This page is used to change your preferences as to how certain areas of the store operate. Normally, these setting do not need to be changed. However, you may adjust these settings if needed.

CAUTION: Please be very careful when making changes to this section of the store. Make sure you understand completely how each setting affects your store. The default settings are listed first.

Shipping Notification Email
When active, this feature automatically sends the customer an email telling them their order was shipped. The email will be sent automatically when an order's status is changed to "SHIPPED".

To activate this feature, click the YES option in the first field. Then complete the other fields to control the title and the format of the email text.

Shipping Notification Email - Format
When email is sent for this section of the store, two e-mail formats are available for use. This setting tells the store which format to use: "Send as Plain Text" or "Send as HTML E-mail".

TIP: Since not all e-mail programs can read HTML e-mail text, it's recommended that you select the "Send as Plain Text" option.

IMPORTANT: If you choose "Send as HTML E-mail", be sure the email text fields below contain properly formatted HTML to allow the E-mail messages to display correctly.

Shipping Notification Email - Title:
Enter the title of the email you want used when the store sends the Shipping Notification Email to the customer.

If you want to include customer specific information in the email's title, you may use any of the following data markers (the double brackets before and after the data markers are required):

{{ORDER_NUMBER}}
{{REFERENCE_NUMBER}}
{{FIRST_NAME}}
{{LAST_NAME}}

Title Example:

{{FIRST_NAME}}, Your Order Has Shipped (Order Number: {{ORDER_NUMBER}})

The store will substitute the customer's actual first name and order number for the data markers above. This will result in the following email title:

John, Your Order Has Shipped (Order Number: 109283849)

Shipping Notification Email - Text:
This field contains the body of the email. Please enter the desired text and data markers to control the content and format of the email's body or main text.

Please see the example below for samples of the text and the data markers that could be used (the double brackets before and after the data markers are required):

We thought you'd like to know that we shipped your items today, and that this completes your order. Thank you for shopping at www.yourstorename.com, and we hope to see you again soon. Shipping Method: {{SHIPPING_METHOD}} Shipping Cost: {{SHIPPING_COST}} Tracking Number: {{TRACKING_NUMBER}} Order Date/Time: {{ORDER_DATE_AND_TIME}} Order Number: {{ORDER_NUMBER}} Reference Number: {{REFERENCE_NUMBER}} SHIP TO INFORMATION ========================================= {{FIRST_NAME}} {{LAST_NAME}} {{COMMA}} {{TITLE}} {{COMPANY}} {{ADDRESS_LINE_1}} {{ADDRESS_LINE_2}} {{CITY}}{{COMMA}} {{STATE}} {{ZIP_POSTAL_CODE}} {{PROVINCE}} {{COUNTRY}} Day Phone: {{DAY_PHONE}} Night Phone: {{NIGHT_PHONE}} Email: {{EMAIL_ADDRESS}} {{COMMENTS}} {{TAX_ID_NUMBER_INFO}} {{REMEMBER_MY_INFO}} {{CUSTOM_INPUT_FIELDS}} ITEMS ORDERED ========================================= {{ITEMS_ORDERED}} ========================================= Subtotal: {{SUBTOTAL}} {{COUPON_INFO}} {{PURCHASE_DISCOUNT_INFO}} Shipping: {{SHIPPING_COST}} - {{SHIPPING_METHOD}} {{SALES_TAX_INFO}} ORDER TOTAL: {{ORDER_TOTAL}} PAYMENT METHOD ========================================= {{PAYMENT_METHOD}} {{PAYMENT_METHOD_NOTES}}

Shipping Notification Email - Send Copy To:
When the store sends Shipping Notification Emails to customers, you can elect to have a copy of the email sent to you for tracking / safe keeping. If you would like this feature to be active, just enter your email address in this field. Leave this field blank if you do not want this feature active.

Shipping Notification Email - Send Test Email To:
If you would like to test this feature to see how the email and data markers work, enter your email address into this field. When you click the UPDATE button at the bottom of the page, the store will create a sample Shipping Notification Email based on the configuration you entered and send it to you.

NOTE: in order for this feature to work, there must be at least one existing customer order in you store's database which is used to fill out the email's message text. The store will use the first customer order it finds to fill out the sample email. NOTE: This test email will NOT be sent to the customer -- only to you.

Auto-Resize Thumbnails
When the store displays a list of products to a customer, it normally displays small images (called thumbnails) for each product. The store can automatically adjust the size of all thumbnails (for uniformity and a cleaner look) or use the images' natural size.

This field controls whether or not the store auto-resizes the image thumbnails and is required.

Auto-Resize Width and Height Settings
When auto-resize is active, the store will use the pixel width and height values specified in these fields (40 is recommended for both). Pixel sizes must be between set between 5 and 500.

Thumbnail Link Action
When the store displays a list of products to a customer, it normally displays "clickable" small images (called thumbnails) for each product. This option allows you to control whether thumbnails link to a generic page that shows each product's full size image, or links to each product's detail information page (for ordering). This field is required.

Credit Card Format:
This settings controls how credit card numbers will be displayed when you are viewing NEW or PROCESSED orders (from the Main Menu). Normally, credit card numbers are displayed with "dashes" in them for processing (like 4111-1111-1111-1115). However, you also have the option to display them without the dashes (4111111111111115).

Credit Card Checksum Calculations:
This controls whether or not the store performs checksum validation on credit card numbers entered by customers during checkout. This feature validates that the customer entered a valid credit card number during local or remote SSL checkout.

This setting should always be YES unless you are accepting foreign credit cards (UK Switch Cards) that dont use the standard Visa, Master Card, or American Express numbering format.

This setting applies only to stores that are NOT using Real-Time Credit Card Processing.

Admin Time-out:
As you know, the store's administration system has an automatic time-out feature. If you remain idle for more minutes than is allowed, you will be required to sign on once again. This setting controls the number of minutes used by the store for the automatic time-out feature. Normally, this is set to 15 minutes but can be adjusted to one of the other settings available.

No Photo Available:
When a product's web page is displayed, the store attempts to display the product's full sized image. If one is not available, a substitute graphic is normally displayed that says "Sorry, No Photo Available". This setting lets you control whether or not the replacement image is displayed for product's that don't have a full sized image defined for them.

Strikeout Normal Price:
When on sale, the store normally displays both the product's "normal price" and the "sale price". This setting lets you control whether or not the store displays the product's "normal price" with a strikethrough effect. A strikethrough effect is shown as a line drawn through the price so it appears as if it's been "crossed out".

Example: $19.95

When this feature is active, the strikethrough effect will appear on both the product's Add To Cart page and on the "Specials" page.

NOTE: not all browsers display strikethrough effects properly.

Show On Sale Savings:
When a product is on sale, this setting allows you to control whether or not the store shows an additional line of text below the product's sale price (on the product's Add To Cart page only). This new line will show how much the customer will save when purchasing the item.

Example: You Save $1.25

Show Out-of-Stock Products:
When inventory is being tracked on a product, the store will normally still display the product to the customer even when it's out-of-stock. The customer will still be able view information about the product, but will not be allowed to order it (since no "Add To Cart" button will appear).

If you DO NOT want out-of-stock products to appear to the customer (only those that are NOT allowed to be backordered), then set this field to "NO".

NOTE: any out-of-stock product that IS ALLOWED to be backordered will still appear to the customer regardless of which setting you chose here. This setting only affects out-of-stock products that are NOT allowed to be backordered.

Show Product Weight:
If you DO NOT want to show the weight of each product on the "Add to Cart" page, then set this field to "NO". Otherwise, select the "YES" option and the weight defined for each product will be shown to the customer.

NOTE: If a specific product's weight field is zero or blank, the store will still NOT show the weight even if this flag is set to "YES" (since the product has no weight).

Add to Cart Action:
This option allows you to control what happens when a customer clicks a product's ADD TO CART button. Normally, the store shows the VIEW CART PAGE immediately after this button is pressed so the customer can see what is now stored in their shopping cart basket.

However, this preference item allows you to change that behavior and simply re-display the product's detail information page. If you chose this option, the shopping basket is still updated but the normal VIEW CART page is not shown to the customer.

This field is required.

Default Search Type:
When a customer enters a search phrase that is surrounded by quotes, the store always performs an "exact phrase" search.

However, if the customer simply enters multiple search words without any quotes around them, the store does not know whether this is to be an "OR", "AND", or "QUOTED" search.

This field controls what the "default search type" is when the search words entered do not have any quotes around them.

TIP: For most stores, it's recommended you set the default search type to be an "AND Search".

An "OR Search" looks through the product records and looks for a match to ANY of search words. If any one of the search words matches, the product will be show as part of the search results page. Example: if you are searching for HARD DRIVE, then either the word HARD or DRIVE must be found.

An "AND Search" looks through the product records and looks for a match to ALL of search words. If it finds a match for each one of the search words, the product will be show as part of the search results page. Example: if you are searching for HARD DRIVE, then both of the words HARD and DRIVE must be found.

A "QUOTED Search" looks through the product records and looks for an exact match to the search phrase entered. If it finds a match for the exact phrase, the product will be show as part of the search results page. Example: if you are searching for HARD DRIVE, then the exact combination of words HARD DRIVE must be found together.

NOTE: for searches, longer words containing the search word as part of its characters will be considered a match. Example "hardware" would be a match for a search word of "hard". Store searches are NOT case sensitive.

Search Meta Tags:
This field controls whether or not the store includes each product's meta tags when performing a search. Most stores will want to include meta tags in product searches and therefore, the default setting for this flag is "Yes".

If your meta tags are designed in such a way that they are causing the store to generate invalid search results, then you need to set this flag to "No".

Static Index Page:
This field controls whether or not the store automatically generates a "static" version of the store's Welcome Page. The default and recommended setting is "NO".

When this feature is active (set to YES), the store will automatically replace the normal "redirection" web page called "index.htm" (which exists in the store's main program directory) with a new page called "index.html". The "index.html" page will contain an exact "static" copy of the last Welcome Page displayed to a shopper.

The default setting is "NO" and is recommended for most stores. When this feature is OFF, the store uses the normal redirection method in the default file called "index.htm". The store's Welcome Page will be generated "dynamically" each and every time it is requested by a customer.

NOTE: this static "index.htm" page will only get generated (updated) when the store's welcome page is displayed via the main "Qstore.cgi" script.

TIP: Keep in mind that items on the store's dynamic Welcome Page change from time to time depending on what a shopper is adding to their cart and the current state of inventory in the store. While using the static "index.html" page will help with search engine submission, the static page will not properly reflect a specific customer's shopping cart contents nor will it show accurate information regarding the store's featured items.

IMPORTANT - the store will NOT allow both an redirection "index.htm" and static "index.html" file to exist in the store's main program directory. It will automatically remove the file that is invalid based on this field's current setting.

Override Page Titles:
This field controls whether or not the store automatically replaces the default page titles (e.g. the store's name) with the name of the department, category, sub-category, or product currently being displayed to the customer. The default setting is "NO".

This field only affects the store pages that display departments, categories, sub-categories, and products - not the other pages in the store. Activating this feature may help in search engine submission and processing.

NOTE: this feature assumes that the skin page being loaded and processed has a properly formatted title block in its HTML source code. In order for this feature to work, the title block must contain the following EXACT HTML:

SMTP Server Type:
Even though the Basic Store Administration option on the Main Menu requires you to provide a "path to sendmail", this may not be the actual mail program that is being called when email is sent. The default setting is "Sendmail".

If the web server is redirecting sendmail commands to another email program (like EXIM or QMAIL), you will need to change this setting so that order confirmations emails will function properly. You will need to select one of the other mail programs shown.

If "sendmail" is the actual email program on the web server, you must select the "Sendmail" option.

CAUTION! Do not change this setting unless told to do so by a Technical Support Representative. If this setting is wrong, the store will NOT be able to send email properly.

Web Page Tracking:
The store has the ability to track web pages displayed by the customer while they are shopping. The tracking is done by recording "entries" in a standard web server log file. The log file can then be downloaded and processed by a web page statistical program like http://www.webtrends.com.

This setting controls whether or not the store tracks customer web page displays into a file called "store.log". This file will be located in the store's "Qfiles" directory.

CAUTION! Normally this feature is NOT active since it will take up additional disk space that is assigned to your web site. If you activate this option, the "store.log" file in the "Qfiles" directory will continue to grow until such time as you delete it. As a result, this file can grow to a very large size. Also, store logging requires extra processing time and customers may notice a slightly slower response time when shopping.

Auto-Archiving:
The store has the ability to automatically "archive" its data files. An archive is a "snapshot" or "mini-backup" of the store's database files and can be used as a disaster recovery tool.

When activated, the archive will be created each and every time a change is made to the store (including when a new order comes in). The store will then keep 25 of the most recent snapshots in the store's "Qarchives" directory.

NOTE: auto-archiving requires additional processing power each time it is run (especially for large stores), and customers will notice a slower response time when shopping. This is NOT recommended for busy stores or busy web servers.

CAUTION! This feature should NEVER be used as a replacement for performing your own backups. An option is available on the Main Menu for performing your own complete store backup which should always be done whenever you make changes to your store or process customer orders.