IPC PHP Store Front Instructions

Introduction

The IPC PHP Store Front allows you to quickly and easily add a dynamic shopping cart to your site.
Unlike JavaScript data-feed systems, the PHP Store Front is run on your web server, giving you full control
of the layout and adding keyword rich, search engine friendly content to your site.

All product data is pulled from our feed server in real-time; so there's no need to ever manually update
your site. Simply customize the settings and layout, then upload to your web sever; you're done!

Requirements

1. Your web server/host must support PHP version 4.2 or later.

2. Your web server/host must allow the use of either the fopen or fsockopen PHP functions. If you
are unsure if your host has these functions enabled, copy the access_test.php file (found in the
diagnostics folder) to your web site and view it in your browser. If both tests fail then you will not
be able to run the PHP Store Front on your host.

3. To edit the store settings and layout you can use notepad or any other text/html editor.

Setting Up Your Store

Upgrading from version 1.x

To upgrade from older versions of the PHP Store Front to version 2.x, follow the
instructions below.

1. Extract the contents of the zip file you downloaded into a new folder. Be sure the folder
structure within the zip file is intact.

2. Set each setting in the setting.php page to the corresponding value in the store.php page
on your existing PHP Store Front.

3. If you have customized the HTML or style sheet of your existing store front, you will need to
copy these changes to the new store.php, details.php and styles.css.

4. If you had multiple stores, this is done a bit differently in this version. Please see
"Creating Multiple Stores" under the "Advanced Topics" section near the end of this document.
Once you create a store with the new PHP Store Front for each of your old ones, you will need
to follow steps 2 and 3 above for each of them.

5. Copy the entire set of files/folders to a temporary location on your web site. Browse it to be
sure that all of your settings, HTML and CSS were properly moved over. If there are no issues,
delete your old PHP Store Front and replace it with the new one.

Step 1 - Configure your settings

* Denotes a required setting

Page Specific Settings

The IPC PHP Store Front system lets you have as many different product pages as
you like. You can have different pages use different layouts, show different plug-in's
or even different products.

To allow this, each page has it's own settings as follows:

Required Settings

$gs_AdvID
The ID of your advertiser (refer to the page where you downloaded the PHP Store Front files from)

$gs_AffID
Depending on the affiliate software or network, this is your Affiliate ID, Publisher ID, Encrypted Affiliate ID.

$gs_FeedID
The ID or IDs of the data feeds you wish to display. If your selected advertiser offers more than one
data feed and you wish to show products from more than one, specify each feed ID separated by
a comma. You can also set the feed ID to zero which will display all feeds from the specified advertiser.

$gs_DefaultFeedID
Only applies when using multiple feed IDs. Specifies the default feed to display. Use a value of '0' to
show products from all specified feeds by default.

$gs_ProdLinkDestination
Specifies where users are taken when they click on product links.
Possible Values:

0 = PHP Store Front details page (provides more content for search engine indexing)
1 = Product page on advertiser's site

$gs_LayoutType
Specifies what layout format products are shown in.
Possible Values:

0 = Grid (shows product in a table with multiple columns)
1 = Summary (shows products in one column with image to the left)
2 = Auto (initially shows products in Grid mode. searching changes to Summary mode)

$gs_AffID
Your affiliate/publisher/partner ID

$gs_DefaultPageSize
The default number of products to show per page

$gs_PageSizeOptions
An array (list) of page sizes that a customer will be able to choose from

$gs_ImgSize
The height in pixels each product image should be. Each product image
will auto size itself so that the width will adjust to maintain the proper
height to width ratio.

$gs_DescMaxLen
The maximum number of characters of each products description to show.
If a products description exceeds this number, it will show the maximum
number of characters and append a "...more" link to the end.

$gs_DefaultSort
The default order in which products will be sorted.

Possible values:
0 = Product Name A-Z
1 = Product Name Z-A
2 = Low Price
3 = High Price

$gs_ShowGroups
Specifies if the "Group" drop downs will be shown at the top of the page.
"Groups" are ways of grouping products such as Category, Brand, etc.
and vary by advertiser.

Possible Values:
0 = Show none
1 = Show categories only (if available)
2 = Show brands only (if available)
3 = Show categories and brands (if available)

$gs_ShowGroupList
Specifies if a list of product groups (categories, brands, etc) are shown
in a vertical list on the left side of the layout.

Possible Values:
0 = Hide group list
1 = Show group list

$gs_Target
Specifies if the clicking on a product link should show the page in a new
browser window or the current one.

NOTE: If $gs_ProdLinkDestination is set to 0 (details page), the product link will
always open in the same window but the "Buy Now" link will use what is specified
in the $gs_Target setting.

Possible Values:
"blank" = Show in new window
"top" = Stay in the same window

$gs_BuyNowImg
Each product has an image link which takes them to the product
page on the advertisers site. This is the URL to the image.

$gs_ShowDesc
Determines if product descriptions are shown. Applies only if
Grid Mode layout is selected.

Possible Values:
1 = Yes
0 = No

$gs_UseNoFollow
Determines if the rel="nofollow" attribute is used on product links.
This attribute is recognized by all major search engines and will cause
them to skip product links when indexing your site. This, along with
thorough customization of your store can greatly reduce the chance
that your site may be seen as an "affiliate spam" site.

Possible Values:
1 = Yes
0 = No

$gs_TitleAppend
Determines what if any values are auto-appended to the store's page title.
Any auto-appended values will be added after any text you specify in the
optional $gs_BasePageTitle setting. Showing the feed name and
category/brand can aid in search engine indexing.

Possible Values:
0 = None
1 = Feed Name
2 = Category/Brand
3 = Feed Name & Category/Brand

$gs_HideProductURLs
Determines if the product URLs are hidden from the web browsers status
bar.

Possible Values:
0 = Show
1 = Hide

$gs_ProductURLText
If the $gs_HideProdURLs setting is set to Hide, this setting specifies the url
to be shown in the browser status bar, in place of the product url.

$gs_BackupImgURL
The URL to an image that will be shown if a product does not have an
image or for some reason it fails to display in the users browser.

$gs_DetailBackupImgURL
The URL to an image that will be shown on the product details page
if the product does not have an image or for some reason it fails to
display in the users browser.

Optional Settings

$gs_DefaultKeywords
Default keywords allow you to filter the products a customer sees when
they first visit your storefront. Enter up to 10 keywords, separated by a space.

When a customer browses a category/brand or performs a search, the
default keywords will no longer apply.

$gs_PermanentKeywords
Permanent keywords allow you to filter all products a customer sees.
Enter up to 10 keywords, separated by a space.

Permanent keywords will be used to filter products at all times, allowing you
to only show specific group of products. If Default keywords and Permanent
keywords are specified, both will be used to filter products when a customer
first visits your storefront.

For example: If you have a Default keyword of "red" and a permanent keyword
of "dog", the first time a customer visits your storefront, they will only see products
matching both "red" and "dog". When the customer browses or searches products,
they will see products matching "dog" and the category/brand or search term they
entered.

$gs_KeywordType
To show products that match specific words, specify them in this setting,
separated by a space.

Possible Values:
0 = Any - Return products that match any of the keywords
1 = All - Return products that match all of the keywords

$gs_BasePageTitle
Any value you enter for this setting will appear as the page title in your
web browser.

Possible Values:
0 = None
1 = Feed Name
2 = Category/Brand
3 = Feed Name & Category/Brand

$gs_AltPriceText
This setting allows you to display any text in place of the product price.
To show the product price, set this value to empty single quotes ''.

Grid Layout Only Settings

$gs_RowSize
This is the number of products to show on each row. Applies only
if Grid Mode layout is selected.

Step 2 - Customize the layout

This store has been designed to make it easy to customize the look and feel to match your
web site. Customizing will help give your site a personal, unique feel and set it apart from other
affiliates. It's also an important part of optimizing your site for indexing by search engines as they
are becoming more and more sensitive to duplicate page content from different sites. To ensure
that your site is well received by search engines, be sure to customize the meta tags and add
some original content.

This store comes with a pre-defined style sheet and images. They can be used as is or you can
customize them.

Below is a description of each file that makes up the user interface, and what role it plays:

store.php
Displays multiple products, allowing users to browse and search.
You can rename this page to anything you like, just be sure to update the
$gs_PageURL_Products setting with the new name.

details.php
Displays details for a specific product.

settings.php
Stores all store settings. Some modules may have their own settings which are stored
in the module's file.

fs_php/core/list_feeds.php
When multiple data feed IDs are specified, this page builds a list of data feeds names which
are used to display the products of each feed. The list is shown at the top of the page.

fs_php/core/search.php
Contains the group (category, brand, etc) drop downs, search field and search button.

fs_php/core/paging_top.php
Contains the Previous/Next and page number links as well as the page size drop down
and sort the drop down (shown depending on your chosen settings). Shown at the top of
the page above the products.

fs_php/core/paging_btm.php
Contains the Previous/Next and page number links. Shown at the bottom of the page
below the products.

fs_php/core/products.php
Contains the HTML/PHP that builds the actual layout of products.

Using Modules
Modules are optional components that you can choose to incorporate on your site.
Each provides functionality and user interface features which can be customized.
Currently there are three modules that come with the IPC PHP Store Front:

list_groups.php
Builds a vertical list of groups (categories, brands, etc) which can be placed on the left
or right of the products.

By default the group list is shown on the left side of the page. To change this, simply move
the following code in the store.php page from here:

<tr>

<? include("fs_php/modules/list_groups.php"); ?>

<td valign="top">
<table border="0" width="550px" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1">
...
</table>
</td>
</tr>

To here:

<tr>
<td valign="top">
<table border="0" width="550px" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1">
...
</table>


<? include("fs_php/modules/list_groups.php"); ?>
</td>
</tr>

Or to remove the group list, just remove the bold line of code shown above.

list_special_items.php
Builds a vertical list of "Special Items" which are products labeled as new, on sale
or as having other special attributes .

By default, this module is not used. Below is an example of how you would show
the special items list on the right side of the page:

<form name="FS_form" id="FS_form" method="get">
<table border="0" width="700px" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>

<? include("fs_php/modules/list_groups.php"); ?>

<td valign="top">
<table border="0" width="550px" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="1">
...
</table>


<? include("fs_php/modules/list_special_items.php"); ?>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>

Step 3 - Upload the files

Upload all the store files to your web site and you're done!

Make sure that the the files are in the same folder structure as they are in the
zip file that you downloaded.

Advanced Topics

Creating multiple stores

By default, the PHP Store Front is set up to have one product list page (store.php) and
one settings page (settings.php). You may, however, want to have multiple product list
pages, each showing a specific set of products from the same feed or each showing
products from different feeds. Setting up multiple product list pages, each with it's own
settings is easy, just follow the steps below:

1. In the fs_php folder, make a copy of the settings.php page and rename it.

2. Set the settings of the new settings.php page.

3. Make a copy of the store.php and details.php pages and rename them.

4. In the new store.php and details.php pages, you'll find the $gs_SettingsPage setting.
Change the value of this setting to the path and name of the new settings.php page.
For example, if your new settings page is called "settings_shirts.php" and it's in the
fs_php folder, this setting should be "fs_php/settings_shirts.php".

Now you can change the HTML of the new store and details pages.

Troubleshooting

If you have entered the proper Advertiser ID and Feed ID settings but no products are being shown,
please try the following:

1. If you have specified keywords, please try removing less common keywords as they may be too
restrictive.

2. If the issue is not keywords, it may be that your web host has disabled the PHP fopen() function
which the PHP Store Front requires to access our feed server.

To determine if this is the problem, copy the access_test.php file (found in the diagnostics folder)
to your web site and view it with your web browser. This page will test both access methods.
If both methods fail then you will not be able to run the PHP Store Front. Please consider using
our JavaScript Store Front.

If both test fail, you will not be able to run the PHP Store Front. Please consider using our
JavaScript Store Front. If the fopen method fails but the fsockopen test succeeds, you will need
to change the ServerAccessMethod setting as described below:

To change the server access method, open the fs_php\core\system.php file in notepad or another
text editor. You'll find the server access method setting near the top of the file. Simply set this setting
from the default of 0 to 1 as shown below:

$gc_ServerAccessMethod = 1;

If you are not having issues with the default access method, please leave it on the default setting as
it is faster and more efficient.