Support Manual / Site Specific Help

Can my subject line be confused with spam?

If the subject line of your message reads like a subject line commonly used in spam messages then your list members (or their email filters) will likely confuse it with spam and possibly file complaints or block your future emails.

To improve the chances of your message getting opened AND to reduce the chances of someone filing a spam complaint against you, ask yourself these questions when composing your message's subject line:

• If you read only your subject line and nothing else, would it cause you to question if the email was legitimate
• Does the tone resemble the subject lines often found in spam?
• Does the subject line help list members recognize why they are receiving the email? Does the subject contain your brand name?
• Think about your subject line and message text very carefully before you send your message. Anything that screams of "in your face" advertising may generate spam complaints from your list members, even when using the double opt-in method for acquiring list members.
• Using terms below in your subject line or in the content of your message will likely be red flags to list members:
  

  URGENT!

  FREE!!!

  Save $

  Lowest Prices

  Double Your Sales

  !!!

  ***

  $$$

Consider using your list name and a similar subject line each time you send a message. For example, many organizations use this format as their message's subject line:

Weekly Newsletter: newsletter's topic for that issue, the date.

If a list member sees something recognizable about you in the subject line, you will likely see an increased open rate while simultaneously reducing or eliminating spam complaints.

In addition, using personalization tactics such as first name mail merge tags (e.g.: <firstname>) in email subject lines is often confused with spam. Spammers started using this method of personalizing subject lines several years ago in order to mislead email recipients to open the emails. The method was overused and email users began to associate any such email as spam.

Hello,

This explains how you can add Captcha or Spam control box on your payments page when the payment is being made by credit cards. This helps stop the automatic scripts that try to attempt fradulent payments as a human verification is needed to go past the payments page.

To enable this, go to payment settings under e-commerce module and click "Settings" button next to your payment method.

Then check the box for "Show Captcha" and hit Save.

This is a really useful option as it stops the bots/scripts programmed to run and attempts payments numerous times while changing some information so that a fradulent order can be placed. It also thus reduces the fake attempts at your payment partners servers.

Thanks

This explains the difference between HTML view and source view in your websiteforge content tool bar.

In HTML view you can see the text and images along with all the formatting and links, just the way it will be visible on a browser to anyone visiting your website.

In Source view you can see the code with all the tags which format your text.

The major difference between Source View and HTML view is that - In Source View If you have any type of HTML coding for any script you can paste it here and it will work on your site. Whereas, if you paste it in HTML view it will just paste as text and not enable the code.

You can watch this video for more information -

http://videos.websiteforge.com/11.html?m9:post=difference-between-html-view-and-source-view-websiteforge-ecommerce-website

Thanks

A ToolTip is what you see when you mouse over text or images that have been linked with a tooltip.  More info is placed in the pop up to explain the word(s) or Image(s) in greater detail.

To create a ToolTip, you first would select the text or image you wish to add the Tooltip to.

Then click on the "ToolTip" icon on the Toolbar.

Then type in the info you would like to use to explain the word or words that you are adding the tooltip to.

See how the tooltip looks on the website:

If you need assistance in getting a tooltip added please feel free to Contact Support.

Mailer is an important function in maintaining a website as each of us needs to keep sending mails to our customers informing about new features, new products or important announcements.

The send Mailer feature can be used to send Campaign mailers as well as one time mailers. This can be accessed by going to -

The First dropdown lets you choose between the type of Mailer you want to send -

• Campaign - recurring message like a newsletter with updates

• One time - one time mass mail message

Lets first understand Campaign Mailer -

Campaign

A campaign is like if you have a recurring themed message you are sending like a newsletter with topic updates weekly or monthly.(or whatever interval you decide to send it)

The title goes in the "Name" field and you can choose the send out frequency and the date its supposed to go out as shown above.

You can then choose the Receipients by clicking and If you want the mailer to go to opted out members as well just check the box -

You can also include members based on their "Status" -

You can format the entire mailer in the "Topic Header" and "Topic Footer" fields.

Here you can see a video of how the mailer function works -

One Time

One Time
You can use the "One Time" Send Out Type for a one time mass mail message that goes out when you click on "Add and send"

One Time Mailer

One time mailer is relatively simple. All you need to do is put in the subject, select the recipients and format the mailer and then you can choose to Add it to the system or Add and Send to send it immediately.

You will notice it will not give you any option to choose date or frequency as it just goes one time. Here is a video explaining how  One time mailer feature works -

System settings is the area where you can define the settings like which page to use for products, which membership module is to be used for your e-commerce module, etc. 

If you have multiple product pages, you can choose which one to keep as default from here -

 You can also choose which membership module should be associated with the e-commerce module by changing this setting - 

 If your site has multiple databases you can configure which one is to be used from here -

 For specific assistance on changing any system settings please feel free to contact support.

There is an area designed just for this.  It is located here for the E-Commerce Module:

YourDomain.com > Modules > Ecommerce: Products (mX) > Downloadable products

You will need to then choose the folder in which you have placed the downloadable content.

Then choose the duration for which you want the link to be valid for so that the file can be downloaded.

And the last option that you will need to select is which page will the users be guided to once the link has expired. This can be any page on the site or you can create one specifically for this.

For more information feel free to visit Tech Support.

• Cart and Checkout Settings
• Wish List Settings
• Gift List Settings
• Inventory Control
• SEO Settings
• Miscelaneous Settings
• Labels

Product Label (Plural)

This area will explain how you can use the Frame borders and margins area including how to answer common questions we see like this:

• How can I align my text or images better?
• Can I use rounded corners?
• Can I have a border color around my text or image?
• Can I make a frame an exact Width or Height?

How can I align my Text or Image Better?

Often when you are trying to line up text or images to other frames, the best way to do it is by using the "alignment" icons.  But that doesn't always work.  For various reasons.  your frames can be different sizes etc... When this is the case, then you should use the Frame borders and margins area.  And add some  frame margins to align the content.

To do that you will want to select the Frame which has content that needs to be aligned.

When the frame is selected it will have a red border around the frame like this:

Next you will want to click the "Frame Borders and Margins" icon. (See it in the screenshot above in the green rectangle)

Lets say for this example you want to center the wording "Products" over the items listed.  But since the "Center" alignment option will align the text over both of the frames below it, and the left align is too far to the Left.  And Right align is too far to the Right.  You can add a frame margin to move it closer to the center. 

See this example:

This will add 250 pixels of space to the right of the text "products". (or any content that is in that frame)

In the members area it looks like this:

You should always check your work in preview mode.  Since the members area has a left hand navigation that your site will not have, there will be times when spacing looks correct in the members area, but will appear incorrect on your site.  So be sure to save and preview.  How the site looks in preview is how it will look on the live site.

As you can see here the text appears to be lined up center for the items.  But look at preview:

The text is not centered. So you will want to add a larger margin on the right to be able to center this text over these items.  That will require guessing at the size, saving and previewing until you find the right amount of space used.

It appears that for the wording to be centered in this example we needed a margin of 450 pixels.  Here is how it looks on the preview:

And here is how it looks in the members area:

This is a normal behavior.  The only spacing you will want to concern yourself with, is how it looks on the preview and live site.

Can I use rounded corners?

YES! You can now have rounded corners on your frames.  This option can be used with a colored background or a background image.

First select the frame you wish to use rounded corners with.  And choose "Frame Borders and Margins".

Then you will want to enable the corners.  And specify how large you want the rounded edges to appear.  You can do that by increasing the number on the corner margins.

By enabling the corners and specifying a size this will make the frame appear rounded.  But you will need to give it either a background color or image to see the change.  This is how it will look before a color is applied:

By Clicking on the "Frame Background Color" icon, you can specify a background color so you will be able to see your rounded edges better.

I specified Orange here, and now you can see the rounded edges.  If you wish it to have a more rounded look, you would increase the pixel size for the corner margins.  If you would like a less obvious rounded edge you would specify a smaller number for the corner margins.  

Can I have a border color around my text or image?

YES!

By choosing a color, and a border type you can have several types of borders.  Take a look under "Frame Border and Margins"

With these selections:

The frame border will appear as a solid line, 5px in width.(set in the upper left hand corner)  And will be purple (the color selected in the upper right hand corner)

NOTE: If you're using rounded corners, then you would select all of the frame boxes. (be sure to hit Apply to save the changes)

This is how it will look on the preview and live site:

 Can I make a frame an exact Width or Height?

YES! In the "Frame Borders and Margins" area you can choose if you want to use an "Automatic", "Exact" or "Minimum" Width or Height.

There are scenario's where one of these options are grayed out.  Those scenarios include:

• When a frame does not have another frame next to it (more then one frame needs to be in the same row or column when choosing an option other than "Auto".  Because one frame will ALWAYS require being set to automatic to use up any open space.
• When all of the frames in a row or column have a set width or height, the last remaining frame will be set to auto and grayed out.

To change the size select the frame, and choose "Frame Borders and Margins". 

If you have any questions or need assistance with any of these please feel free to Contact Support.

One way to modify how your Ecommerce pages are displayed by modifying the Layout of the Products List frame.  This Answer will show you how to do that.

(other ways consist of formatting your text-more info here)

This is a default layout for a Product Item List frame.

To Edit any of the fields displayed on this page, right click on the field and click "Edit".

Image - Starting on the left you have the image field. 

Details - Under that is a "link to details" link.

Code - Going over to the right and top you see the "Code" field. (which is similar to SKU)

Title - This is the title of your Item. (Keep in mind the word "Title" is the "label" and the data that displays for the title is called the "Value")

Description - This field shows the description of your item.

Label -You can choose to not show the "label" (For example if you don't want the word "CODE" to show up, but still want the actual content of the code field there you would choose "none" under the "label" drop down.)

Or you can change what is shown as the label. If you wish the word "code" to display as let's say "company" instead, then you would choose "Custom" in the "Label" drop down.  Then type the word "company". 

Label Format - If you wish to show the label differently you can choose to customize the label format.  (For example if you want the customized label "company" to show up as bold and larger then the other text, you would choose the size and "bold" under "label format".

Value Format - If you wish to display the content of the field in a different format you can do so under "Value Format".  For example.  If you want the description field to show up as Blue text that is bold.  You can do that under "value Format". NOTE this doesn't change the label color.  Only the actual description content.

Show - You can also choose to show the content as a link, and specify the link here.

Max Length - You can choose to show a limited amount of characters.  So if you wish to only have a portion of each AD display you can do so.  And there will be a "read more" link that shows up and will display more content.  Or can be redirected to a page that shows all of the content.  (To re-direct to another page, you can specify that in the "Frame settings" of the item list frame you are working on.)

Visible to - This can be used if you want this ad to be visible to everyone or to "Logged in members".

If you wish to enable the "Wish list or "Gift List" option.  Then right click on the "Control line" and click "edit"

see screenshot:

And turn on the options for "Wish List" and "Gift List"

NOTE: you will need to enable these options in your Ecommerce module, in the "General Settings" area. See more info here.

You can see all of these things in the "Visitor Tracking" area.

YourDomain.com > Visitor Tracking

Here we will discuss:

1. Active sessions
2. Inactive Sessions
3. Abandoned Carts
4. Searches
5. Zero Search Results

See screenshot:

You can switch between the links at the top of this area to see more about that area.

Active Sessions are vistors that are on your site now.  It will show you what page they are on.  And if you click the "History" button next to the page, you can see what pages they have been on, in your site.  And where they came to your site from.

see screenshot:

Inactive Sessions are people that have been on your site.  This area will show you what time the visitor was there, how many pages they visited.  the total time they were on your site.  their IP address, and what Browser they used.  If you click the "History" button you will see their path similar to the one shown in the "Active session" screenshot above.

Abandoned Carts will show you a cart that someone decided not to check out with.  It will show you the Name(most will show Guest, unless they logged in). Last Page visited, When they Left, the number of pages visited, The total time they were on the site, and how many items were in the cart. You can click on the History button here as well and get detailed info on how they came to your site.

Searches will show you all of the seraches done on your site.

Zero Search Results will show you all the searches done on your site, that turned up no results. (this may mean you need to update some keywords in your items or add some synonyms.  See Full text search Results for Synonyms.  You will need to edit your products to update Keywords)

You can also see a great deal of information regarding your site stats in the "Site Stats and Backup" area.

All of these things are edited or enabled in the "Mobile Version Settings" area.

YourDomain.com > Mobile Version Settings

Here we will go over:

1. Adding the mobile Header and Footer
2. Removing the "Site Menu"
3. Enabling the Custom mobile version menu and where to go to edit that menu.

See screenshot:

To add a mobile Header or Footer, simply add the content here and save.

To hide the Site Menu from the mobile site, check the box that reads "Don't show Site Menu".(you may do this and manually create links to certain pages you want to show on the mobile version)

To make a custom site menu for the mobile version you need to first check the box labeled "Separate Site Menu for Mobile Version".  Click save.  Then go to your "Site menu" area.

Once you enable the mobile version menu, you will be able to see the option to create a mobile menu in the "Site Menu" area.  You can add and remove items as you would create regular menu items.

If you have any questions about this please feel free to contact support.

You can do this by going to the "Posts and Comments" area of your Blog Module.

YourDomain.com > Modules > Blog: Blog (mX) > Posts & Comments

Clicking on "Add Post" will take you to an editor where you can create a new post

NOTE: once you save your new post it will be visible (live) on your site

Here is what the create a post page will look like:

You can choose the Author.  (note the author is anyone that is setup in the membership module linked to this blog module, and specified in the "General settings" area)

The "Name" is the title of your blog post.

Categories will decide who gets the notification about this post, and where it is stored.

You can also post your blog to your facebook wall, if you have it setup do to so in the "social media integration" area.

Clicking on "Add" will post your new Blog post.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact support.

This area will go over the options and features in the "Site Template and Settings" area.

Changing the Template:

You can change your site template as much as you wish.  If you want to test out a template you can switch to it and preview your site to see how it would look with the new template.  You will not lose any data doing this.  NOTE: some templates do not all have the same amount of shared areas.  So if your current template has 3 shared areas, and you choose a template that only has 2 shared areas then the content in the 3rd shared area will not be visible.

To change your Template click on the "Change Template" button.

You will see a Category list on the left of different template types.  I recommend using one of the "plain" templates as they are the most flexible.  If you do not have many graphics please feel free to Contact Support and we can quote you on getting some custom Graphics or a completely custom site.

Once you find a template you would like to try, you can click the "Apply" link beneath it to apply it to your site.

Changing the "Company Name":

You can Enter the name in to the "company name" area and Save.  To preview the change, click "preview site".

Some Template designs are configured to display your Company Name.  You can choose different fonts and sizes to use for your Company Name.
Your Company Name will be rendered into an image and placed in the header of your web site design.  This image format provides many more font options and assures it displays properly and attractively on your web site.

Changing the Slogan:

You can change the slogan by entering the slogan text.  Be sure to save the changes and preview the site.

Some designs can display a subtext used for a Company Slogan or other important text to follow the company name.
For example:
ACME Widgets
     High quality widgets that work!
The Company Name would be "ACME Widgets".  The Company Slogan would be "High quality widtets that work!".
If you find that your company name or slogan is getting cut off.  Reduce the font size to allow it to fit in the space provided.

Yes, you can use your own Favicon (Favorites Icon).  You need to have a file that is an .ICO file type.  And it can be no larger then 16x16.

You can convert any image you have to an Icon file.  Here is a free 3rd party service that will do it. http://image.online-convert.com/convert-to-ico

 NOTE: 16x16 pixels is the size that your favicon will be displayed in a browser. This is very small. So while you can convert any image into a favicon, most logos & or even partial company names will not be appropriate. Contact Support if you're interested in having WebsiteForge design a favicon for you.

You can do this by creating a Page alias. 

If you go here: YourDomain.com > Page Aliases then you can create page aliases. 

For a quick video on how this area works please go here.

Having the URL show a name would look like this: http://manual.websiteforge.com/Support_Home ( the use of spaces and any special characters is discouraged).  We recommend using an underscore"_" or combining the words (Google will separate them automatically)

The default URL for this page is http://manual.websiteforge.com/2.html

Using Aliases has a great SEO benefit as well.  Because it will add recognition to that page for what the page is.

Note: Creating the page alias does not automatically link your Site menu, or any other links on your site to your Aliased page.  You will need to manually re-link anything that is linked to the page you have created for your Alias.  Or you can enable a setting in your "Site Template & Settings" area called "Redirect to Aliases".  Which will automatically direct traffic to your newly created alias, regardless of the link for that page.

Page aliases can link to A Site Page, A Module Item, or A Module Category.

NOTE: Module items and Categories already use the "Title" in the URL to be identified.  

For example:

http://manual.websiteforge.com/5m2/dashboard.html?m2:nested=0

(the URL above will take you to the category "dashboard".  As you can see an alias is not needed in this scenario unless you want to force a different URL.)

If you were to create an alias for the Dashboard category, let's say we call it "Dashboard" that URL would look like this instead: http://manual.websiteforge.com/Dashboard

The same is true for items (Products, ADs, & Blog Posts)

To Create an alias First add an alias name.

Next click the "Select" to choose where this alias will link to.

The "Select Link" pop up will appear.  In this pop up you can choose if you are linking to a Site Page, Module Category or Module Item.

(In this example I'm linking to a Site Page named "Results".)

You have 2 options on the right.  "Redirect" and "Member-dependent". 
Redirect will take a user to the page number, and not keep the name as the URL.  In the example above if we select "Redirect" the URL would show up as Http://manual.websiteforge.com/7.html when the alias is used.

This is used when, say someone had an old page and they want to make redirects from the old pages to the new ones...  That way people who may have bookmarked - or results in search engines, will get sent to the new page.

Member-dependent will allow you to make aliases for specific users.  Once the "Member dependent" box is checked you will see available groups to select to allow access to this alias.

NOTE: if you only have the "Default Group" in your members area, then you will not see any options when selecing the "Member-dependent" option.

This is what it looks like when you have multiple member groups:

This is what it looks like when you ONLY have the "Default Group" in your Members & Group's area:

For more assistance with this please feel contact support.

You can change what fields you have in the "Shipping Info Fields" area.  (Fields are what collect users info)

Click here to see a quick video related to this answer.

You can access this area here: YourDomain.com > Modules > Ecommerce: Products (mX) > Shipping Info Fields

By default these are the fields used.  The ones with the * are required fields.  There are some cases where the "country" field has been disabled, this will cause the option for international shipping addresses impossible.

If you are wanting to post a message to your customers on the page where they fill this information out.  Then you would go here:

YourDomain.com > Pages > Ecommerce: Products (mX) > Checkout: Customer Info (mX_customer_info.html) > Area A (Main) > Page Layout

see screenshot:

You can add a message to the top frame, or add a topmost frame.

Also if you add a custom Field in the Shipping Info Fields area, and you don't see it on this page.  You can choose to "Show" it here in the frame settings of the "Products:Add/Edit Customer Info Form".

(If the field isn't checked in the highlighted Column then it will not show on the page)

If you have questions about these options please feel free to Contact Support.

You can control many things regarding your shipping in the "Shipping Settings" area.  See list below.

1. Whether or not you want to show your customers the shipping source
2. Whether or not you want to show the Shipping Weight to Customers
3. Whether or not you want to Allow the Billing address to be different from the Shipping address
4. Whether or not you want to put the Company Name first on the Shipping Address
5. Whether or not you want to Enable Advanced Shipping Location Features for Customers. (This allows your customers to have multiple Ship To addresses, like "work" or "home")
6. You can configure the message Customers will see when there is not Shipping Method configured
7. You can configure the message Customers will see when there are no Shipping Methods available
8. "Use Real-Time and Table-Based calculators" will allow the system to get real time quotes for shipping from shippers like UPS or Fedex.  And "Table-Based Calculations" refer to the Flat rate methods you may setup in the table of a user defined method.
9. "Default Weight (lbs)" allows you to set a default weight, for products that don't have a weight setup.  (NOTE: it is best to put accurate weights in your products so the calculations for shipping are accurate)

This area is not to setup your Shipping Conditions or Methods you will only be able to change the settings outlined above.

For more specific help with a feature please feel free to Contact Support.

A Shipping source is where an item is shipped from.  Some customers have items shipped from several sources.  To be able to offer accurate shipping calculations it is important to use accurate Shipping sources.

You can setup your shipping sources here:
YourDomain.com > Modules > Ecommerce: Products (mX) > Shipping Sources
See screenshot:

Once you have setup your shipping sources, it is important to specify what products use each shipping source.  By default products will use the "Primary" shipping source.

You can specify a shipping source by editing your products and specifying it.

See screenshot:

If you need further assistance in setting up your Shipping sources please feel free to Contact Support

There is an area designed just for this.  It is located here for the E-Commerce Module:

YourDomain.com > Modules > Ecommerce: Products (mX) > Notifications

and here for the AD Module:

YourDomain.com > Modules > Ad: Ads (mX) > Notifications

Enabling this feature will send an automated email to all of the members in the Membership Module associated with your AD or E-Commerce module (whichever you are setting up) with the exception of those "opted out".

You can customize how the email will appear in this area.

There is a "header" & "Footer" area.  This will allow you to have the same header and footer regardless of what items are included in the message.

See an example of a header here:

You can see the header here with the logo, and other info.  That information will get sent every time.  The products in the list will change.  (the notification will include only newly added items)

Now on the Bottom here are the links that are the footer.  This area will be included in every message sent out as well.

There are some settings here for the E-Commerce module that allow you to choose:

"Send Notifications on New Products" will enable this feature.
"Periodicity". - this determines how frequent your message will go out.

"Included Categories". - this allows you to select the categories of products included in your "new items" notification.

You can also choose to ignore a specific "product type."

see screenshot:

For the AD module the "General Settings" area looks like this:

Choosing "Send Notifications on New Items" will enable this feature on your AD module.

Periodicity - is how often this notice will go out.

"Included Categories". - this allows you to select the categories of ADs included in your "new items" notification.

"Only in Customer's Region" - will narrow down ADs that are close to the customer.  The next two fields help dermine what the "region" is.

"Zip code Field" - this allows you to choose a field that you have that tells the system what the Zip code field is.

"Max Distance" - Determines how far away to include in the customers "region".

You can adjust the layout of your Products/ADs Notification and what all is included in this email.  

See screenshot:

"Product List Page for Category Links" tells the system where to send users that click on a Category link from the notification.

"Product Detail Page" - This tells the system what page you want to use as the product details page, when user clicks on a specific product from the notification.

"Number of Columns" - Will determine how many columns of products are shown in your notification

"Row Separator" - adds a line in between Rows to distinguish between products

"Column Separator" - adds a line in between columns to distinguish between products

"Max number of Products" - This determines how many products will be included in your email.

Clicking the "Customize Product List Layout" button will open up a window that allows you to customize your layout, similar to the layout builder found on your product pages.

You can Choose the Fields that you wish to display, and how much room you would like them to take up.

When you click on "Test Notification" it will send a copy of this notification to the email address specified in the "my Profile" area.

And you can also post to FaceBook.  It will post a notice on your Wall that is setup in the "Social Media Integration" area.

For more information feel free to visit Tech Support.