How to

Revision as of 12:40, 30 July 2007

Add fonts to the new Text Editor

CIA Fonts will not work with v4.9.2+

In versions prior to v4.9.2 there was a plugin called CIA Fonts on the Soholaunch Addons website that made it easy to add fonts to the Text Editor. But as of v4.9.2 this plugin will no longer work (until it is updated...hint, hint Thomas), because v4.9.2+ builds incorporate a completely different text editor.

The new workaround method for sites running v4.9.2+

Until an easier solution is created (which should happen before too long), you can still add fonts to the new editor, but not quite as easily as you could with the old editor and CIA Fonts.

Here's how to add fonts to the new Text Editor

Note

You must be running at least v4.9.2 r7+ to add fonts using this method...

1. Go to Database Table Manager
2. Click the "System tables" tab
3. Find the smt_userdata table
4. Click View/Edit Records
5. Using the search box at the top left run a search on "customfonts" (without the qoutes). Only one record should be returned.
6. Edit that record
7. Add fonts to that "data" field (details below) and hit the Save Changed Data button

Format of fonts list

The "data" field contains a list of all the fonts available in the Text Editor. You may want to copy-paste the content of the data field into a text/code editor like Dreamweaver or MS Notepad so you can see them all on one line instead of wrapped into multiple lines. Then when you're done editing the list just copy-paste it back into the text field you took it out of and save the record.

Example content of "data" field in "customfonts" record...

Andale Mono=andale mono,times;Arial=arial,helvetica,sans-serif

The font choices are separated by semicolon ";". Each font choice has two parts, separated by an equals sign (=). The first part (e.g., Arial) is the font name as it will display in the Text Editor and doesn't matter (i.e., you could call it "Billyfont". The second part is what actually affects what font will show on the website --- the proper font-family syntax for the html/css code. Some fonts in the second part specify multiple comma-separated fonts --- these are alternates to use if the preceding font isn't available.

Adding "Trebuchet" to the font list...

Andale Mono=andale mono,times;Arial=arial,helvetica,sans-serif;Trebuchet=Trebuchet MS,verdana,arial,sans-serif

Again, the display name doesn't really matter, and the multiple comma-separated alternative fonts are note required either, so could just have...

Andale Mono=andale mono,times;Arial=arial,helvetica,sans-serif;MyFavoriteFont=Trebuchet MS

When you're done editing the font list in the data field just hit the Save Changed Data to update the record and you're done! Your new font will be available in the Text Editor now.

Find out what version of Soholaunch you're running

The installed version number is located in the bottom-right of the admin tool window, in the footer.

Create an auto-reply email address field in the Web Form builder

In the form builder...

1. Click the "(+) Add Field" button
2. Click the "Email Address" field

Uninstall Soholaunch manually

Note: This will kill the entire website. Do not do this unless you're positive this is what you want to do. This is meant for people who installed Soholaunch manually (i.e. via installsoholaunch.php) on a website they don't want it on and now want to uninstall it.

Using your preferred code editor (MS Notepad will work if you don't have a code editor of choice), create a new file (save it as deleteitall.php or something) containing this code....

<?
shell_exec("rm -rf media");
shell_exec("rm -rf images");
shell_exec("rm -rf import");
shell_exec("rm -rf tCustom");
shell_exec("rm -rf template");
shell_exec("rm -rf shopping");
shell_exec("rm -rf sohoadmin");
echo "Done! It's all gone!";
?>

...now save that file as something like "deleteitall.php", upload it to your document root folder (i.e. public_html, htdocs, etc.) via FTP and point your browser to websiteyouwantokill.com/deleteitall.php.

Offer your customers your own template collection

To make your custom templates available to every user on your server, wrap them all up in a zip file and upload them somewhere...it can be anywhere, as long as it's accessible from the internet.

For example, let's say you upload your .zip file full of templates to...

ourmaincompanywebsite.com/soho/our_templates.zip

Then log-in to the Partner Area and go to "Branding Controls". Under "Templates" check the "My own templates" box, for the "URL path to template library .zip..." field fill-in

http://ourmaincompanywebsite.com/soho/our_templates.zip

Then scroll down and hit the "Save Options" button. Done! From now on whenever a new Soholaunch-powered website is set up on your server(s), your template library will be downloaded and installed automatically.

Rename/Delete a page that won't delete

Usually, if you can't delete a page it's because it has some trouble characters in its name like an ampersand (&) or something. In order to delete the page you'll have to rename it first. And you'll have to rename it "the hard way" because that ampersand won't let you rename it "the easy way" (via Page Properties) for the same reason it won't let you delete the page.

So here's the step by step for manually renaming a page called "Milo & Otis" to "Milo and Otis" so it won't give you any more problems.

1. Go to Main Menu > Database Table Manager
2. Select the site_pages table from the drop-down menu
3. Hit the "Enter/Edit Record Data" button
4. When the table pulls up click the link on the top right that says "Run custom query"
5. Put the following tn the text box that pops-up and hit the "Run Query" button...

update site_pages set page_name = 'Milo and Otis' where page_name = 'Milo & Otis'

Once you follow these steps you should be able to delete, rename, etc the page as normal.

Find/Edit custom table search includes

Via FTP, the files are located here...

[public_html]/media

File naming convention...

udt-search_[search name].inc

Example file name...

udt-search_joes_cool_search.inc

You can download these files to your PC, modify them, then upload them back to that /media folder and you're good to go.

Link to specific shopping cart sku

Go to your website and browse your shopping cart. Click the Buy Now/More Information link for the product you want to link to, then copy the url from your address bar. Should look something like this...

http://provx.soholaunch.com/shopping/pgm-more_information.php?id=1

Advanced Note: That id # matches the prikey value of that sku in the cart_products table.

Link to specific shopping cart category

Go to your website and browse your shopping cart. In the search column you'll see a list of links to your categories (in the search column). Click on the link to the category you want, then copy the url from your address bar. Should look something like this...

http://yourdomain.com/shopping/start.php?browse=1&cat=25

Link to specific month/year in you event calendar

In the text editor, select the text you want to link and hit the little link icon/button next to the paint bucket. Then in the link dialog that pops up, in the field that says "(or) Link / Anchor:" and has "http://" already in the field, do this...

http://yourdomain.com/About_Us.php?SEL_MONTH=04&SEL_YEAR=2007

Note: Replace "About_Us" with the name of the page that you dropped you're calendar on, and replace the month and year numbers with whatever month/year you want to jump to.

Reset your hit counter

1. Log-in to your site via FTP
2. Browse to the "sohoadmin/filebin/" folder
3. Delete hitcounter.txt

Move license from subdomain to primary domain

1. Log-in to the partner area
2. Click on "Lifetime Licenses"
3. Delete the license listed for your subdomain
4. Click "Add Domain"
5. Fill-in the name of your primary domain and click "Generate License"

Download page content files

Via FTP, the files are located here...

[public_html]/sohoadmin/tmp_content

What's the difference between CON and REGEN files?

In short, CON files are for the website-side, REGEN files are for the admin-side.

CON files

When a visitor views a page on your website, script files read the CON file for that page and use it to build the final HTML for the page. CON files tell the website-side scripts that you've got a cart item, a login box, and this text on this page.

REGEN files

These are used by Soholaunch's Page Editor. When you open a page in Soholaunch to edit it, the REGEN file for that page is read and it tells the product what objects are on the page and which dropzones to display them in.

When you save a page in the Page Editor, it saves a REGEN file for that page so it knows what edit options to show you in the Page Editor the next time you edit that page, and then it builds a CON file for the page so that the website-side scripts know what to display to site visitors.

Upload video files via FTP

Via FTP, the files are located here...

[public_html]/media

Find/Edit the default contact forms

Contact forms
Via FTP, the files are located here...

[public_html]/sohoadmin/program/modules/page_editor/formlib/forms

The files are:

• Contact_Form_(Basic).form
• General_Email_Form.form

Newsletter quick signup form
The file for this is located here...

[public_html]/sohoadmin/program/modules/page_editor/formlib/newsletter/Quick-N-Easy_Signup.form

Points to remember:

• Though they're technicaly just html files, make sure to preserve the .form extension when you upload them back to your site so the system can recognize them (which is the whole idea behind the .form extension --- so know it's a form).

Find your template folder

1. Log-in via FTP to your website and navigate to this folder...

public_html/sohoadmin/program/modules/site_templates/pages/

2. Find the folder for your specific template. This is the naming convention for template folders..

CATEGORY-Template_Name-Color

So if you're using CORPORATE > A_Curvacious_Mark (Blue), your template folder would be...

CORPORATE-A_Curvacious_Mark-Blue

...and the full path from your home directory would be:

public_html/sohoadmin/program/modules/site_templates/pages/CORPORATE-A_Curvacious_Mark-Blue

Swap out your template header text for a logo image

1. Download the index.html file from your template folder

2. Find (ctrl+f) "#LOGO#"

3. Replace it with "#LOGOIMG#"

4. Save the file and upload it back to your template folder

You can now add and change the logo image in your template via Template Manager (where it says choose logo image).

The same logic applies if you want to change your logo text to something else or add other information right around it. For example, if your template allows for header text via #LOGO# and you want slogan text too, you could find that #LOGO# in your template's .html file but instead of replacing it with #LOGOIMG# you could change it to something like...

Example: Apply same logic to add slogan text

Original line in template's index.html file...

#LOGO#

Add a line break and the pound-variable for slogan text...

#LOGO#
#SLOGAN#

Complete list of available pound variables like #LOGO#, #LOGOIMG#, and #SLOGAN#, see custom template reference.

Set background image

1. Log-in via FTP and find your template's folder...

2. Upload the image you want to use as your background to that folder

3. Download the custom.css file that's in there and open it up in your code editor of choice (or notepad will work if nothing else)

4. Add in this code...

body { background-image: url(mybackgroundimage.gif); }

5. Save the file (custom.css) and upload it back to your template's folder

Make a button that links to another website, but opens that link in a new window

Solution: Pull up the Text Editor where you put in the button, click on the "HTML" button at the bottom left.

The HTML for your button should look something like this...

<input type="button" style="width: 163px; color: 
rgb(29, 0, 237); height: 24px; background-color: rgb(249, 186, 0);"
size="217" value="Click here to go to example.com">

To make this button link to "www.example.com", insert the following "onclick" attribute...

onclick="window.open('http://www.example.com','', 
'width=800px,height=600px,resizable');"

So the full code for the button should look something like...

<input type="button" onclick="window.open('http://www.example.com','',
'width=800px, height=600px,resizable');"
style="width: 163px; color: rgb(29, 0, 237); 
height: 24px; background-color: rgb(249, 186, 0);" 
size="217" value="My Button">

Just replace "www.example.com" with the site you want to link to, and you're good to go.