from inside the store's administration system. If you display a store page from inside the admin system, the store will append "ADMIN=YES" onto the end of the URL it uses. When this special command is detected, the store does NOT increment the counter for that area of the store. This is done so you don't accidentally inflate the number of customer page views during testing.

NOTE: the store's counter display and page visit tracking features were added in v4.1. Therefore, the number of page visits that occurred prior to installation of v4.1 are not available.

Web Page Tracking:
The store has the ability to track web pages displayed by the customer while they are shopping. The tracking is done by recording "entries" in a standard web server log file. The log file can then be downloaded and processed by a web page statistical program like http://www.webtrends.com.

This setting controls whether or not the store tracks customer web page displays into a file called "store.log". This file will be located in the store's "Qfiles" directory.

CAUTION! Normally this feature is NOT active since it will take up additional disk space that is assigned to your web site. If you activate this option, the "store.log" file in the "Qfiles" directory will continue to grow until such time as you delete it. As a result, this file can grow to a very large size. Also, store logging requires extra processing time and customers may notice a slightly slower response time when shopping.

HTML EMAIL WORD WRAP:
This field controls whether or not the store performs automatic line length adjustments to effectively word wrap all outgoing HTML email. When this field contains a valid number, it is active. When blank, it is turned off.

Normally this field is left blank to disable (turn off) this feature.

If you see strange exclamation points in HTML email sent by the store, then you need to turn this feature ON. To do so, enter a whole number that represents the maximum allowed line length for the text contained in the email. The value should be between 75 (typical) and 500 (max) which tells the store where to word wrap each text line.

NOTE: turning this feature ON will not affect the look/layout of your HTML email when read by your customers. This only changes the internal text line length and not the format of the HTML email.