Note: tags shown are from MGI 1x, TACWeb servers are currently running MGI 3x or higher.

Editing MGI with Adobe GoLive

One of the things TACWeb found with using and developing websites with MGI, is that it can be easily managed with cut and paste editing in an html editor like Adobe GoLive.

Information for clients editing their own "hard-coded" shopping basket systems that were developed by TACWeb: Below are some general rules and guidelines for editing webpages with hard coded shopping cart using Adobe GoLive. These instructions may apply to other html editors however, TACWeb prefers GoLive as it's development tool. 1. GoLive Preferences The first thing you will notice with the new web pages is they have a new extension of .mgi instead of .html. All the pages must have the new extension. This extension tells our server to process the page by our shopping basket software. So the first thing you need to do before you are able to edit the new pages is change/add a preference in your GoLive software. Use the pull down menu and select Preferences. Look for a section in the "general" preferences called "file mapping". Click on "new" and setup a new file mapping of the following: Suffix: mgi Open with: Adobe GoLive Mime Type: text/html Kind: MGI Once you have set that up you will be able to open and edit the new .mgi pages. 2. MGI Tags Our shopping basket system is written with MGI (Modular Gateway Interface). The special coding will appear on the web pages in GoLive as TAGS (mine are blue on my computer). The look like <mgitoken> for example. These tags can be copied and pasted onto other pages as you are editing and developing new pages. Please follow these guidelines: <mgitoken> TAGS Every page on the site, whether it is selling product or not, must have the <mgitoken> tags at the very top and very bottom of the page. The <mgitoken> tag goes at the very top (above the main layout table), and the </mgitoken> end tag goes at the very bottom (below the main layout table). <mgibuyme> TAGS For pages with products for sale, each item for sale needs to have a <mgibuyme> tag. If you click on the tag you will see the parameters for that product in the "Inspector". For example: productid: WASHD11PK briefdescription: Washburn D11 Guitar Package price: 249.00 shippingcost: 25.00 hidden: Yes defaultvalue: 1 Every product needs a unique "productid" which you can just make up but make sure every product has a different number or code. DON'T USE ANY SPECIAL CHARACTERS OR SPACES IN THE ID. Don't use like & or + or especially slashes (/) in the ID. The shopping cart uses the ID to keep track of items in the shopping basket, and if more than one product in the shopping basket has the same ID it will get confused. The brief description is just that, a brief description of the product. Again don't use and slashes (/) or special characters. Price needs to be listed like 9.00 or 25.00 or 125.00 with the decimal point and with NO DOLLAR SIGN ($). The same goes for the shipping price. The hidden and defaultvalue lines deal with and option you have when listing products. With most of your products you will probably want to just have a "Add to Basket" button (BuyMe Tag) next to each product for sale. But in some cases you can have an area to enter a quantity. You can set it up so the customer can enter a quantity, like in the case where the customer needs to order more than one of a particular item, or with just click on the "Add to Basket" button and add the number of items you specify for that BuyMe Tag. Of coarse they can always change their quantity once they add an item to their basket anyhow. For products that we do not want the customer to have to enter a quantity, like in the example of: productid: WASHD11PK briefdescription: Washburn D11 Guitar Package price: 249.00 shippingcost: 25.00 hidden: Yes defaultvalue: 1 We use the settings of hidden: Yes and defaultvalue: 1 which is telling the <mgibuyme> tag to hide the quantity box and use a default quantity of 1 for that item. If we do want the customer to enter a quantity, we don't use those settings (hidden: Yes and defaultvalue: 1) and in that case the <mgibuyme> tag appears as a quantity box on the page. <mgibutton> and <form> TAGS Also to use in conjunction with the <mgibuyme> tags is the <mgibutton> and <form> and </form> tags. The <mgibutton> tag is the actual "add to Basket" button they press on to add the item to their basket. On products where the customer is not entering a quantity, we use the button and form tags with each product. On pages where the customer enters a quantity, we can either put the button and form tags next to each item or just one at the bottom of the page. Please look at those two examples in GoLive and see if you have any questions. So if you want to edit a current product on the site, just click on the <mgibuyme> tag and change the price or description shown in the Inspector. To add a new product, just copy the set of <form><mgibuyme><mgibutton></form> tags from another product and just change the info to reflect the new product. That's it, now you can just add/change product for sale on your website by just clicking, copying and pasting. If TACWeb developed your site and is still responsible for managing the site, we would recommend that you not edit the following pages and files. basket.mgi checkout.mgi confirmorder.mgi thankyou.mgi coformat.txt cotemplate.txt sbformat.txt sbtemplate.txt Everything else you can edit and change as you need.