NetStores Product file, itmfil.asc, Guide

Technical Info

Submitting info

F.A.Q.

HTML integration

Preparing your Catalog

Test Drive

Sample Store fronts

Preparing Your Catalog File (itmfil.asc) Spreadsheet or Database div

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.

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Preparing your OBJECTS for hyper-linking

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).