In the meantime, the only solution is plowing through the templates. Pretty much I can say that there's a main template (main_index.html) and everything else plugs into that.

I am building my own site with SunCart as the store; the rest is Educational Material for Microcomputers for schools and hobbyists.

I'm OK with HTML and can wade thru CSS ok, have Dreamweaver etc.

IsThere some reference that shows where the different elements of the main SunShop page come from?? You said "All the pages use the main_index.html template, and Sunshop adds content based upon what page it is."

But how can I modify menus? How can I change the whole page width and proportion of Left VS Center sections? (It's only 800 total on the template I'm modifying).

My fantasy is there's an image of the Main Page and there's circles and arrows pointing to elements that say "THIS comes from xxxxx" and "yyy.css sets THIS" and like that.

Am I dreaming???

THANKS!

Regards, Terry King ..On the Red Sea at KAUST.edu.sa
terry@terryking.us

* In Sunshop, a theme is a collection of templates for a particular design … kind of the "the blue theme" or the "green theme". Each theme has dozens of templates.

Sunshop 4.2.5 comes with a number of themes (they're up to eight now), any of which you could customize.

May I ask, which template you used to customize that Auction site?

Now I am used to designing from scratch and I was wondering, when you did your customizations, did you have to customize all of the template files?

No, not all of the templates (there are a *lot* of templates). I normally customize a handful, maybe ten.

Also, when I try to use the SunShop editor, or my own editor, I cannot see the page when I do a preview, only lines of text on a white background, which I would expect from CSS. I like to be able to see what my pages are going to look like before I upload them. Were you able to preview your pages in Dreamweaver before uploading them?

No, because the templates are partial parts of a page (although there's one main template that contains the header, sidebar, footer, etc. … main_index.html). Personally, I highly dislike having to edit code in a browser; I'd much rather edit and upload. That said:

- The new Dreamweaver CS5 apparently has some functionality that allows you to preview dynamic pages made of multiple templates. I'm not sure how it works, but I'd read that.

- You can install Sunshop in a subdirectory on the server, and work with it there, so you'll be able to see everything. This is a help because there are more pages to Sunshop than just what you'd see in the main template … for instance, there's a customer login area where they can see their orders, past orders, etc. This would not generally be displayed simply by looking at templates. Nor would checkout pages. All the pages use the main_index.html template, and Sunshop adds content based upon what page it is.

Does that help?

I really like what you have done with the Sunshop sites that you have developed. We are looking into setting up another site using Sunshop 4.2.5 and I am able to design (I did the Okdecor.com website).

Now I am used to designing from scratch and I was wondering, when you did your customizations, did you have to customize all of the template files?

Also, when I try to use the SunShop editor, or my own editor, I cannot see the page when I do a preview, only lines of text on a white background, which I would expect from CSS. I like to be able to see what my pages are going to look like before I upload them. Were you able to preview your pages in Dreamweaver before uploading them?

(1) View the Store Front
(2) In another browser window, go into the Admin interface:
> Manage Settings > Shop Settings > Theme Directory

Those are the templates that come with Sunshop. If you are able to design, you can edit those themes to whatever you want.

I'm looking at starting an online biz and Sunshop seems to fill our e-commerce need. Is anyone out there using 4.0 and, if so, how do you like it?

Also, is there a way to see the various template designs? I only see one design and am not quite sure it's for me.

Thanks.

Glad you're doing well. :)