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Template Customisation of EasyWare


One of the attractions of EasyWare Commerce is that its web templates are very easy to customise. Users with the most basic knowledge of HTML should be able to modify most html files to work with EasyWare, in minutes.

Why would anyone want to customise their templates? A user may feel that the templates in EasyWare are not suitable for their business or they may like to retain a certain look and feel for their web pages.

What templates can be used? Just about any web page can be customised for EasyWare. The web pages may be created by off-the-shelf packages like DreamWeaver of FrontPage or they may be coded by hand.

How does one customise the pages?
The process of customising web pages for EasyWare are in 3 steps:
(1) insert the relevant EasyWare commerce tags at appropriate positions within the body of the html file.
(2) rename the template appropriately.
(3) copy the new template files into the relevant EasyWare directory.
(4)[optional] create a thumbnail image for the new template.


1) Inserting the EasyWare commerce tags:
EasyWare tags are important because the software needs these tags to convert a a single template page into a full-fledged e-commerce site. The tags will be replaced with content, accordingly. Below are a list of tags used in EasyWare templates. They have been separated into three categories according to their degrees of importance. New users are advised to test their templates with the critical tags only, initially.

Critical tags:
#ecomm:JScript# (should be inserted on the line just above the '</head>' tag)

#ecomm:product list# (should be inserted in the main body of the html page)

<form name="mainform"> (should be inserted just below the '<body>' tag)

</form > (should be inserted just above the '<body>' tag)

<a href="#ecomm:basketLocation#">Check out/view shopping basket</a> (may be inserted anywhere as long as it is visible to the user)

<ul class="products"> #ecomm:Left Products Links# </ul> (may be inserted anywhere but preferably on the left side of the html page)

Useful tags:
#ecomm:createSearch# (This only works with B2B. may be inserted anywhere)
#ecomm:Site History# (may be inserted anywhere as long as it is visible to the user)
#ecomm:basic_CSS# (may be inserted just above the '</head>' tag, above or below '#ecomm:JScript#' described above.)

Optional tags:
Site Navigation within a table:

<table><tr>#ecomm:Home_InTable# #ecomm:About Us_InTable# #ecomm:Products_InTable# #ecomm:Services_InTable# #ecomm:Contact Us_InTable# #ecomm:Returns Policy_InTable# #ecomm:Privacy Statement_InTable#</tr></table>

OR individually:
#ecomm:Home#
#ecomm:About Us#
#ecomm:Products#
#ecomm:Services#
#ecomm:Contact Us#
#ecomm:Returns Policy#
#ecomm:Privacy Statement#


#ecomm:company name#
#ecomm:HomeNoTable#
#ecomm:tradeLogos#
#ecomm:creditCardLogos#
#ecomm:company address#
#ecomm:telephone#
#ecomm:fax#
#ecomm:email#


2) Renaming the template.
In order for EasyWare to identify the new html page as a valid template, it could be named anything, but has to start with "temp" (see the existing template names like temp01beige, temp1rough). It should be place in a directory with a matching name before it is copied into the "\EasyWare\webtemplates\htmls\" directory (the next step). Eg, of the template name is tempmypage.html, it should be put into a directory named tempmypage. If a thumbnail is created, it should be named tempmypage.gif.

3) Copying the new template into the EasyWare/webtemplates directory:
All the image files used in the new template have to be placed in an "\images" directory, one level beneath the html page. This is a standard convention for many applications and web builders. However if the images in the html page you are customising are not currently placed under an "\images" directory, you may have to change all the references to images (within the html page) to "\images". Once this is done, you should move all these files (the html page and its "\images") to its own folder (as described in "renaming the template", above). Finally, you should move the new folder directly under the "C:\EasyWare\webtemplates\htmls\" folder (assuming you have installed the software to the default "C:\EasyWare" folder).

4) Creating a thumbnail image for the new template.
This step is optional as. The whole idea of the thumbnail is to allow users to see what the template looks like before they select it. As you have created and named the template yourself, you may not need to create one. Should you choose to create on, is advisable that you save it as a 72pixels/inch gif file with the following dimensions: width:6.99; height: 4.3. All releases after Version 1 Std051 will have a message saying: "the image for this template does not exist", wherever a thumbnail has not been created. Thumbnails should be placed directly under the "C:\EasyWare\webtemplates\" folder (assuming you have installed the software under "C:\EasyWare" folder).

That's it. You are done. If EasyWare was open when you carried out steps 3/4, you will have to close down and restart the application in order for the new webtemplate to appear in the list.