Setting Up Your Store

X-Cart:General Settings

The links in the upper portion of the 'General settings' section menu provide access to the settings which allow you to control X-Cart's general functionality. The links in the lower portion of the 'General settings' section menu provide access to settings which allow you to control options of specific X-Cart modules.

Here's a list of subsections available via the 'General settings' section menu:

• Appearance Options allows you to adjust preferences that affect the overall appearance of your store.
• 3D-Secure Transaction options allows you to enable Cardinal Centinel® payment authentication platform support in your store.
• Company options allows you to provide your company details and contact information (name, address, phone/fax numbers, email addresses, etc). Your company name, address and phone/fax numbers will be displayed on the storefront and included into customer email notifications. Email addresses of specific departments of your store will be used by X-Cart to send administrator and provider notifications. Company address will be used in real-time shipping rate calculations.

• Contact us form options allows you to configure the 'Contact us' form. You can define, which of the 'Contact us' form fields should be active (visible to customers), and completion of which fields should be required (mandatory). If necessary, you can also add your own (custom) fields to the 'Contact us' form.
• Email options allows you to define options that affect sending of email notifications and newsletters.
• Email notifications options allows you to define, which of the available email notifications should be sent to the customers, administrator(s), provider(s), users department and orders department of your store.
• General options allows you to adjust the general configuration of your store.
• Logging options allows you to define what kind of logs you wish to be kept in your store.
• Product search options allows you to define, which fields should be included into the Product search form in the Customer area, and set default values for these fields.
• Security options allows you to adjust options that affect your store security (options that affect encryption methods used in your store, HTTPS options, etc).
• SEO options allows you to adjust options that can improve your site's ranking with search engines.
• Shipping options allows you to adjust options that affect the calculation of shipping rates in your store.

• User Profiles options allows you to configure your store's user profile forms. You can define which of the user profile fields should be active (included into the user profile forms), and completion of which fields should be required (mandatory). If necessary, you can also add your own (custom) fields for use in user profiles.

Information on specific subsections of the 'General settings/Modules options' section comes with descriptions of specific X-Cart module

X-Cart:Appearance Options

Pagination options

• Products per page: The maximum number of products which can be displayed on a category page in Customer area (Remember that pages with a lot of products take longer to load).

• Products per page (admin): The maximum number of products which can be displayed on a Search results page in Admin/Provider area.

• Orders per page (admin): The maximum number of orders which can be displayed on a Search results page in Admin/Provider area.

• Users per page (admin): The maximum number of users which can be displayed on a Search results page in Admin area.

• Maximum navigation pages: The maximum number of pages which can be displayed in a navigation bar.

Displaying Products

• Select the order in which products should be displayed within a category: The order in which products are sorted within a category.

Possible values: SKU, Product, Default, Price.

 Note: The SKU option is only available when the 'Display product code (SKU) in the products list' option is enabled.

Sorting by SKU arranges products in a category so their SKU numbers increase towards the page bottom (in case of alphanumeric SKUs, the alphabetic part is also sorted from A to Z); sorting by Product arranges products so their names are set out alphabetically; selecting the Default order arranges products so their positions within a category are defined by the POS. field values set for specific products; sorting by Price arranges products in the order of increasing price.

• Display subcategories list in multiple columns: This option allows you to specify how subcategories must be displayed within a category. If this option is enabled, the subcategories are displayed in multiple columns. If this option is disabled, the subcategories are displayed as a list (one below another).

• Show the number of products in categories: If enabled, your customers can see the number of products in each category.

• Show quantity in stock: If enabled, your customers can see the quantity in stock for each product.

• Show quantity selector as input textbox: If enabled, the quantity selector is displayed as an input textbox. If the option is disabled, the quantity selector is displayed as a selectbox.

• Maximum number of selections in quantity selectbox: The maximum number of items a customer can see in the quantity selectbox for each product (This number corresponds to the largest number of product items which a customer can add to the shopping cart at a time).

• Enable 'Buy Now' button in the products list: If enabled, a 'Buy Now' button is added below each product description in the Products list. Customers can use this button to add a product to the shopping cart directly from the Products list without going to the Product details page.

• Display products list in multiple columns (1-3) (leave empty to use standard format): The number of columns (1-3) in which products are arranged in the Products list.

• Display only featured products list in multicolumn format: If enabled, multicolumn format is used only for featured products. This option has priority over the option 'Display products list in multiple columns (1-3)', so if you want products in the Products list to be arranged in multiple columns, be sure to unselect the 'Display only featured products list in multicolumn format' check box.

• The section 'Send to friend' on the Product details page is enabled: If enabled, your customers can see the 'Send to friend' section on the Product details page of each product and use this section to send information about the product to their friends.

• Display product code (SKU) in the products list: If enabled, your customers can see the SKU of each product in the Products list.

• Maximum thumbnail width and Maximum thumbnail height: The maximum width and height of thumbnail images of products and categories.

• Maximum product image width and Maximum product image height: The maximum width and height of product images displayed on Product details pages.

Date / time format

• Select date format: Format that is used for displaying date in all the places in your store where date is displayed.

• Select time format: Format that is used for displaying time in all the places in your store where time is displayed.

• Time difference between shop location and host server location (hours): The time offset between shop location (the location of the store administrative staff responsible for handling orders) and the location of the host server on which X-Cart is installed (a difference in hours expressed as a positive or a negative value; is calculated by subtracting of server time relative to GMT from shop location time relative to GMT). Setting this option allows the store administrative staff to control placement of orders by customers in real time.

Cart & Checkout

• Display detailed cart totals information: Specifies whether product options must be displayed as a product link title on all checkout pages, on the last checkout page only or never.

• Allow to update product quantity on the checkout pages: If enabled, your customers can edit the quantity of product items in their shopping cart after the beginning of checkout.

• Display costs for all the shipping methods: If enabled, an expected shipping cost is displayed next to the name of each shipping method in the 'Delivery method' list on checkout.

• Print order invoices on separate pages: If enabled, each order invoice is printed on a separate page when you print multiple invoices. You can unselect this check box to be able to print multiple invoices on the same page.

Miscellaneous

• Restore the language of the interface after editing multilingual data: If enabled, the original language of the store back end is automatically restored as soon as administrator finishes editing multilingual data (like international product descriptions) and leaves for some other place in the store interface. If this check box is unselected, administrator has to reset the interface language manually using the language selector.

• Select active language from: This option controls the way the active language is selected in the customer area. Select from drop-down select box, single-line select box (text), and single-line select box (icon).

• Enable printable version of categories and products pages in customer area: If enabled, a printer-friendly version of category and product pages is available to your customers.

• Input and display format for floating comma numbers: Allowed format for input and display of floating comma numbers.

• Display template variables in the debug pop-up window: If enabled, smarty template variables will be displayed in the debug pop-up window.

• Display estimated template compile time: If enabled, the estimated time of template compilation is displayed.

X-Cart:3D-Secure Transaction options

X-Cart:Company Options

Company name: The name of your store.

The value entered into this field replaces the dummy text 'Your Company Name' everywhere in your store:

• in the 'Shop name' element of the page title in all your store's pages;
• in the phrase "Welcome to Your Company Name" appearing on the main site page;
• in the breadcrumb navigation bar (location.tpl).

It also appears as the name of your company in order invoices.

 Note: If you wish, you can specify a different company name to be used as the store site title. Refer to X-Cart:FAQs#How to change my site title appearing in the customer front-end? page.

 Note: When the lbl_site_title variable is defined as the store site title, its value is used:

 

• in the 'Shop name' element of the page title in all your store's pages;

• in the phrase "Welcome to Your Company Name" appearing on the main site page;
• in the breadcrumb navigation bar;

whereas the value of the 'Company name' field still appears on other pages and in your store's invoices.

Company website: The address (URL) of your company website. The value of this field is included into the signature in email notifications.

Year when the store started its operation: The time since when your company is in business. The value of this field is used as the initial year in all the drop-down boxes used for year selection; for example, in the field for selecting the time period when searching for users or orders, in the field for specifying the validity period for a discount coupon, etc.

Company contacts

Company phone: The phone number which your customers should use to contact your company. The value of this field is displayed in the site header in the Customer area and is included into the signature in email notifications.

Company phone 2: The alternative phone number. The value of this field is displayed in the site header in the Customer area.

Company fax: The company fax number. The value of this field is included into the signature in email notifications.

Company location address

The address specified in the 'Company location address' section on the 'General settings/Company options' page is used for real-time shipping calculation:

- In X-Cart GOLD, this address is used as the origin address for all orders.

- In X-Cart PRO, this address is used a) as the origin address for the orders shipped from providers that do not have a seller address specified in their user profile; b) as the default origin address when testing the store's ability to receive real-time shipping rates.

Company address: The street address of your company.

Company city: The city where your company is located.

Company state: The state where your company is located.

Company zip/postal code: The zip/postal code of the area where your company is located.

Company country: The country where your company is located.

Company emails

X-Cart can track different types of events that occur in your online store and send notifications about these events to the members of your store staff. The 'Company emails' section allows you to specify the email addresses to which the notifications will be sent.

By default, all the fields in this section contain the email address that was specified during the X-Cart installation. And all the notifications are sent to this address. If the store staff responsible for processing the notifications consists of more than one person who have separate email addresses, or you simply want to use different email addresses for different types of notifications, you need to enter a different address for each type of notifications.

X-Cart allows you to specify 4 company email addresses:

Site administrator email address: for notifications about incorrect and potentially unsafe GET and POST requests to the site, SQL and login errors, notifications sent by the built-in Maintenance Agent.

Users department email address: for notifications about newly created, modified and deleted user profiles.

Orders department email address: for notifications about placed orders and changed order statuses, product quantity warnings etc.

Help/Support department email address: for messages submitted through the Contact Us form.

The exact set of notifications that you will receive at the company email addresses can be readjusted in the 'General settings/Email notifications options' section of the Admin area. For details, study section 'Email Notifications Options' of this manual.

Company "From" email

Some spam filters may block an email message if the domain part of the address in the From header does not correspond to the domain that the message was sent from. The email address that you specify here will be automatically put into the From header of all email messages you send from the store. It allows you not to affect the address in the Reply-To header and ensures that your outgoing email messages will not be blocked because of mismatching domains.

Example: If your store domain is www.store.com but the default email address has a different domain part, specify the address This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and all the outgoing messages will have it in the From header.

X-Cart:Contact Us Form Options

Overview

X-Cart provides a form that allows users to submit messages to the store's Help/Support department - the so-called 'Contact us' form.

 Note: The email address for your store's Help/Support department can be specified in the 'General settings/Company options' section.

This form is available to customers (X-Cart GOLD and PRO), providers (X-Cart PRO) and partners (X-Cart GOLD and PRO using X-Affiliate add-on module) via the Help menu.

The 'General settings/Contact us form options' page allows you to configure the set of fields that should be included into the 'Contact us' form for each type of users.

Configuring the set of fields included into the 'Contact us' form

You can define, which of the 'Contact us' form fields should be active (visible to the user), and completion of which fields should be required (mandatory). Required fields will be marked by a red asterisk (*) sign so the user knows they are mandatory for completion; a special validation routine will ensure that all the required fields are completed by the user before the form is submitted.

To configure the 'Contact us' form field set:

1. Select the check boxes in the 'Active' column opposite the names of the fields you want to be available for completion.
2. Select the check boxes in the 'Required' column opposite the names of the fields you want to be mandatory for completion.
3. Click the Save button below the list of 'Contact us' form fields to apply the changes.

Adding custom fields to the 'Contact us' form

If the field set for the 'Contact us' form provided by X-Cart does not meet all of your needs, you can add your own fields to the 'Contact us' form.

To add a custom field to the 'Contact us' form:

1. Scroll down to the 'Additional fields' section of the 'General settings/Contact us form options' page.
2. Use the input box in the FIELD NAME column of the 'Add new field' subsection to enter a name for the field you wish to add.
3. Use the drop-down box in the TYPE column of the 'Add new field' subsection to select a type of field that needs to be added (Text, Check box or Selectbox)
4. If you have chosen the Selectbox type, provide variants for the selectbox (use the ';' symbol as a delimiter).
5. (Optional) Use the field in the POS. column to enter a position number of the field being created relative to the other additional fields (if any).
6. Click the Add/Update button at the bottom of the form to save the changes. The new field should be added to the list of fields in the 'Additional information' section.
7. Select the 'Active' and (optionally) 'Required' check box(es) opposite the newly added field.
8. Click the Save button below the list of 'Contact us' form fields to apply the changes.

FAQ

How to change Departments on 'Contact us' page?

Departments titles are language variables:

• Marketing / publicity - lbl_marketing_publicity
• Webdesign - lbl_web_design
• Sales - lbl_sales_department
• Partners - lbl_partners

So to rename the departments you should edit these language variables (via 'Languages' in the admin area).

If you want to add/remove departments, you should edit template 'skin1/help/contactus.tpl' (for 4.0.x, 4.1.x) or 'skin1/customer/help/contactus.tpl' (for 4.2.x).

<td nowrap="nowrap">
<select id="department" name="department">

<option value="All" selected="selected">{$lng.lbl_all}</option>

<option value="Partners">{$lng.lbl_partners}</option>

<option value="Marketing / publicity">{$lng.lbl_marketing_publicity}</option>

<option value="Webdesign">{$lng.lbl_web_design}</option>

<option value="Sales">{$lng.lbl_sales_department}</option>

</select>
</td>

For ex., to remove "Partners", delete this line

<option value="Partners">{$lng.lbl_partners}</option>

To add a new department e.g. "Management", append a similar link to this code:

<option value="Management">Management</option>

Also you can add a language variable for the new department in section 'Languages' ('Add new entry'), e.g. lbl_management. In this case, the new code line in contactus.tpl will be:

<option value="Partners">{$lng.lbl_management}</option>

X-Cart:Email Options