zTotal

“Total” Sites Guide


This zTotal Web Site Guide for our “Total” line of web sites is a work in progress, so please forgive any typos or other mistakes. Because these sites are so cutting edge, the online manual and many of the help features have not been completed. If you have any questions about your zTotal web site, please contact us at director@ztotal.com or call 870-403-7718.

Thanks,

Your zTotal Staff


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Our web sites can be used by those with little or no computer knowledge or experience. All features are activated via simple menus, and most tasks are basic point and click operations. No programming knowledge of any kind is required.

This screenshot shows the customizable elements on all main pages. Main or portal pages refer to all pages except product pages.

In addition to complete CSS control over all the customizable page elements, you can also specify custom CSS commands in the <head> section as a default setting for all pages. The same applies for custom javascript. HTML works in most locations on most pages. If you don’t understand the preceding, it’s ok, because you don’t need it.


Admin Control Panel

From here you can:

Password protected with automatic timeout, point-and-click ease of use, user preference settings and contextual pop-up help, the Admin Control Panel is where you manage your store.


Automated Store Design & Content Management

Your store can have it’s own customized color scheme, logo and overall look. The tools at your disposal include:

Structured Merchandising Support

We make it easy to categorize, search, navigate and display an unlimited number of products in each store:







Flexible Product Display Options

Product listings feature:







Shopping Cart & Order Processing

Every store has it’s own optional shopping cart and order processing facilities. The proprietory cart system integrates seamlessly, maintaining the look and feel of the store even as web site design changes are made.




Return to the control panel window, and click on the ‘Website’ link in the page header.

Next, select ‘Layout’ from the Master Template Edit submenu on the left hand side navigation panel.

Note the breadcrumb trail at the head of the page that always shows where you are in the control panel. For example, now it should read like this:



Menu Command: Main > Website > Master Template Edit> Layout

Also note that portal and store control panels feature contextual help.

Mouseover this help icon whenever it appears next to control panel admin commands to read command specific help.

The following panels show some of the ways you can customize your web site.

Date Stamp Location

Show/Hide Slogan/Motto Panel

Show/Hide Right Sidebar
     



Set Width of Main Content Section When No Sidebars

Note that at any time, you can use the “text-to-html” conversion engine to render html code you enter into the main page body content editing facility.

This is particularly useful for creating complex custom page designs utilizing the full width of the available screen when the L/R sidebars are switched off.

Show/Hide Top Sidebar Sections

(Left and Right)

Specify Top/Bottom Navigation Panel Link Delimiters

1. Editing the Template Styles

The second class of items you can change on the default portal pages are style elements. These are all the elements controlled by Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), principally choice of font, font size, and colors for various elements.

Select Website > Master Template Edit > Styles on the MasterAdmin Control Panel and you will see the following:

The Template Sections links at the top simply lead to submenus for each of the relevant page elements, which are similar to the first one shown above – Default Settings for all content panels.

Many of the style settings relate to your choice of color for page elements. Clicking on the small color square adjacent to color hex number settings will launch a color selector with the existing color setting pre-selected:

To change the color setting for that element, simply click on one of the color squares, or enter the hex number into the field at top (works directly on the control panel as well).


Edit Main Pages Template Styles – Overall Page Settings

You can set a background image or background color for all main pages. As shown in this next graphic, you do this by specifying page margins.


Edit Main Pages Template Styles – Header Elements

In the next section, you can set styles for the top logo panel, date stamp, slogan panel, and top navigation bar.

Our pages are formatted to fill available screen width on a % basis. So although there is no maximum logo width, in most cases logo width should be formatted for 400 to 800 pixel display with a solid color at the right hand end to blend with the background color you specify for the logo panel for higher resolutions.

Edit Main Pages Template Styles – Left Sidebar


Edit Main Pages Template Styles – Main Body Panel

Set font family, color, and size for page headlines, subheads and body text, hyperlinks and image captions.


Edit Main Pages Template Styles – Right Sidebar

Set styles for the same elements as for the Left Sidebar (see above).

Edit Main Pages Template Styles – Forms

Set styles for title, body, field labels and other text used in forms (eg Contact, Search etc) used on portal pages


Edit Main Pages Template Styles – Footer

Set font family, size and color for the bottom navigation panel links and footer panel text.












Edit Main Pages Template Default Content

Select Website > Master Template Edit > Default Content to enter settings for:


Create, Edit or Delete Main Pages

Our site supports the creation of an unlimited number of portal pages. Feel free to add your own page(s) and content.

To create a new main page, select :

Website > Web Pages > Create

You have complete freedom in naming new web pages . . . with the obvious exception that two pages cannot have the same name. (Our program will not allow the same name, and you have a link available to recall a list of all existing filenames).

You can also rename existing pages (via the Edit feature).

Note that you can set custom meta tags for each page.

Again, mouse over the help icons for context sensitive help. The Page Content section has links for additional help on entering HTML code, adding images and creating 2 column layouts in the body of your web page

Each page has sections dedicated to recording the details of up to 5 images to be embedded in the body of the page by entering placeholder tags |image1|, |image2| etc into the Page Content edit area.


















Optionally specify image mouse-over text, captions, alignment and borders.













Click any of the Create Web Page links or the button at the foot of the page, and Storecarver will display an alert advising that the page was successfully created and offer a link to open the page in a new window




Editing Existing Main Pages

If you want to make changes to a page you just created (or any other page), you need to do so via the Edit feature:

Website > Web Pages > Edit


You will be presented with a list of existing pages to choose from, which will take you to all existing page data for editing.

If you don’t already have a copy open, click the View This Web Page link at the head of this edit screen (beside ‘current filename’) to open the subject page in a new window. Using the following directions, you can make changes to the page and see the changes made.



Click the Submit Changes link at any one of the 7 locations on the edit screen and then click the browser Refresh or Reload button in the toolbar of the window displaying the web page to have the page updated with the latest changes. Working with 2 windows open this way makes page editing go a whole lot faster.



Main Pages Navigation Links and Categories

Add, edit and delete custom navigation links to provide a navigation path to content pages throughout the portal. Links may be added to top, left, right and/or bottom nav panels.

External, https and mailto links are supported, and all links can be organized into editable categories on left/right nav panels.

Deletion of a content page automatically removes any navigation panel link associated with that page as well.

Add, edit or delete portal nav link categories:

Website > NavLink Categories > Add/Edit/Delete

Add, edit or delete portal navigation links:

Website > Navigation Links > Add/Edit/Delete



Main Pages Image Gallery

We feature a dedicated image library where you can upload images 5 at a time for storage and later reference via the page creation and editing facilities already covered above.

Those stored images can then be called and placed anywhere on any portal page using placeholder tags (|image1|, |image2|, etc.) that you enter into the body content field for the page.

Embed up to 5 images in content page body and another 10 each in left/right navigation panels (25 images total per page . . . but add even more by manual html coding).

Note that the Image Gallery makes it possible to use the same image on more than one page.

To upload new images, select Master Website > Image Gallery > Upload


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