Purchase FPcartPal | FPcartPal Home | FrontPageHowTo.com

FPcartPal Installation Instructions

Table of Contents:

System Requirements
About PayPal
Importing files into your web
What to do when importing the database
Modifying the global.asa file
What pages do you need to create
Modifying the functions.asp file

System Requirements:

FPcartPal requires a web server that supports ASP and the FrontPage 2000/2002 Server Extensions. Typically this means Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) version 4.0 and above. This application will not run on Unix or Linux servers and has not been tested and is not supported running under any add on designed to run ASP applications on these types of servers.

Please make sure you check what type of web server your site is hosted on BEFORE you buy as there are NO REFUNDS. To check your web server type, use this convenient tool: http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/ Enter your site in the input box and click the Examine button. If the results do not say Microsoft-IIS... then it is likely that this application WILL NOT RUN on your server.

This application will not run without a web server. This means that if you are creating your web site on your Windows ME computer system and when you open the web in FrontPage and the title bar shows the web location as something like: C:\mywebs\myshoppingcartweb, do not expect the application to function properly. Why is this? ASP (Active Server Pages) is code that is designed to run on a web server. When the web server responds to a request for a page with the .asp file extension, it will first parse the page for ASP code. The server will process this code before sending the page to the requestor. Your computers file system is not a web server.

If you do not have a web server capable of running ASP code on your computer, you can publish this web to your web hosting account and work on it there. Again, your web must be hosted on an IIS server.

This application is not supported with FrontPage 98. Only FrontPage 2000 and 2002.

Top ^

About PayPal:

PayPal is a free credit card processing service. You will need to set up an account with PayPal before utilizing FPcartPal. See the PayPal site for more information:

https://www.paypal.com

While you can use FPcartPal without PayPal, these types of modifications are not supported.

Top ^

Importing files into your web:

You must first create the web you will use FPcartPal in with FrontPage. Since this application was designed to integrate into your existing web, we will assume that you have already created your web.

Shopping Cart Pages...

  1. Open your web in FrontPage.
  2. Click FILE > Import.
  3. Click the Add File button.
  4. Navigate to the location you unzipped the files to.
  5. Select all of the files (not the folders) and click Open.
  6. You will now see the files in the FrontPage Import dialog box. Click OK.

The files will now be in your web.

Products Administration Pages...

Import the products and orders admin pages following the same steps as above. The instructions that come with your download contain more complete information.

Top ^

What to do when importing the database:

Next you will need to import the Access database. This database was created with Microsoft Access 2002. If you do not have Access 2002 then you will not be able to open this database directly. This should not keep you from being able to utilize the application however.

Importing the Database...

  1. Open your web in FrontPage.
  2. Click File > Import.
  3. Click the Add File button.
  4. Navigate to the location you unzipped the files to.
  5. Open the fpdb folder.
  6. Select the mystore.mdb file and click Open.
  7. You will now see the files in the FrontPage Import dialog box. Click OK.

FrontPage will do three things when importing the database that you need to pay attention to:

  1. First, FrontPage will prompt you to create and name a database connection. You need to name the connection as follows:

    XXXXXXXX
     
  2. Second, FrontPage will create the global.asa file in your web.
  3. Third, FrontPage will prompt you about creating a folder called fpdb for the location to store the database. Click OK to let FrontPage do this.

Top ^

Modifying the global.asa file:

Adding the Required Code to Global.asa...

Complete instructions and code and contained in the download version of these instructions.

Top ^

What pages do you need to create:

The beauty of FPcartPal is that it is designed to plug in to the site you already created. The only requirement is that the pages that will contain the FPcartPal components must have the .asp file extension. In the next section, we will show you how to change the default settings to let FPcartPal know which pages are which. For now, you will need the following pages:

Once you have your pages created, you can include the correct include file as follows:

  1. Place your cursor on the page where you want the component to display.
  2. Click the HTML tab at the bottom of the screen to switch to HTML view.
  3. Exactly where the cursor is flashing (you may need to click the scroll down arrow a couple of times but don't click out in the code) copy and paste the following:

  4. Replace the file name with the name appropriate for the page you are creating.
  5. Repeat for each of the pages above using the correct file name for the pages purpose.

NOTE: When you switch back to Normal view, you will not see the contents of the include page. You must view the page in your web browser.

Top ^

Modifying the functions file:

This file contains many of the parameters used in the application. This file is already included in the include pages in the same manner as you have just included the component pages in your pages. There are settings here that you need to change in order to tailor FPcartPal to your site.

Open the functions file in FrontPage and switch to HTML view. Scroll to the top of the page.

At the top of the page you will see the following section. The changes that need to be made should be self evident.

After making the appropriate changes, save and close the file.

Top ^