Preparing Your Catalog
File (itmfil.asc) Spreadsheet or Database
Here is a sample of how to set up your Database or Spreadsheet.
Product#
Price
Author
Description
Category
html link
Weight
Other
NS-120
12.00
Smith
New Book
Children
http://...
2
etc...
Product # must be a unique field (each with a different number) with no
spaces.
Price field should NOT have dollar "$" sign or "," commas.
Product Page URL is
the full link to your product page ie: http://www.netstores.com/demo/demo2.html.
Include weight field if you want to utilize UPS shipping
lookup function. Category can be used to search by
type of product. Additional categories can be added.
The system only requires Product#, Description and
Price so other fields are up to you.
Any of the fields for
the search engine as well as addtional fields can
be added.
All objects should be
placed in a in a field in the database and named
with full url ie: http://www.yourdomain.com/.
All objects are associated
to records in itmfil.asc through a file naming convention
(keyfield-1.ext where .ext is .jpg, .html, .url,
etc). The order form generator hyper-links directly
to the discovered object ( objects which are expected
to contain the full url to link to: http://www.shopping2000.com/barnes/xyzf.html)
Preparing Your Catalog Data for use with NetStores
Preparing Your ASCII Catalog File (itmfil.asc)
itmfil.asc is a variable
length "flat" ASCII file, field separated by '|'
and record separated by NL (x0a). All records must
conform to the same field layout. The catalog file
should (for performance reasons) consist only of
fields that will appear in the search form or order
form. Each record needs a key (can be combination
of fields) to uniquely identify it. Key fields cannot
contain any double quotes '"'. All search fields
defined in the search form must appear as fields
in the itmfil.asc.
All fields to appear
in the order form must appear as fields in the itmfil.asc
and must be mapped to the generators allowable 5
fields (and lengths) to be defined as:
Generator's generic field name
Example field map to itmfil.asc
------------------------------
1) keyfield-1 (required) field-1 in itmfil.asc
2) keyfield-2 (required) field-5
3) description-1 (required) field-3
4) description-2 (optional) field-4
5) price (required) field-2
Fields may be combined
in the itmfil.asc to "extend" the limits of the generator
(ie. artist and title my be combined as a single
field in the itmfil.asc then mapped to description
1). Fields may appear twice to allow for singular
searching and combination printing.
Logical booleans can
be included in the itmfil.asc as a fixed series of
0's and 1's comprising a single field(ie field #9=00010)
and mapping to a series of checkboxes in the search
form (in this example 5).
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