Add a new category

In Occasional Tasks -> Categories -> Add Category you will find this form to enter the information for the category.

description (catdescription)	The category name. Required. No other field is required.
Image (catimage)	If an image is to be displayed, this is either a filename or URL to the image. For example myimage.gif or http://www.mysite.com/images/myimage.gif Image can be viewed. With the Option Package you can also upload images from your local PC
Higher categoryid (highercategoryid)	0 for the top most category (select will generate 0). The categoryid (number) of the category above this category. Every category is assigned a number called the categoryid. The current categories are listed.
Subcategories (hassubcategory)	If this category has subcategories, select Yes. This helps VP-ASP speed up rocessing.
Hide (cathide)	Leave empty unless you do not want this category to display, otherwise put Yes in this field. Anything in this field is the same as Yes
Match Product (matchproduct)	Use only if you want VP-ASP to match the product in shop$config.asp
Match Customer (matchcustomer)	Use only if you want VP-ASP to match same field in customer record
Catmemo	A detailed description of the category that can optionally be displayed
Catextra	Unused except if the following configuration is set xdisplaycategoryfiles=Yes. In that case this is a file name that holds information to be displayed when the products for this category are displayed
Language	The language name such as French. Used only if you are using language switching
Template	If using product formatting with templates, the name of the template to be used to format this category of products. Xcategoryproducttemplates must also be set to Yes

        

Edit Categories

By clicking Occasional Tasks -> Categories -> View/Edit Category you can see the current categories that you have.  Click 'Edit' to make changes to them.

        

Adding Categories

VP-ASP has two main tables related to products: categories and products.

VP-ASP requires a minimum of one category, but an unlimited maximum. You can have as many categories as you wish.

VP-ASP by default has the configuration option xmaxcategories set to 300. If you get errors because you have exceded the limit when adding categories simply increase this number.

Categories can have subcategories, and there is no limit on the depth of subcategories (sub categories can have more subcategories).

To add a category enter the Occasional Tasks in the administration and select 'Add Category'

        

Shared SSL

A "secure server" or "shared SSL" is an invention of your web hosting company. It is a way to use an SSL certificate without actually buying one. Every web hosting company that supplies a "Secure Server" facility does it differently. VP-ASP only supports this shared SSL to take create cards using our special sslshopcheckout.asp. This is true whether the "shared ssl" is just a separate folder on the same server or on another server.

VP-ASP and Shared SSL
With a Shared SSL certificate you cannot:

• Use some of our supplied gateways
• Use the VP-ASP Admin system in SSL Mode
• Use any other VP-ASP files in SSL Mode

Using SSLShopcheckout

To allow the SSL to be on a different server (or a different folder on the same server), we have created an interface called sslshopcheckout.asp. This code is allows you to take credit cards using a server with SSL using "shared SSL". Many web hosting companies provide such a free service.

This interface does require a number of VP-ASP files to be placed in your secure server. The database does not need to be copied.

This feature is useful but it has some restrictions. The SSL server must be capable of running ASP pages. See the Developer's Guide for details on files to be copied to the "Secure Server".
The sslshopcheckout.asp takes the credit card securely and then passes it back to the normal VP-ASP domain (encrypted), where it is stored for manual credit card processing.

Gateways and Shared SSL

There are essentially three types of electronic gateways.

1. Type one does not take credit card details on your site. The credit card is taken on the gateway site. In this case, you do not need SSL or shared SSL at all.
2. Type two is a COM based gateway, where credit cards are taken on your site. In this case you need your own SSL certificate or you can use shared SSL with our shared SSL enhancement.
3. Type three is a forms based gateway where the gateway requires that you pass the credit card to them from your site. In this case you do need your own SSL certificate.

Set-up of Shared SSL - VP-ASP 6.0
To use shared SSL, you must do the following simple steps.

1. Copy the following Files to the secure server or secure folder.
sslshopcheckout.asp
sslshophash.asp
sslshopsess.asp
shop$language_english.asp
shop$colors.asp
shop$config.asp
shop.css

2. Edit sslshopcheckout.asp
Change these two lines

const MYSITE="http://www.YourSite.com/shopping"
const xEncryptkey="agabAhjBcG"

The first line points back to where VP-ASP is installed on your main site.
The second is the encryption key. It must match the xencryptkey in your VP-ASP configuration.

3. In VP-ASP Shop Configuration set the follow
xssl="https://...........
xcheckout=sslshopcheckout.asp

xssl points to the URl where your web host has setup shared SSL environment
xcheckout tells VP-ASP to run file sslshopcheckout.asp to obtain credit card details

Technical details of "Shared SSL"

VP-ASP relies on what is known as Application Variables, to hold the Shop Configuration and Session variables to hold the current items in the cart. These are both domain dependent.
When you use a shared SSL environment you almost always chang the domain name. For example your web site may be http://www.mysite.com but the shared ssl may be something like https://secure.abc.com.mysite. The domain name changes when you go from your site to the shared SSL site.

Because of this domain name change, all application variables are lost. All session variables are lost and in many cases the ability to read and write the database is lost. This is the reason we only support one facility under shared SSL and why you cannot use the VP-ASP Admin system in SSL Mode.

Because the "shared SSL" is in a different folder than the rest of VP-ASP, it does not have access to many of your images, header and trailer files. So sslshopcheckout.asp looks "bare" by comparison to your normal site. If you want it to have a better look and feel, it is up you to copy any needed files and update the source of sslshopcheckout.asp.

In addition the specification of what options to use cannot be done via the normal Shop Configuration Options. So to se the credit card types and other options, you need to set the values directly in sslshopcheckout.asp. This is described in detail in the Developer's Guide. These values can be changed directly in sslshopcheckout.asp

const MYSITE="http://localhost/webs/vpasp"
Const Creditcards="Visa,Mastercard,American Express"
Const Otherpayments="Check,Cash,Phone Order"
Const AllowCreditCards="Yes" ' Select credit Cards
const AllowOtherPayment="Yes" ' Other payment types
Const AllowInvalidCreditCards="No" ' validate credit card information
const xcardissuenumber="No" ' for solo and switch cards

        

Dynamic Category Displays

Almost all pages in VP-ASP are dynamically created. This means that data is read from the database and formatted with HTML and displayed in your browser.

 

Categories can be displayed in two ways. One is the default method and the other is the template method. The default method allows you to control the category display by altering values in Shop Configuration and the appearance by changing values in shop$colors.asp

        

Default Category Display

Automatically displays all the categories in the shopping database. This routine can display images for each category by supplying the image location in catimage field. It can also display multiple columns.

 

1. Displays categories in a table
2. No knowledge of HTML is required
3. Will automatically display images
4. Will automatically link to any subcategories
5. Will automatically link to any products
6. Will automatically display any associated text

 

The following are easily changed:

• Number of columns
• Color and size of the table
• Header at the top of the page
• Whether text is displayed under the category name and image

        

Changing Colors and Fonts and Sort

Change these values in shop$colors.asp to alter the table display. These lines define the table and columns used to create the category display.

' Categories

const CatHeader="b>p align=center>font size='5' color='#990033'>"
const CatRow="TR bgColor='#FFFFFF'>"
Const CatColumn="TD>p align=center>b>font face='arial,verdana' size=5 color='#BB0000'>"
Const CatTable="table border=10 cellpadding=4 width='60%' cellspacing=4 bordercolor='#336699'>"
Const CatColumnEnd="/b>/font>/p>/td>"

        

Changing Column and Sort

VP-ASP allows you to change the sort order of your categories, what is displayed and the number of columns displayed by simply changing the following configurations.

xsortcategories	Category sort field
xcatmaxcolumns	Number of columns to display
xcategorydisplaytext	Yesuses the catmemo field to display the text under the image
xcategoryproductsonly	Yesstops the display of the words products and subcategories under the category image

        

Subcategories

VP-ASP determines that a category has subcategories if the categories table field hassubcategory is filled in Yes or No. 

 

To make a category be able to have sub categories set the Subcategories option to Yes when editing or adding the category.

 

A subcategory in VP-ASP is simply a category that has a value in the highercategoryid field of the category record, and the highercategoryid that is being referenced has Subcategories set to Yes.

 

If the category is the highest category, or the category does not have any sub categories the highercategoryid will be 0.

        

Category Display with Templates

It is possible to replace the default formatting of categories with your own unique HTML. A template can be created using your favorite editor. It is plain HTML with the addition of some special fields that will be filled in by the VP-ASP.

The advantage to using this method and file is that you have more control over category formatting, how and what is displayed.

You will need to edit tmp_categorytemplate.htm.

You can use your favorite HTML editor. A template is simply HTML with special “controls” that tells VP-ASP to substitute data from the categories table.

To use templates, you need to change the first Shop Configuration value.

xcategoryusetemplate	Yes switches to template mode
xcategorydisplaytemplate	The template to use. The default is Number of columns to display tmp_categorytemplate.htm

        

Database Fields

These are just some of the fields from the categories table that can be included. Any field in the categories table can be substituted using this method.

[categoryid]	Unique category number
[catdescription]	Category name
[catimage]	Category image
[catmemo]	Category text
[catextra]	Unused by VP-ASP

        

Additional Controls

Templates are treated as plain text and cannot have logic in them. You can have a different type of template as shown below. The formatimage sub tells VP-ASP to use some logic to determine if the image is to be displayed. The FORMATHYPERLINKS SUB, tells VP-ASP to generate product/subcategory links.

table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="100%">
tr>
td valign=top align=center>
[FORMATIMAGE SUB]
/td>
/tr>
tr>
td align=center valign=top>
[FORMATHYPERLINKS SUB]
/td>
/tr>
tr>
td valign=top align=center>
$ [catmemo]
/td>
/tr>
/table>

        

Category Links from your own pages

By just including a simple link anywhere in the existing web site to routine shopdisplaycategories.asp, all the shopping facilities and product displays are automatic.

a href="shopdisplaycategories.asp">Display Categories/a>

To display a subcategory, use something like

a href="shopdisplaycategories.asp?id=44">Subcategories for category 44/a>

This will list all subcategories for category with categoryid=44

        

Category Tree

A file called shopcategorylist.asp displays all your categories and subcategories in a tree form.

 

There are no direct links to this file from within VP-ASP, but if you wish to reference it somewhere on your site, you can add it using

 

<a href="shopcategorylist.asp">Display Category Tree</a>

 

        

Category Displays

Categories are a method for customers to locate your products. Other methods include searching. VP-ASP puts no limits on the number of categories you have, or the depth of the categories and sub categories. If you choose to use VP-ASP dynamic product displays, then every product needs to belong to at least one category.

If you have a simple shop with only one category, it is possible to totally bypass this category and go directly to your product displays. With many products and many categories, this page will be very useful.

        

Category Template

Any field in the categories table can be placed into your template. The field must be surrounded by brackets [field]. For example, to add the category description use [catdescription].

Templates are a mixture of plain HTML and special fields.

table border="0" cellpadding="2" width="100%">
tr>
TD valign=top align=center>
[FORMATIMAGE SUB]
/td>
/tr>
tr>
td align=center valign=top>
[FORMATHYPERLINKS SUB]
/td>
/tr>
$ tr>td valign=top align=center>[catmemo]/td>/tr>
/table>