TEMPLATE INSTRUCTIONS FOR closedShop 2.2

With the advent of version 1.6 of closedShop, 
you can use templates to totally customize
the Display of items and the diplay of 
categories. You can even use programming inside
the template to achieve any need you have

When you use templates, they will replace
the header and footer files normally used.
To use templates, just enter in the name
of the file you want to use as a template
in the Change Variables section in the 
Admin program

INSTRUCTIONS FOR INDIVIDUAL ITEM DISPLAY

The simplest way to use the templates is 
to insert different data about the item. 
To do this, use a special tag like the
following

<# name #>

that tag will be replaced by name of the item

The following tags are availabe
Item id  -- <# id #>
Item name -- <# name #>
Item price -- <# price #>
Item shipping price -- <# shipping #>
Item description -- <# description #>
Quantity left -- <# quantity #>
Category name -- <# category #>
Attributes -- <# attributes #> (NOT CURRENTLY IMPLEMENTED)
Image URL -- <# image_url #>
Category URL -- <# cat_url #>
URL to add item to the cart -- <# add_url #>
URL to add item to wishlist -- <# wish_url #>
Begginning of form data needed 
to use a POST to add the item to the cart -- <# add_formpost #>

In addition, you can use Perl Code within the template and it
will be evaluated. If there is an error in your Perl Code
it will be displayed on the screen, along with the line

Example:

<# { for (my $k = 0l $k < 50; $k++) { print $k . "<BR>"; } } #>

Note: The code is to be bracketed on both side. Make sure
there is only one space between the # and the {

The variables that you are able to use for items when you 
use the Perl code are as follows

Item Code: $code
Item Category: $category
Item Name: $name
Item Price: $price
Quantity Left: $qty
Description: $desc 

So for example, if you wanted to have a special message
appear if quantity drops below 5, then you would do the following
(If you have problems with multiple lines, put it all the code on one line)

<# { 
  if ($quantity < 5) {
    print "You must buy $name now!!!";
  }
  else {
    print "You can wait awhile until you buy $name";
  }
} #>

INSTRUCTIONS FOR CATEGORY TEMPLATE
The category template follows the same format as the 
item template, but there are different variables.

The following tags are available:
Category --  <# category #>
Category Introduction text -- <# intro #>
Category URL -- <# cat_url #>
Category Code -- <# cat_code #>

The programming lets you have some more options
and is a little more complicated

The variables you can use are:
Category Name: $category
Item Hash: %items

The Item hash has all the items of the category
inside of it. Each spot in the hash is actually
an array of the data from an item

So...
To output all the items in a list:

<# {
  foreach (keys %items) {
    my ($id,$name,$price,$quantity,$itemurl,$imageurl) = split(/~#~/,$items{$_});
    print "<li>$name for only \$$price";
  }
} #>

Each hash spot will contain a line of data that is separated
by a "~#~" marker. That line must be split and the resulting
array is arranged so that the order of variables is:

ID,Item Name,Item Price,Quantity Left, Item URL, Image URL

Item URL is the URL to go to the Item display page

INSTRUCTIONS FOR ALL CATEGORY TEMPLATE
The all category template is fairly simple. The data that is
passed is just a hash (called %categories), with the category code as the hashed item
and the data as an array, in the form

<# {
my ($intro,$style,$numimages,$status,
   $name,$children,$parent,$href) = @{$categories{$_}};
} #>
   
$intro is the introductory text you can set
$style is text/thumbnails
$numimages is number of images you want to display per page
$status is private/public
$children is id of child categories
$parent is id of parent category
$href is a link to the category.   

See the template.allcat for an example of how to display all
categories.

Hopefully, these instructions are useful for your purposes.
You do not need to use templates and you may use just category
or just item or both if you choose.

** Notice: Attributes will not work properly with templates
as of recent attribute updates. Future work needs to be done
to enable this.