Adding More Help Pages
 

Is it possible to add more help pages to the Help Zone? Instead of having a general Terms and Conditions area, I would like to have separate shipping, returns, etc. areas. I want them to appear (and be linked to) in the list in the Help menu, and also be linked to from the Help Zone page like the original pages (about, FAQ, etc.).

I tried making a shipping.tpl file in the Help directory patterned after the other help templates. I was able to get Shipping in the list in the help menu, but it links to the general Help Zone page. I looked at the other related templates listed in the debugging console, but can't see any logical code to change/add. I'm thinking what I want would require a change to the help.php and/or include/help.php files.

If it's too complicated or risky, I'll just live with the original set-up. I was just wondering if anyone knows of a feasible solution.

Thanks,
Jill

Just create new embedded static pages, they are automatically added to the help menu on the side. You would need to manually add the links to the help/general.tpl file, but that is pretty quick :)

Is this the only way?

I notice a "About us" template available in help/about.tpl which I'd like to modify and add to the Help section on my site. How can I do this?

I find it best doing it balinor's method, with that method you can have any look you want easily. What I did was create a new embedded static page for the main page of the help section, then create a tree of other static pages with the info. Make sure the "Parse Smarty tags in the content of embedded pages" checkbox is checked. It's probably best to use dreamweaver so you can get the look you want easier. Obviously the down side to this method is all the static pages show in the help section, I didn't want this, so you can easily modify the help section, here's what I did.

open up skin1/pages_menu.tpl

This is what you should see


Change it to something like this.


change the (15) to the number of the static page you want to show up in the help section. Copy that line with
at the beginning for every other static page you still want to show up. You'll also have to change {$lng.lbl_help_center_order_ship} for every line you want to add, this calls the text you want to show up in the help section, you create that in admin area under languages.

On the main static page you create for the help section use the same line to link to other help pages you create.

One other thing you might want to do, not sure how much it helps though, but it may speed up the loading of the static pages. Instead of using the normal html method, load all your text in the languages section and call it using the {$lng.} string, and uss the CSS for the formating.

If anyone knows if that should be done to optimize please let me know, it does take more time doing it that way, but I have a feeling thats the proper way. Any additional comments would be appreciated.

Thanks
Rob

How do you create new embedded static pages ?

Click on 'Static Pages' in your admin area.

Thanks, works like a charm

colour
 

Thanks for the static pages....worked a treat.

Although, still have one problem. The background colour of the dialog box heading is consistantly orange and I cant find where to change the colour. Can anyone help?

pnm,

In your Admin area, go to the "Edit Templates" section. In the main file list, find skin1.css and click on it to edit it. Look for the class .VertMenuTitle. This class sets the "Background-Color" (the color of the box) and "Color" (the color of the font for the title). Both of these can be changed to whatever you want.

The colors are in hexadecimal format (a 6-character alphanumeric made up of letters A-F and numbers 0-9, with the "#" in front). If you're not familiar with this, go here http://www.lynda.com/hex.asp#, and click on one of the links for the web colors organized by hue or value. Then just replace the original color code in the skin1.css file with the hex code for the color you want. The colors listed at this site are the 216 web-safe colors. You're better off sticking with these, but you can probably do a Google search on hexadecimal color codes to find a full palette of colors with their hex codes.

Also, you can change any colors in the skin1.css file to get the look you want for your store front. You can also change fonts, font sizes, etc. You can do the same with the skin1_printable.css and skin1_admin.css files in the same directory with skin1.css. If you use the Fast Lane Checkout module, it has a separate skin1.css file within its directory (modules/Fast_Lane_Checkout).

Oh, and something I just discovered... when you submit your order through your store, it goes to a page stating "Your order is being processed..." This page has the default orange color scheme. There is a template in the template directory "customer/main" called "payment_wait.tpl". It has its own styles within it so they override the .css files. If you don't like the color scheme, just edit the payment_wait.tpl file to your liking.

You can also ftp the .css files to your PC if you have a web-authoring program you prefer to use. They are located in the <x-cart dir>/skin1/ directory. The folder names within that directory correspond to the folder names you see in the Admin Edit Templates area. Just download the files, change them, and upload them back to the same place.

I hope that helps you. Good luck.

Jill :D

Thanks Jill...that fixed a few of the colours, but the main one I cant change is the background of the dialog box headings which starts off with "Featured Poducts".