Working with themes...

The catalog page has been created as a template based system and also supports the use of themes. All themes files are stored in directories under ckinc/themes.

The admin automatically picks up on the name of the directories if you want to create new themes you may name them accordingly and store them here.

How Themes work with Navigation Settings:

The layout of your page will require particular navigation behavoirs. Below is a list of the default themes and there recommended navigation settings.

THEME:Default-Multilevel Theme
NAV TYPE: Main Categories Only

THEME: Default_Horizontal
NAV TYPE: Main Categories or Horizontal Expanded Sub Categories (The horizontal theme works well if your category depth is not greater then two levels)

THEME: Default_Vertical
NAV TYPE: Vertical w/Subcategories" to display main categories and their subcategories in a column.

Expanded SubCategories will show the Main Categories, after a main category is clicked the subcategories will appear beneath it.

Either of the verticle settings will support a category depth of THREE. If you require more depth please use the Default-Multilevel theme.

The Anatomy of a Theme.....

IMPORTANT:Themes need several files which serve as the containers for the information displayed by the system. In the public directory of your web site you must keep the container files needed to pull the correct template from the theme directory.

Container files used to display your theme

Below is a list of the container files that belong in the top / public directory of the web site.
You should not need to modify any of the files that are listed below with the exception of renaming ckshop.php to index.php when you are ready to go live with your site.

/addinfo.php (used to display additional pop up information)

/advancedsearch.php (for the advanced search screen)

/ckshop.php (default catalog page you can rename this to index.php etc)

/ckuser.php (user functions such as wishlist, orders, login etc)

/ckview.php (pop up window for detail image used by single column setting)

/display_page.php (used by content management system to display content pages)

/wholesalers.php (wholesaler login page)

The below is a list of script files needed to run the system.
**Do not remove them from the top level of the site.

/ckcart.php (processes products submitted to Mals)

/ckcartmulti.php (processes multi product page submissions to Mals)

/ckemail.php (email a friend script)

/ckfinish.php (collects data from the Mals remote call)

/logout.php (dumps the user out of their account)

/open.php (needed to establish database connection)

/openinfo.php (contains primary functions for catalog to operate)

- Template files used to run the catalog

ckshop.php

This is the main template page for your catalog. There are several include files that dynamic generate the content through this page. We have listed each include and the functionality it provides below. You will want to make a back up copy of ckshop.php before you begin to modify it.

wholesalers.php

This is the template page which allows wholesalers to login and shop with the discount you specified in the category set up.

advancedsearch.php

This is the template page which allows visitor to search within categories by keyword.

display_page.php

This is the template page which allows the end user to enter additional non product pages through the CMS - such as About Us, Contact Us etc. The links to this page are generated by the script file
/ckinc/sitenav.php

If you would like to read more information on modifying the template files refer to the section called "Working with Templates".

Older Versions of Netscape.

There are 4 files for NS 4 browser backward compatibility.
ns_navbar.css
ns_page.css
ns_shop.css
ns_sitenav.css

The anatomy of a theme - Section Include Files

Each theme can be broken down into sections that may be edited. These are referred to as "sections" Some common sections may be the header, footer and logo graphics. Section files are also stored in the corresponding ckinc/themes/themename directory. The permissions on these files must be set to 777 in order to be editable.

The anatomy of a theme - CSS (cascading style sheets)

There are several style sheets involved with the system display. Here are a list of the default style sheets and their purpose. We have commented the .css file as much as possible to make it easier to understand. Many of the script files in ckinc call these styles. It is not recommended that you remove or add styles from this file with out advanced knowledge of its workings.

navbar.css
Used to display category and sub category links, along with links to the special pages. The script that calls these styles is ckinc/navbar.php Please note that there are on/off styles involved with the navigation and sub navigation. ON would display with the visitor is viewing the page.

sitenav.css
Used to display links to the content pages generated by the CMS there is no sub category structure to this navigation. The script that calls these styles is ckinc/sitenav.php This file also includes styles for the ON state as described above.

shop.css
Used to format basic styles within your shop.

category.css
These styles are applied to the cateogry title, table and descriptions along with the sub category listings.

details.css
Styles applied to the product detail page and option display in the product form.

thumbs.css
Control the table, fonts and colors for thumbnail display.

page.css
Used to format the outer template pages: ckshop.php, wholesalers.php, advancedsearch.php and display_page.php

If you want to add more style sheets you can add the reference to them in the individual templates or modify the file ckinc/meta.php

Dynamic Switching of Themes

In the root of the web site five files are needed to drive the system. They are named in parallel with the template files stored in the theme directories. When you switch from a Verticle to Horizontal Theme (or visa versa) be sure to change the navigation setting in the system admin screen too!

ckshop.php
advancedsearch.php
wholesalers.php
display_page.php

Each file has an include statement to pull the information from the correct theme file. Below is an example of the ckshop.php include.

<?
include("openinfo.php");
include("$incdir/themes/$Theme/ckshop.php");
?>

If you want the catalog to server as the home page simply rename ckshop.php in the web root to index.php and make the appropriate setting in the system admin for the "Initial Catalog Page". It is not necessary to rename ckshop.php in the themes folder.

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