Integrate Live Writer Support

Calendar Management

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:50:41 +0800

Calendars are a way to define events happening that can be advertise on the site and viewed and displayed like other types of content in the system. A site can have just one calendar for all types of events that it will show, or multiple calendars can be defined so that specific types of events are shown in one calendar while other types are shown in another.

On the left side of the page is a list of defined calendars. Before calendar events can be created, there needs to be at least one calendar defined to create them in. Use the Details Tab on the right side of the page to create and edit calendar details.

Details Tab

The Add, Update and Delete buttons for managing calendars are contained within the details tab directly. The details of a calendar is just the article fields seen for articles, products, contacts and other types of elements in Syrinx CS that build on the article. Lists of calendars can be displayed on public pages and a detailed view of the calendar can be displayed to site users to help them understand what the events defined in it are for.

Calendar Tab

This is just a read only display of the selected calendar, showing the calendar events defined in it within a month view. Selecting a given day in the month view will show the day’s events to the right side of the tab.

Each day in the month view may be colored by the events happening on that day. If an event is a type that is marked as primary, the background color for the event type is used as the background of the day.

Events Tab

The events tab is the primary place where calendar events are defined. The read only event grid is located at the top of the tab display area. Selecting an event in the grid will show its details below.

To create a new event, first click the add button on the events tab, which will clear out the fields in the detail area for you to fill in for the new event.

Use the update button to save the changes to the event.

The event details area shows the following fields for you to provide:

Title – The title of the event that will be shown in calendar displays.
Start Time – The date and time the event will start.
End Time – The date and time the event will end.
All day event – If checked, the start and end time will only use the date portion and not the time. The event will not show times in displays showing the event.
Event Type – The type that best matches what the event is for. What event types a site has is dependent on the site and what calendars are intended for.
Street/City/State/Postal/Country – These fields make up an address for the calendar event. You can specify a location for the event and even set its latitude and longitude using the map button next to the address fields. When you’ve setup the map location for an event, public displays for the event can show a Google map display that has a pushpin for the exact location. This can be used by the site user to get directions and other map functionality provided by Google.
Main Article Content – This is main article body content for the event that you can use to describe it. This is a full article body and can contain images and other media as needed like any the main Syrinx CS article. This becomes the main content shown to users in detailed displays for the event when they are browsing the calendar.

Event Types Tab

The event types tab lets you manage the kind of events you will use in your calendars. There is just one global list of event types, which are usable in all calendars. The event types are shown in the editable grid shown in the tab, which always has a blank row at the bottom of the list to add new event types directly. Use the small save button in the grid’s toolbar to save the event changes made.

The following fields should be provided:

Name - The display name to use for the event type. This could be things like holiday, training class, group meeting, review or whatever other type of event needed.
Enroll – If checked, this type of event offers enrollment. Users can sign up for the event, which reduces the total enrollment available if there is a max enrollment value set for the event.
Map Pin – The image to use for events of this type when shown on a map (using the event’s location). You can set the image to use with the grid toolbar button on the bottom of the grid.
Background – The css color value to use for the background for the event. This can be known named colors like yellow, blue, or green, but it can also be a hex RGB value like #0c1c1c. This color is used differently based on the way the event is being shown in a calendar view.
Foreground – The css color value to use for the text of the event when showing in the background color. This can be known named colors like yellow, blue, or green, but it can also be a hex RGB value like #0c1c1c. This color is used differently based on the way the event is being shown in a calendar view.
Primary – If checked, the event type is considered a primary type, which helps to decide what the overall background color of the calendar view should be. In month views, this will be used for the day square the event is happening in.

Contact Management

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:10:41 +0800

Any time a data element in Syrinx CS needs a person or company as a part of its collection of data, it uses a contact and the contact system of Syrinx CS. This includes users that login to the system, customers who buy products, companies that make products you sell, businesses you write reviews about, the location you ship you products from and other such situations.

The contact management admin page lets you see all the contacts defined with the system, regardless of how they are created. It is good to have different contact types so that it is easy to differentiate between the various contacts that will build up in your site over time.

The main toolbar contains a contact filter mechanism that is still being developed and is not fully functional. This is one of a few aspects of contact management that is being actively worked on and will get better in the next few releases. Contact filters can be defined via the drop down filter display using the T (T for toggle) button to the right of the dropdown.

Once a filter has been defined you use the Go button contained within the filter drop down to refresh the contact list shown to only those that match the filter criteria.

The contact filter dropdown lets you pick a saved filter using its name. This is an area that is not functional with the 5.0.1 release. Its intent is to let you save filters you have created so that you can rapidly select them in the future via the dropdown.

Contact Details Tab

The basic contact data is shown in this tab. Most fields are self-evident, but the Type field is used to select the contact type you want to the contact to be. Certain contact types are built in and should not be deleted (though can be renamed), such as Warehouse, Manufacturer, and Customer.

If you have defined a category set for contacts, you will set the categories available to apply to the contact. Once you save the contact with the chosen categories, if those categories have custom properties you will see the fields shown to the right side of the tab display in the Category Properties section.

It may appear that the contact type field and categories could be overlapping, and they can be seen that way. You could have a category called customer along with the category type called customer. The reason you’d do that was because you wanted to create custom fields to be applied to customer type contacts.

But the granularity of categories is not limited and they don’t have to be used on the same level as contact types. For example, if the site will have many reviews of various types of businesses, you wouldn’t necessarily create contact types like bar, restaurant, hotel, resort, etc. You’d be better off using categories for that type of thing. Then you can create custom fields like “allows indoor smoking” or a food quality rating. These custom fields can be shown in displays on public pages and become a part of the review.

Contact Articles Tab

A contact can have articles associated with it. There is a core article directly associated with the contact that can be used for whatever makes sense. Site users could use this as their “personal home page”. Reviews of businesses can use this for the main review.

However, many other articles can be written about the contact, which become child articles under the main contact article. You can write as many articles as you want that are related to that contact. These articles can then be used in custom displays about the contact if so desired. These articles could also be used for internal purposes to keep track of important contacts.

The T button on the top left is used to toggle the dropdown grid display of all the articles written about the contact. You can write new articles by using the add button, typing in the article data and then using the update button to save the new content.

The article display shown in this tab is similar to the article displays shown in other areas. While it is not the full article editing functionality available in the article management page, it is good enough to manage the main content. If you want to manage the more advanced settings of an article, you can edit the article directly in article management too.

Locations Tab

A contact can have many addresses, but only one of those can be marked as their primary address. Thie locations tab shows an editable grid of all the addresses for the contact. There is always a blank row at the bottom of the list to add a new address. Once you have added or updated an address, use the Save Address Changes button to save them to the database. You can use the grid’s toolbar at the bottom of its display to delete an address.

The address grid toolbar also has a map button to set the addresses latitude and longitude if so desired. The button will bring up a popup Google map window where you can pin point the exact location for the contact. This can be important for things like the warehouse location for where you ship your goods, or businesses you have reviews about so that these items can be shown on a Google map display.

Mail Merge Tab

The mail merge tab lets you send emails to the list of contacts being shown in the main grid. If you only want to send an email to a select group of contacts, you should use the contact filter to make the list show only the contacts you want to send the email to.

This tab is not intended to be used to send one person one email, which is why there is no advanced interface for selecting specific contacts. There are many email programs available to send one person one email. The intent of this tab is to send specific types of contacts (or whatever other filtered set of contacts you want) a form email.

You can manage a predefined list of emails which is displayable with the T toggle button on the top left side of the tab display. The toggle will show a grid of articles for mail merge, which you can pick to just send the mail directly. You can also write a new email using the form fields and then mail that. The fields for an email include:

From – the email address you want to use for who the email was sent from. This could possibly be the main webmaster email address for the site.

Subject – the subject of the email. This can contain macros like $contact.firstName$ which will get replaced per email sent in order to customize the output per contact.

Body – The body of the email, which can contain macros like $contact.firstName$ which will get replaced per email sent.

When you use the Send Mail button, the site will return immediately even though the email campaign is still running on the server. The email processing could take a long time.

Notes about doing Mass Mailings

You need to properly configure a mail server to send with. This is done by editing the smtp.xml file in the configFiles area of the site.

You also need to make sure you don’t send spam mail which could get your mail system black listed.

Types Tab

The types tab shows two editable grids, one for the contact types and another for address types. Both grids show the same two fields:

Name – The display name to use for the type
Map Pin – An custom image to use when showing the contact on a map or other display. You can set the image by selecting the row in the grid then using the grid’s toolbar set image button. You can save you changes by use the grid’s save toolbar button.

Product Import / Export

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:04:05 +0800

Rather than hand keying in your product catalog, you can import a standard CSV file that defines everything about your product. You can also update existing products with imports. You dont have do define all the data for each product, but could, and this is a good way to update available quantities and pricing.

The product import / export uses files contained within a defined site downloads file system area. The main toolbar on the top contains a dropdown shown a list of defined site download file systems. You may want to upload product CSV files into a secured file system, but any one will do.

The selected file system’s directories are shown in the tree grid on the left. The files contained within that directory are shown in the file grid on the right. This is a similar view to that of windows explorer.

You can select multiple files in the file list and use the delete selected button to delete those files. NOTE: There is no recycle bin for the file system, so the files are truly deleted and cannot be recovered unless there is a backup to upload again.

New files can be uploaded into the file system using the upload files tab, which contains a list of file select fields to pick files from the browser’s local file system. The files are uploaded into the selected directory.

Doing An Import

Select a properly formatted product CSV file in the file list grid in the Directory Files tab. You can also upload a zip file that contains the CSV and images that are used by the products defined in the CSV. The images will be added to the default public media library using the directory structure presented in the zip. There should be only one CSV contained in the root folder in the zip.

Select a product from the Import Into field, which is a smart list dropdown. You need to start typing the first few characters to get the list to start showing. This would typically be “retail products”, but could be some other area that you want to do the import into.

An import happens relative to the selected product. You can define a simple set of products in a CSV, and then import it into a deep branch within the products tree. This is good for times when you want to export a branch of products from one site and import it into a different branch on another site.

The Auto Generate Product Unique Titles checkbox is used to decide if product unique titles should be generated that include not only the product title but also the part number.

To start the import, use the Import Selected File button. The import process happens during the ajax process of the button press and the button will appear unavailable until the process is complete.

Doing An Export

The export will create a csv with a generated file name based on the root product selected in the “Import Into Field”. The field is not named well for an export, but it is used in export to pick the products to be exported. The newly created csv will be located in the selected directory.

The auto generate product unique titles checkbox is not used for exports.

CSV File Format

The CSV used for Import / Export follows the standard comma delimited format used by Excel. The first line of the file is a comma delimited list of field names defining the columns. The follow column names are used, all of which are optional and can be presented in any order:

partId
sellPrice
listPrice
title
_parentUniqueTitle
_keywords
primaryPicture.name
summary
body
manufacturerPartId
shippingBoxOption
dimensions.width.amount
dimensions.length.amount
dimensions.depth.amount
_dimensionUnit
weight.amount weight.unit
_taxes
quantityAvailable
_manufacturerName
_delete - if true, the product is expected to be defined in the system and should be deleted from the site.

An empty CSV that you can start from is included in the Start Site zip.

If you have an external inventory management systme, it can be much easier to maintain your product list in Excel, and update quantity available through a spreadsheet, and then do a product import of a CSV that has just partId and quantityAvailable. Sometimes the external inventory system can be configured to deploy such a CSV.

If can also be easier to hand populate an Excel spreadsheet of product info from external sources (copy paste, export to CSV, etc) and build up a master product spreadsheet than it is to hand enter all the products into the site using the product management admin page.

Shipping Rate Tables

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:09:51 +0800

Shipping rate tables let you setup shipping prices based on the location of the delivery and box being used. This is a good alternative to using automated delivery providers like FedEx, which calculates the delivery cost for a sales order by using the FedEx api to get a price quote. With the shipping rate table, you can come up with delivery charges that are calculated completely in the site based on the information provided in this admin page.

On the left side of the page is a list of defined rate tables. A single rate table defines one delivery option that can be shown to the user during checkout. You can define as many rate tables as you want.

To create a new rate table, use the add button in the main toolbar on top. This will clear out the fields in rate tables details area so that you can define it. Once you’ve completed filling out the fields, use the update button to save your changes to the site.

NOTE: Before you can create any rate tables, you need to define the shipping companies you use as contacts in the contacts admin page first so that you can select the shipping company in the rate table details. You also need to define the boxes that you will be using for shipping sales orders in the shipping boxes admin page before creating a new rate table.

You need to provide the following information for each rate table defined:

Name – A description shown to the user as the option during checkout. For example, USPS Ground or ACME Freight.
Shipping Co – This is a dropdown field of contacts that are typed as “shipping company”. You need to defined the shipping company that you are using for the delivery in the contact management page before defining the rate table.
Rate Type - A dropdown field containing two choices:
- Destination Country – The rate is based on their location, starting with what country they are located in. In order for the delivery option defined by this rate table to be offered to the user during checkout they must at least live in the countries defined in the facets area of the rate table definition.
- Distance From Buyer – The rate is based on the distance between the address you define for where you ship your products and them, based on the distance provided by the Google Map API. You can define a list of distances in the delivery option facets area below. If the sales order delivery location is further away than the furthest distance offered, the delivery option will not be shown to the user.

Delivery Option Boxes

This section shows a grid of boxes defined in your site. If this grid is empty it is because you have not defined the boxes you use in the Shipping Boxes admin page first. For each box defined, you can use the editable fields in grid.

Use – This is a checkbox column, which if checked means the box will be used for the rate table. If this is not checked, that box will not be used by this rate table for a delivery.
Priority – A number from 1 to 3 indicating what priority this box has for being used to calculate the order. 1 indicates it will be used first while 3 indicates it will be used only if needed based on the size of items (good for big boxes). See the Shipping Boxes admin page help for more information about this value.
Max – A decimal value for the maximum weight that should be packed into the box.
Weight – A dropdown column to pick either pounds or kilos for the max weight value.
Cost – The rate to charge for this box. This rate is a flat rate for the box regardless of how much it does actually weight.

Delivery Option Facets

A rate table delivery option can have multiple facets or aspects to it that help guide its price. Each facet can have both a fixed add on price, such as $5.00 and/or a % of cost which is a % of the total sales order. You don’t have to define an additional marketup, but you need at least one facet for the delivery option to work properly. The exact way in which the facet is used is based on the rate type chosen.

Destination Country Facets

When the rate type is based on destination country, there can be multiple countries that each have an addition cost added onto it. For example, you may have a shipping company you use to ship orders to Europe from the USA. Each country within Europe may have additional charges on top of the base price for the box price listed in the delivery boxes grid.

The Max and Distance columns are not used for destination country facets.

Distance From User Facets

For distance from buy rate types, you can have multiple distances, such as 5 miles, 10 miles and 15 miles out. Each distance has an additional surcharge added to the order.

Payment Processors

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 15:36:33 +0800

If you have products that have a price, you need to define at least one payment method for your site to use or your users will not be able to checkout properly. The only time a user can check out is when their cart has items in it that have no cost.

The left side of the page is a read only grid showing a list of every defined payment processing configured in the site, even those not configured. You can configure which payment options you want the user to be able to pick from during check out in this page.

The grid has columns showing how each payment processor is configured. By default no payment processors are configured for use. The columns show the following information:

Def – If checked, the payment processor has defined values for the site in the database.
Use – If checked, the payment processor is in use and will be considered for offering to the user during checkout. Depending on the user and options set for the payment processor, a user may not be shown the option.
Test – If checked, the payment processor is in its “test mode” and will not actually process the payment so that money is be transferred. Each payment process should have the option to be used in test mode so that you can validate your configuration before going live.
Name – The name of the payment processor as defined by it. The default deployment of Syrinx CS comes with a handful of payment processors, but new 3rd payment processors can be written and added to this list.

Payment Processor Details Area

The right side of the page shows the details of the selected payment processor in the grid. Each payment processor will have its own options and directions on how to configure it.
Each payment processor can be configured for what type of users can pick it as an option during checkout. Using the radio buttons shown in the image below, you can control the access.

The default is to allow all users to be able to pick the option during checkout. If you select the radio button to only let certain user groups use the option, a checkbox list of the currently defined user groups appears below it. You can then check as many user groups as you want to have access to this option during checkout.

Approval or denial of the transaction by the payment processor is used to control checkout completion.

Generic CC Collection Processor

This payment processor is used to collect basic credit card information from the user, but doesn’t actually validate the credit card other than basic known lengths and other formatting information as well as the expiration date being in the future.

This is a good payment choice when you just want to collect the information so that you can process it some other way later. An example is when you don’t ship the product and the user has to go to the location of the product to pick it up and pay for it then. In that type of situation, the credit card is used to help affirm the user’s commitment to the purchase. This is especially good in situations where the final price is very likely to change at the last point of pickup and purchase.

PayPal Express Checkout Processor

This allows customers to use their PayPal account to pay for the sale. The user is redirected to the PayPal website where they can pick their funding source, validate the order and even change the shipping address.

You need to provide the PayPal merchant information provided by them including:

API Username
API Password
API Signature

PayPal Credit Card Processor

This allows customers to pay with their credit card directly on the site, without ever navigating to the PayPal site. Customers do not have to have a PayPal account to use this option, just a valid credit card accepted by PayPal.

You need to provide the PayPal merchant information provided by them including:

API Username
API Password
API Signature

Intuit QBMS Payment System Processor

This allows customers to pay with their credit card directly on the site, without ever navigation away from the site during the transaction.

You need to go through a fairly elaborate process to get the Intuit payment processor working, which is due to the way Intuit manages their security. The details area shows two links to the Intuit merchant site to initiate the process. One is for getting a “connection ticket” for production usage, and one is for getting a “connection ticket” for testing usage.

Once you go the the Intuit process, you end up with two pieces of information needed for the processor to work properly on the site.

QBMS App ID
QBMS Connection Ticket

Authorize.Net Payment System Processor

This allows customers to pay with their credit card directly on the site, without ever navigation away from the site during the transaction.

Authorize.Net is currently one of the most credit card processing systems available. You can easily signup for an account on their site, which you are then given the two pieces of information needed to use the system. You can get a test id without needing to go through the merchant approval process, which is a great way to test your site checkout process before going live.

Login ID
Transaction Key

Sales Orders

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 14:50:15 +0800

When a user put their first item into their online cart, a sales order is created. The state of the sales order is set to "in progress" until they start the checkout process, which sets the state of the sales order to "in checkout" and if they complete the checkout, the state of the sales order is set to "checkout completed".

For sales orders that do not involve physical products you may not need to do anything after a checkout has happened. For sales orders that do have physical processing, you may have several steps to fulfill the order such as waiting for an order from your vendor or actually shipping the order.

You should use the sales order admin page to review and process your orders. When you do something significant to the sales order like ship the products, you should update its status so that the customer can be notified of updates to their order.

On the left side of the admin page is the sales order grid with the latest orders on the top. The grid shows the following columns:

Date - the date the customer completed the initial puchase.
Order # - the sales order #.
User name - the login I'd of the user when they did the purchase. If anonymous purchases are allowed then this would show anonymous.
Order contact - the name supplied for the deliery contact.
Status - the current status of the invoice.

As you select sales orders in the grid, its details are shown in the tab area on the right side of the page.

Order Details Tab

This area shows the main details of the sales order. You can edit only some of the items on this page. The status and contact info can be changed. Everything else is readonly.

The sales order item grid shows the items purchased in the order and their quantities. Selecting an item in the grid will display its details below that, including any option form information.

The contact information shows the name and location they want their order delivered to if they ordered physical products that need delivery. This display always shows all the fields that are available for contact information on a sales order. If you setup the site to show less contact information during checkout, only those fields would be populated by the user. You can control how much contact information you want to get from users in the Site's general settings admin page.

Payment Info Tab

If users can pay for their order during checkout, the payment info tab will show the payment processor used and other information about the transaction such as approval code, date of the transaction and the amount actually approved. You cannot edit this information.

Shipping Info tab

When the sales order has items to be shipped, this tab shows the delivery method they picked, the shipping quote used and the handling fees that were applied. It also shows the shipping boxes used for the order in the shipping box grid on the left side on the tab area. As you select a box from the order, the items that were calculated to go in that box are shown.

It is good to pack the order as shown in this tab area. As long as the dimensions and weight of the products are accurate, the boxes it recommends to use should be the right way to pack it. If one box out of several is lost during shipping, you can use this information to help determine what was lost out of the order.

Site Access Log

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:42:18 +0800

Site Sync

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:41:11 +0800

General Site Settings

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:40:55 +0800

User & User Group Management

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:38:28 +0800

RSS Channel Management

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:36:56 +0800

Event Notification Management

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:33:09 +0800

User Flow Response Review

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:28:26 +0800

Contact Import / Export

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:26:46 +0800

Backup Restore Site

Sat, 14 Jan 2012 09:19:54 +0800

Child Sites

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:26:37 +0800

Use this page to manage child sites within your main Syrinx CS site. Each child site has its own set of content, security, and other data as well as the ability to have a different theme choice than the main site or other child sites.

With this page you can:

Create new child sites with minimal starting data
Clone existing child site into a new site
Delete child sites

User Content Flows

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:25:59 +0800

You can define multi step surveys, tests and training courses that users can then take by following links offered on your site.

Discounts, Fees and Taxes

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:32:47 +0800

There are several things that are involved with calculating the price paid for products and the total price at checkout time. This page consolidates the taxes, discounts, and fees into one admin page. Once they are defined here, they can be applied to products sold on the site.

Note, this documentation should in no way be seen as tax advice or how to properly apply taxes for your specific area and products. If you are not sure about what taxes apply to you, you should probably seek the consultation of a tax expert.

Taxes Grid

You can define multiple levels of taxes that can apply so that a given product can be eligable for one or more taxes to be applied to it. You might not need to apply any taxes to your products, or maybe you need to support regional taxes based on where the puchase is delivered to.

Some products have different tax rates because of the nature of the product such as tobacco. There are products that need more than one tax applied to it like a hotel room for example. Each country has their own specific requirements for how taxes are applied to online sales.

The grid supports direct edit and has a blank row at the end of the list for adding new tax definitions. Adding a new tax definition here does not apply it to any products. You must edit the product (or do an import) to assign it to the taxes that apply to it.

Name - the name to use for the tax when displaying to users.
Fixed adding - a fixed currency amount to add to the cost of the product. Can be zero.
% of cost - a decimal value that represents the tax rate to apply against the product.
Calculation bizrulebizrule - this is a dropdown of defined rules written in code that can help to do the tax calculation. Syrinx CS does not come with any built IME tax calculations, but you can build your own to fit your needs.

Quantity Discounts Tab

You can define multiple quantity Discounts that can than be applied to products. You typically define a min quantity and price break together and if you have multiple levels of quantity Discounts you can apply more than one quantity discount per product.

For example you can define a 2% discount for quantities greater than 5, and also define a 4% discount for quantities over 10. Both of those can be applied to the same product. Syrinx CS will pick one discount that applies based on quantity. In this example if they buy less than 5 they get no discount. If they bet 5 to 9 they get 2% discount. If they buy 10 or more they get a 4% discount on the items.

Name - the name displayed to users for this discount.
Quantity - the minimum quantity they must buy of one item to get this discount.
Fixed discount - a decimal currency value to deduct as a whole, not per item.
% of cost - a % of the sale price of the product to deduct from the price of the items.
Calculation rule - a dropdown list of known quantity discount bizrules to pick from. Syrinx CS does not come with any bizrules for this but you can write one to meet your specific needs. This will calculate the exact discount to apply.

Discount Codes Tab

You can define codes that can be applied at checkout to apply a discount. You apply discount codes to specific products and if the user puchases the product and applies the discount code, they get that discount. Applying the code to products not using the code will result in no discount being applied.

Name - the name displayed to users for this discount.
Code - the unique text code you make up that must be typed in by the customer to get this discount.
Fixed discount - a decimal currency value to deduct as a whole, not per item.
% of cost - a % of the sale price of the product to deduct from the price of the items.
Calculation rule - a dropdown list of known coded discount bizrules to pick from. Syrinx CS does not come with any bizrules for this but you can write one to meet your specific needs. This will calculate the exact discount amount to apply.

Handling Fees Tab

Sometimes you want to be able to apply an added handling fee for specific shipping provider delivery methods. In cases where the exact shipping amount is calculated based on number, size and weight of the boxes needed to ship the order, an added handling fee can be added in to help cover extra costs associated with shipping that way.

Shipping Provider - A drop down edit field containing the list of shipping providers in use by the system. If you don't see a particular mode of shipping that you think you should, its probably because you didn't set it up as an option for the company. Setup the shipping providers and delivery methods before setting up handling fees.
Delivery Method - The specific method of delivery offered by the provider that this handling fee will apply to.
Fixed Fee - a decimal currency value to add onto the sales order.
% of cost - a % of the total sales order cost to add onto the sales order.
Calculation rule - a dropdown list of known handling fee calculation bizrules to pick from. Syrinx CS does not come with any bizrules for this but you can write one to meet your specific needs. This will calculate the exact handling fee to add onto the sales order.

Regional Taxes Tab

Depending on your taxable regions are, you should define the list of regions that you want to charge sales taxes for. This breaks down into a country, with optional state/province, city, and postal code. For example, you could have a regional tax for all of Canada regardless of location within the country, but have another regional tax for Washington State in the USA. If needed you can specify the tax down to a specific range of postal codes.

When you define multiple regional taxes that overlap a given area, the regional tax that most applies will be applied. Only one regional tax will be used for the sales order. For example, if you define a tax for Washington State of 9% and Seattle of 9.5%, a sales order being delivered to Seattle will get 9.5% applied while everyone else in Washington State will get 9%.

Country - A drop down of countries to pick which is involved with this regional tax. Required to be set.
State/Province - A state or province within the given country that the tax will apply to. Optional to be set.
City - A specific city within the state/province that the tax will apply to. Optional to be set, but if it is set, the State/Province field must also be set.
Postal Code Range - A comma delimited list of postal codes that the tax will apply to. Optional to be set, but if it is set, the City and State/Province fields must also be set.
% of cost - a % of the total sales order That the tax should be applied against.

Shipping Boxes

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:32:23 +0800

The shipping boxes admin screen is used to define the boxes you normally use to ship your products in. This, along with defining the dimensions and weight of the products, allows Syrinx CS to calculate the best way to ship the products for a given sales order.

On the left side of the display is a grid list of boxes defined for the site. The grid is editable and will add a blank row at the end of the list for adding a new box. You need to define all the dimensions and max weight for the box to be used in the sales order shipping calculations.

The units of measure for the dimensions are inches, centimeters and hundreds of an inch.

Max volume % is a decimal value up to 100 that is how much the box should be filled by the sales order shipping calculations. Typically, a box should not be set to 100% capacity as you will need space for packing materials. Reasonable values are between 50 to 90%, which you will need to evaluate over time based on how actual box packing is working out.

Shrinkage is used to help reduce the actual size of the box for packing. Depending on the given site, sometimes it is better to calculate a box size that is 1 inch smaller than the actual box.

For more information about how boxes are used during the checkout process, and how sales order shipping calculations are done, please review the Syrinx CS Sales Order Shipping documentation in the Admin User Guide.

Delivery Provider Box Options

For each delivery provider you have defined for use by the site for sales orders, you need to define which boxes are used and the priority of the boxes usages for sales orders.

As you select a box in the grid on the left, the list of delivery providers shown on the right is updated with the box’s usage with that delivery provider. Sometimes only a subset of boxes in the list are available for a given delivery provider.

The following options need to be set for each delivery provider:

Use Box – A checkbox to indicate if the box should be used by this delivery provider.
Priority – This is a numeric dropdown from 1 to 3 which helps determine if it will be used as an initial choice by the sales order shipping calculations. 1 means that it will be used as a first choice, 3 meaning it will only use the box if the product is too big to fit within a #1 or #2 box.
Max Weight – A decimal value for the max weight that should be placed in the box for this provider. A given provider may define max weight capacity for a given box size.
Max Weight Unit – The unit of measure for the max weight, either pounds or kilograms.

Product Option Forms

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:31:22 +0800

Slide Show Editor

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:30:57 +0800

Once you start editing a slide show, you will be navigated to the slide show editor page, which allows you to edit the slides that will make up the slide show.

At the top of the page is the slide filmstrip, which displays the slides in the order that they will be displayed in. You can drag the slides to the position you want and drop them, which pushes the slide into the location.

The Add Slide button is actually a drop down button to select a type of slide to create. The following types are supported:

Image – The background of the slide will be an image picked from a media library.
Flash Movie – The background of the slide will be a flash flv movie. Syrinx CS will provide the proper flash SWF to play the movie while the slide is visible.

Once you’ve selected the type of slide to create, the slide details area on the left side can be used to provide the needed information.

The important field to set is the image property using the “set” button which will show the media library popup to pick the image to use for the background. If using the flash type, pick the flash FLV from the file system. All the other fields are optional.

The slide details fields are:

Title – The title for the slide. Certain slide show styles will display this in some way while the slide is visible.
Summary – The summary for the slide. As with the title, certain style of slide shows will display this while the slide is visible. One typical usage for the title and summary is to have them slide in over the background image/flash video from top and bottom and be a transparent block to read them.
Navigate – If provided, the slide becomes an anchor which when the user clicks on it will navigate to this url.
Only Show Slide Once – If checked, this slide will only be showed one time for the given browser session. This can be good for slides that show involved notices or flash videos that have a presentation that should not be shown to the user over and over again. As the slide show loops through the slides over and over, this succeeding loops through the slides will not include this slide again.
Slide Transition – The way in which the slide will be hidden and the next slide shown. This will override the default value specified for the slide show in the slide show manager page. The options include fade and slide.
Transition Time – The time the slide transition will take to complete. The best time to use will be highly dependent on the contents of the slide. Certain image slides look best when a very long transition time (2 to 3 seconds) is used, while other images look best when the transition happens very quickly (200 ms).
Slide display Time – The time in which the slide will be display before transitioning to the next slide. This will override the default value set at the slide show level.

Slide Layers

A slide can also have one or more layers that display above the slide while it is showing. These layers can container html, including images. The layers can also be animated so that they move and do other transitions during the time the slide is displayed.

Use the Layer Details tab to show the fields to edit the selected layer.

Use the Add Layer button to create a new layer. When the first layer is created, the layer timeline display will show below the slide display area.

Each layer is shown in the timeline as a double edged slider. The left most slider tab is the start time that the animation will start. The right most slider tab is the end time the animation will complete. These times are relative to the overall time the slide is visible. If the slide will be shown for 8 seconds, then the timeline is from 0 to 8 seconds.

Each layer in the timeline has a detailed editing form which can be shown by toggling the arrow button just to the left of the slider.

Layers are always visible unless positioned outside of the visible slide area. When you click on the left slider handle for the start time, the layer is position to its start location in the slide display area. You can drag the layer to the position you really want it to start at using the green grabber handle of the layer.

When you click on the right slider handle for the end time, the layer is moved to the location the slide will animate to. After selecting the right slider handle, drag the layer in the slide display area to the location you want it to move to, which can also be off the edge of the slide area.

Only one layer is displayed in the slide display area at a time. To select the current layer, select the layer in the layer timeline display.

Editing layer contents

The layer is contained within its defined size. You can see this size by its dashed outline. You can drag the bottom right side of the layer edge to resize it as needed.

Click within the layer area to get the edit cursor to appear. Sometimes it is necessary to click in the top left more section of the layer when there is no content in it yet.

Once the layer has focus, you can type content, or use the layer toolbar to style content or insert objects like images. The layer toolbar is very limited at this time.

Warning: It is important to edit a slide separately from edits to its layers. Don’t move a slide and edit its fields and also edit its layers before saving the slide. There are a few bugs related to complex editing scenarios like this. Future updates to Syrinx CS should resolve these issues.

Slide Show Management

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:30:46 +0800

Slide shows are able to be grouped into folders to help organize them. If you will only have a few slide shows then you don't need to create any folders. Some sites could have dozens or even hundreds of slide shows and folder organization can be helpful.

The slide shows are shown in a tree grid control on the left side of the control panel. As you select slide shows in the grid, its details are shown to the side.

The details are shown in two tabs. The first tab shows the main article content. Many times this article content isn't used as the slide show is setup to play directly in a page. However for sites that have many slide shows or if slide shows are used as presentations the main article content can be used in list displays.

Details tab

the slide show details help control how the slide show will behave when being viewed. The following fields let you configure how the slide show will behave:

Default background size - this is the size that the slide show should be displayed as. When you edit the slides in slide show editor this is the size it will be displayed at. Note that the slide show player can over ride this value and show it with its own specified size.
Initial time delay - this value is used when the page showing the slide show is navigated to. It can be helpful to have a delay while the page is loading.
Automatically start - if selected, the slide show will start playing on its own when the page loads. Otherwise the user will need to use the play button to start (or use next/prevent buttons to manually go through the slides).
Loop slide show playback - if true the slide show will loop back to the fist slide and keep playing until manually stopped.
Default slide show transition - unless specified for a specific slide, this is the transition that will be used from one slide to the next. Choices include fade and slide.
Transition time - the time the slide transition will take. the best time to use will depend on the specific slide show.
Default slide display time - Unless specified for a specigicslide, the amount of time the slide will be displayed before transitioning to the next slide.
Pause slide / mouse inside - when set, putting the mouse visor inside the slide area will pause the slide until the mouse leaves. This can be good for slides showing interactive content or complex information.

Use the edit slide show slides button, contained in the details tab, to navigate to the slide show editor.

Site Downloads

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:30:33 +0800

Use the Site Downloads file system admin page to manage content that should be downloaded by the user rather than viewed directly in the browser. Syrinx CS manages the http headers served by the site for files from the cache so that browsers will want to download them rather than display them. For example, a PDF put in the file system will show links that ask the user to download the file. If you put the same PDF file in the root of the website itself, the browser would probably try to display the PDF inline within it like you navigated to the contents of the PDF.

Video files are a special type of media that is managed by both a file system location and a media library. The video files are stored in their own file system cache which allows Syrinx CS to let you download the video (if you want to allow that), but also it is available as a media item in a media library, which can be streaming video.

the admin toolbar contains the file system cache drop down, while the main area shows the directories and files for the selected file cache.

Because each file cache has its own security privilege, you may want to have multiple media cache so that you can have some files downloadable only by certain users.

The tree view of directories is shown on the left side. As directories are selected, its details are shown to its right which is broken down into 4 tabs.

Directory files tab

The main area of the tab is used for the file grid which shows the following columns:

You can select multiple files in the grid anesthesia then use the delete button to remove the file. Note, the is no undelete or recycle bin for deleted files.

You can also move selected files with the move files to drop down just above the files grid.

Upload files tab

Similar to media gallery upload tab, you can pick one or more files to upload using the file upload fields.

Directory info tab

you can create, delete and update directories in this tab.

To add a new directory:

Select add button
Type direcory name in name field
pick parent directory in parent drop down
Select update button

To update a directory:

If needed, change the name of the directory
If needed, change the parent folder to move the directory.
Select the update button

Cache info tab

You can create, delete and update file caches in this tab.

When creating a new file cache, its name must be unique to all other caches in the site. security settings are set in the central security management page.

The only thing you can change about the file cache in this tab is it's name.

User Response Inbox

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:30:14 +0800

Site Pages

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:25:24 +0800

Product Recycle Bin

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 05:16:52 +0800

Article Recycle Bin

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 21:22:35 +0800

When you delete an article in other areas of the admin panal or inline editing, the article is put into a recyle bin rather than really being deleted. The files are not searchable or displayed in lists by users of the site.

You can recover articles in the recycle bin to bring it back using this admin page. You can also perminantly delete specific articles or delete all items in the article recycle bin. Once you delete an article from the recycle bin it is truely deleted from the site.

The grid on the left shows the list of articles in the recycle bin. As you click on the articles in the grid, it is displayed in a read only view on the right. You cannot edit articles here.

Use the delete button to delete the selected article.

Use the empty recycle bin button to delete all articles.

Planning Your Ecommerce System in Syrinx CS

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:03:30 +0800

The ecommerce system in Syrinx CS is a combination of many different features that together make up for a powerful product, though still a bit rough around the edges. It has some interesting abilities like calculating the boxes needed to ship a given order and the ability to attach product options forms amongst others.

Products

The core element of the ecommerce features is the Product. A product is based on an Article from the CMS of Syrinx CS. There are sites in production with over 25 thousand products using Syrinx CS, but you can also easily use it to sell only one product.

As with Articles, Products are managed in a tree structure. You could just have a flat list of products without the tree, which is fine when you only have a few products. If you start to have over a handful of products, you can create “store departments”, which let you organize products within them. Store departments can contain store departments such that the depth of the tree can get deep.

The organization you use should be what feels most natural for how you would like to see them organized for administration. This organization can be used for shopping pages for site users, but you can also have custom category names that you apply to products which can also be used for public displays.
For example, if you sell technology equipment, you might prefer to organize departments for vendors, then have departments for product type such as hard drives, laptops, etc. However, you can also have a category called hard drive, which you apply to products that are hard drives. Then you can easily have a display of all hard drives from all vendors.

Product Types

You can sell Physical products that have to be shipping in boxes and delivered, or have in store pickup options. These types of products should have dimensions if you want to use shipping providers like Fedex which offer live shipping quotes. If you mail your product and different orders can use different amounts and types of boxes based on what they order and quantity, then you need to get that quote from the delivery provider like Fedex so you can quote the shipping costs in the check out process.

You can also sell products that are not physical, like site memberships or downloads. Site memberships can be setup as products so that the user picks their membership and goes through the checkout process. After they have paid, the site will create an account with the site access and privileges specified by the product definition.

Product Pricing

Each product should have a price from zero to whatever the price needs to be. Prices with zero for the price will allow the user to checkout without having to provide a payment provider.

If all your products are priced at zero, and you use displays that don’t show a price, you can use the ecommerce system for an online quote system where the users doesn’t have to pay anything during checkout.

You can also set a list price versus a sell price so that a product can show a display that indicates there is a sale price or discounted price.

Product Categories

Building custom categories specifically for products allows not only for lists of products to be organized by category, but also allows for custom fields. As an example, if you were selling computer hard drives, you could define a category called hard drive, then add custom properties to the category such has the drive’s RPM, interface type, size, etc. Then you can show these properties in grouping displays such that products with the same RPM are shown grouped together.

Product Management

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 18:18:50 +0800

The product management admin page is the main place to create, update, and delete products to be sold online.

On the left side is the product tree showing all the products defined in the site. Just above that is the product list filter which lets you search for specific products. The product department only checkbox will toggle the visibility of products in the tree so that you can see only product department nodes in the tree.

The tree displays products within their department structure. Departments help to organize your products in a way that is more natural for managing them. Departments are a grouping mechanism, but they can also be used to public pages to display the products from a particular department. You don’t need to create departments and can just have one flat list of all products. When you have over a dozen items or so, departments can be very helpful for managing them.

As you select products in the tree, its details are shown on the right side. The product details area is broken up into 4 tabs.

Description Tab

Products are based on articles, and the details tab let's you setup the title, summary, image, and body of the product or category.

Product types

One of the important fields on the Description tab is the type field. This defines how the product is displayed or if it’s a category of products.

Default - this is a general product that can be put in the shopping cart and purchased. This is the most common value to use.
Store department - This should be used to organize the site's products in a way that is most natural for managing them.
Bundled - the product can be purchased, but it is actually a bundle of products that define it
W/ options - the product itself is not able to be puchased, but its children are shown as options that can be purchased. This is a good choice for products that have various options like a mug with differt colors, each mug color is a separate child option product with its own pricing.
Option - the product is purchasable but is meant to be shown in relationship to its parent and sibling options for the product.

Product Parent

In order to properly place the product within the product tree, you should pick a product parent. Most likely this will be a store department, but for option type products, the “with options” product would be the parent.

Details Tab

The details tab is where the main product values, such as pricing and size information is provided.

Part number - The site's specific part number. This part number is sometimes used forward backend processing, such as user membership products that create new user accounts. Details of the part number are used to define the privileges of the new account. For physical products, this is typically used for display only.
Manufacturer part number - This is a place to put the manufacturer number if you want to display it to the user or have it be searchable by part number.
List price - This price is used against sale price to show discounts. You can leave this field blank and only the sale price is shown to users.
Sale price - The price that the item will sell for on the site. You can leave this price at zero for free products.
Quantity available - The quantity of the product you have on hand for sale. As users check out this number is reduced. If this value is zero the user cannot add the item to the cart and will show that the product is unavailable. if set to -1 then there is no quantity check and users can buy as many as desired. When the product quantity is zero, the public pages showing products will not have the display to add the item to the cart and will display an “unavailable” message.
Weight - The first field is the decimal value for the weight. The second field can be set to pounds, kg, or gram.
Length, width, depth - These thee fields are decimal values used for the size of the box the product is.
Dimension unit - The unit of measure can be inches or meters.

Note that the dimensions and weight are normally shown to the user in product detail views. However, Its most important use is to calculate how to ship an order. The size helps determine what shipping boxes to use and what items can be packed into a given box.

Product taxes - if no taxes have been defined then the list is empty, otherwise it will show a list of checkboxes. Pick which taxes are applicable to the product. You must first define which taxes apply to your site in the “discounts and taxes” admin page.

Quantity price discounts - if no discounts have been defined this list will be empty, otherwise it will show a list of checkboxes. Pick which quantity discounts you want to be available. You must first define which taxes apply to your site in the “discounts and taxes” admin page.

Coded price discounts - if no discounts have been defined this list will be empty, otherwise it will show a list of checkboxes. Pick which coded discounts you want to be available. You must first define which taxes apply to your site in the “discounts and taxes” admin page.

Categories Tab

This area will show any categories that are available for the product to be tagged with. If a product is tagged with a category and the category has custom properties, then this tab will also show those as fields to provide values.

Note that when you first tag a product with a category that has custom properties, the custom property fields won't display until you save the product. This leads to a two step process where you select the categories, then save, then you will see the custom properties and can provide values, then save again.

You can use categories to help create displays on public pages. For example, if you created a category called “just arrived”, you could also have a page that displays only products in the just arrived category.

Shipping Tab

At the top of the tab area is the shipping option dropdown, which lets you pick how the product is shipped. Options include:

Not Shippable Product – Use this for non-physical products like downloads, site membership and other things that don’t ship.
Box w/Other Products – Use this for products that will ship in the boxes that you use to ship with. Typically you will have a set of box sizes that you use to fulfill orders.
Product is Shipping Box – For products that you will send directly in the box the product was sent by the vendor.
Use Custom Shipping Boxes – Sometimes you may have special boxes only used for one product, and a single product may need more than one box to ship. The shipping box calculates used for a sales order are not capable of recognizing that a single product can be broken up into multiple boxes. An example of such a situation would be a large book set, like an encyclopedia that needs several boxes to be shipped.

When use custom shipping boxes is chosen, you can provide the list of boxes and their sizes in the grid shown in this tab. The grid will always show a blank line at the bottom that you can set values for. Use the save button in the grid’s footer toolbar to save the changes.

Options Form Tab

If you have products that need information from the user to properly ship, then you can use an option form. For example, if you have bracelet that can be engraved, you could define an option form that had a text field for the user to type the text for engraving and a dropdown for picking the font to engrave with.

Pricing BizRule – This is an advanced option for specifying custom code written to help calculate the actual sale price based on the options chosen. Unless you have written your own BizRule, you would leave this blank.
Checkout BizRule – This is another advanced option that is called when the user completes the checkout process. Unless you have written your own BizRule, you would leave this blank.
Must have Form Each Item – If checked and the user buys more than one quantity of the product, they must fill out the form for each item.
Optional – If checked, the user doesn’t have to fill out the option fields.
Form Name – This is a drop down, but also a text box. If you already have an option form defined that you want to use, just pick it from the list and the form will show in the fields. Note that if you change the form here and save it, it will impact all products that use that form.

If you want to define a new form, type a unique name to use.
Form Body – The rich text editor shown on this tab is the main form body that is shown to the user to fill out for the product. This is similar to a regular article in the system and can contain images and other content needed to help explain to the user what to do.

There are special items that can go in here to allow you to show lists of other products, which can be used to help “build a product”. For example, you might have a PC product that has options for what size HD to use, or what CPU to put in. These options can be shown as a list of radio buttons, checkboxes or a drop down. The price of the main product can be changed based on the options chosen.

For example, the base price of the PC may be $500 with no hard drive. The user can pick a hard drive they want, and the price of the drive they pick will be added to the price of the pc. If the hard drive they picked is priced at $150, then the pc price would change to $650.

Article Management

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 03:50:15 +0800

Many times you can edit an article directly in the page it is being displayed in. However, you can use the Article Management administration page to review and edit all of your articles in the system. It is the master view of the Content Management System and gives you access to the full editing options for an Article. The Article Management page does not show the content for products from the ecommerce system or forum posts as those items are edited in their own specialized administration pages.

Site Articles Grid

The articles grid shows a tree like view of all the articles in the site's CMS. Root articles will always be with no indentation in its title. Articles that are children of other articles are indented under the parent article, similar to how windows explorer shows directories from your hard drive.

There are several columns in the Grid to show detailed information about the articles in the CMS, including:

Name - The title of the article, indented based on the parent/child relationship of the articles.
Unique Title - The unique title of the article (discussed in depth below).
Last Updated - The date and time that the article was last updated.
Updated By - The user name of the person that last updated the article.

When you select an article row in the grid, the article details is shown in details are of the page which allows you to edit the article itself.

Article Detail Area

The article detailed editing area has 5 tabs that divide up the fields for editing an article. Above the tab section is the Title and Short title of the selected article. The title is shown as the main H1 title when the article is being displayed in its full details. When the article is being shown in a list, in a menu, or in the cookie crumb display it can use the short title if it has been set. If the short title is not set for an article, the main title will be used.

Article Tab

The article tab shows the core fields of an article, including:

Locked for Reparenting+ - When set, users cannot move the article to another area of the article tree, nor can they delete the article. This is true even if they have the privileges to do so. If a user wants to delete or move an article with this set, they must first uncheck this option. This is typically applied to important parent articles that are referenced on physicial pages for article listings and other usage scenarios.
Unique Title - The unique title of the article is used to make page names when the article is shown in its own page. Every article can be shown as its own page using its unique title by using the URL of http://YourDomainName.com/Articles/UniqueTitle.aspx. You dont need to create a real page for this to work. Syrinx CS will display the article in its full view automatically.
Child Of - This is a smart drop down text field that allows you to set the parent article for the selected article. As you type the title of the parent, a drop down will appear with the articles that match what has been keyed in so far. You can keep typing to shorten the list of options or if you see the article in the drop down list you want to be the parent, you can select that directly in the list.
Type - The article type can be specified if the article is more than a generic article. The type of article drives how it will be shown in the website. For example, if this article will be a photo album, you can pick the photo album type so that when a user views the article, it will be shown in a the photo album format. There are a variety of article types that you can choose from. [URL] to Detailed list and description of article types goes here[/URL].
Keywords - This is an open field of words you can use that are not typically shown to the user viewing the article but are used when the user searches the articles. If you want an article to show up for a specific term that may not be being used in the core article itself, you can key it in here.
Picture Caption - This is a short description of the picture that will be shown under the picture set for the article. When the user views the article in full details, they will see this caption.
Article Summary - This is a short summary description of the article that is typically only shown when the article is displayed in a list of articles. You should not try to use html formatting elements in this field because it could have negative consequences when shown in complex article list displays.
Main Article Content - This is the core body of content for the article, which you can use the powerful HTML editor to create complex layouts. The HTML editor is the open source CK Editor, and has lots of options to help you setup the layout you want. Typically, this content is only shown in full detailed displays, but can be shown in a list of articles too.

You can embed images and video directly into the article body by using the insert media toolbar button. The Syrinx CS popup media selection window will appear, showing you the media you have added to your media libraries. [URL] to help document about the popup media selection goes here[/URL].

When you are making a Photo Album, rather than inserting all the images into the body of the main article, you should create a child article for each image in the album, which will offer the viewer of the album a more robust view of the images you have selected to be in the album.
Picture Display - To the left of the fields like Unique Title, there is an area that shows the primary image for the article. You use the Set Image button to select the image. This is different from embedding images directly within the body of the article, which are intended to be a part of the core content. The primary image of an article doesnt always have to be set, but when it is, its intention is to be used mostly in list displays or for pictures in a photo album. It should represent the overall article. When you view news stories on the various news sites, many times that story also has a single image with a caption that is shown with the overall article. The primary picture of the article is used like that. An article can have a primary picture as well as have multiple images embedded into its body.

Publishing Info Tab

An article will always have an author, based on the original user that created the article. However, sometimes an article is keyed in by one user but was written by someone else. You can use the fields on this tab to set the author name and date the article was really written on for articles like this. For example, if you were copying a letter written by Thomas Jefferson on Jan 12, 1803 you could put that information in the article's publish info fields so that when it was shown to site users they would see "Written by Thomas Jefferson - Jan 12, 1803" rather than the user name of the person that keyed in the letter and the date that it was added into the CMS.

Publish Author - The name that you want to show for who wrote the article.
Publish Date - The date that you want to show for when the article was written.
Displayed Publishing Facts - This is a review display that shows the information that will be used for who wrote the article and when. If the publish information is not set for the article, it will show the user name of who keyed in the article and the date it was created, otherwise it will show the information that was set for the publishing info.

Categories Tab

Advanced Tab

You can setup advanced options for the article in this tab.

Read More Jump - When an article is shown in a list of articles, a menu, or a cookie crumb, it will have a link to navigate to the full detailed view of the article. By default the location would be http://YourDomainName.com/Articles/UniqueTitle.aspx. If you want the URL for the article to be something different, you can key in the URL here. You should use a relative URL, such as /Articles/UniqueTitle.aspx for locations within your website so that you dont have your own domain name embedded in it. However, the link can also go to another site, such as http://SomeOtherSite.com/SomePage.

This can be very useful when you want to have more than one article that summarizes a main article. For example, you might have a list of articles shown on your home page where one article in that list is not the full content for what it is describing. You would use the Read More Jump for that article to specify the actual article you want displayed when the user clicks the read more link.

This can also be very useful for external sites. You could write a list of articles about various related topics, such as your favorite news sites. Rather than have the user navigate to a full story about a given news site where you embedded a link to the news site in the body of that article, you could set the Read More Jump link to the news site. When a user clicks the read more link or title of the article for a given news site in the list, it would just navigate directly to the news site.
System Article - Articles are also used by code within the system to inform the user of something. Typically these articles come with the site already. You can edit the content of these system articles to refine the how these messages are shown to the site users. It is unusual for an end user to create a new article and set it as a System Article because only articles that are actually used by the system should be set as a System Article.
Page Title - When an article is shown in the /Articles/UniqueTitle.aspx view, the page will normally show the full title in the browser's title bar. However, if you want the browser title bar to show something else, you can specify that value in this field. Custom pages have their own process for setting their page title, so this Page Title is typically only used in the standard article view.
Article Meta Tags - When an article is shown in the /Articles/UniqueTitle.aspx view, you can specify the meta tags that will be added in the HTML head section of that page. You can add as many name/value meta tags as you want in this grid. The grid always shows a blank row at the bottom of any meta tags already defined. To add a new row, simply start typing in the Tag Name and Value columns for that row and then hit enter. The new meta tag will be added and another blank row will appear for the next meta tag. You can delete a meta tag by selecting the row and hitting the delete grid toolbar button at the bottom of the grid.

Attachments Tab

Articles can have file attachments, which allow users to download the files. An article can have multiple groups of files, which allow you to organize your file attachments based on security access or just for a general organization based on the type of files you are attaching. For example, you could have a group of file attachments that anyone can download, and another group of file attachments that only users in the "Gold Members" user group can download.

The security for a given file attachment group is based on the first file's file system security level. If the file is in a file system that is available to all users, then the file group will show the Authorized article.[URL]Add link to file system details here[/URL].

This tab shows two grids, the top grid defined the groups of files you want to have. If you have any files attached to the article, there will always be at least one group. The file attachments grid is setup to allow you to pick two other articles to show just above the list of files in that group. The Authorized Article column is the article you want to show above the file list if the user is authorized to download those files, while the Unauthorized Article is the article to show above the file list if the user is not authorized to download those files. This allows you to advertise to the user that they could download those files if they sign up for a membership of some kind.

You dont have to select articles for the file attachment group. You can leave the option on the "- Select Article - " option and when the user views the article they will just see the list of files.

The bottom grid is the list of files that you want to be a part of the selected file attachment group. You can use the Add File button below the grid, which will show a popup window of the file systems in the Syrinx CS site. You can pick a file you've uploaded or upload new files through that popup. [URL]Add Link to file system popup window help here.[/URL]

The Description column in the file grid allows you to specify the text that will be shown for the file link rather than the raw file name. The column is editable, so once you've added the file, you simply click on the row's description cell and start typing. If you leave it blank, the raw file name will be shown to the user to download.

A note about using file attachements through the attachment tabs

You could always embed one ore more links to files in the file system within the body of an article. However, by doing that you rob the theme of the ability to organize the list of files that can be downloaded separately from the body of the article. Also, there is a separate level of security in for the file groups than for the article itself. That means you can let a user see the article, but not download the files. This could be the cause for anonymous users where you want them to sign up in order to download files attached to articles.

Media Gallery

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 02:31:27 +0800

Images and video files stored within the site should be stored within the media library so that it can be managed within the context of its abilities. Articles, and all other data objects that build on top of it have a primary media item and can contain various styles of media items embedded within its body.

The media library management page lets you browser all media libraries defined in your site. Each media library also has its own security privilege that you can define access to for specific types of users.

The list of defined media libraries is shown in the main admin toolbar. The selected media library’s details are shown in the main section of the page.

On the left side is a grid showing the media library directories.

The selected directory is shown in the tabbed content area on the right side.

Directory Media Tab

The selected directory’s media items are shown as thumbnail images.

The images are paged 25 at a time.

You can select multiple media items and either delete them or move them to another directory using the directory drop down within the tab area. Just selecting a directory will trigger the process

Upload Media Tab

A list of file selector fields are shown where you can select one or more media items to upload into the currently selected directory.

Use the Upload now button to start the upload process. When the upload is complete, the tab display will switch back to the Directory Media tab.

Directory Info Tab

You can add, delete, rename and move directories within this tab. As you select directories in the main media library directory grid, the details shown in this tab will change.

If you want to rename the selected directory, simply change the name shown and use the update button.

If you want to delete the current directory use the delete button. There is no recycle bin for media libraries. Once it is deleted, the directory and any images within it are gone.

Cache Info Tab

This tab shows the set of scalings that are defined for the selected media library. Images and videos can be scaled to a given size. These scaled images can also be modified in various ways including adding watermark text or images.

Category Management

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:27:55 +0800

All categories for a site are managed in the Categories admin page. On the left side of the page is a grid containing a list of category groups. A category group is associate with a given article, product, calendar event or contact, which allows the categories defined in the group to be applied to that item and its children.

Selecting a category group will show its details in the category group detail area, where is can be edited. To add a new category group:

Click the “Create new Category Group” button in the main button bar
Type a unique category group name based on the type of element the categories are intended for. For example, articles for a group of developer docs could have a category set named “Developer Topics”.
Pick the type of data element the category group is for in the Associated Type field.
The Auto Populate Categories checkbox is designed to associate data objects that are a part of the category group to specific categories based on content within them. For example, the categories for the Developer Topics group could be associated with keywords that are found within the body of the article without having to manually pick them.
The Default Open Graph Category Name field is used to specify an Open graph category name that is applied automatically to every data object that is part of this category group via a category being applied to it. This is to help sites like Facebook have a deeper understanding of the given data object. For example, if you have a group of articles that are reviews for restaurants, you might set the default open graph category name to Restaurant so that by default all child articles in that group would be setup with that attribute. When the restaurant article is displayed on a page with a like it button, Facebook will know the article is about a restaurant and associate it that way when people use the like it button.
Use the Update button to save the new category group

The categories grid shows only the categories defined in the currently selected group. You can define new categories by typing in the values for the category in the blank row at the bottom of any already defined categories.

Image – Once you’ve selected the blank row, use the set image button in the grid’s footer toolbar. Some displays may use the image when displaying the list of categories a given data object is in.
Display Name – The name to show for the category
Searchable Keywords – The text to search for in an associated data object when the auto populate categories feature is being used. If this is not set, the display name is used as the keyword. You only need to set this if what should be searched for is different than the display name.
In Listings – The default option to show the category when showing the list of categories applied to a given data object. Some categories are used for associates and other things for display formatting. These categories should not be displayed when showing the list of categories a given item is with.
Open Graph Name – If the category name has a relationship to an open graph name, use this to set the open graph name. When this category is applied to an item like an article that is display on a page, the open graph name will be used by Facebook and other sites to categorize the item better.

Category Properties

A category can have a set of custom properties associates with it. When an item like an article is associated with the category, then it can also have values set for the custom properties. For example, the restaurant category could have a custom properly called “has indoor smoking section”. When an item is associated with the restaurant category, it would have a custom field for the “has indoor smoking section” which when editing the item could be set. Public views of the item could show the option so that site users can know that the given restaurant allows smoking inside or not.

You don’t need to define any category properties for a category. You may never use them in a given site. They are very useful for certain types of sites, such as those that do reviews of businesses.

The category properties grid has the following editable columns:

Display Label – The name for the custom property that is shown to uses when they see it and the value for it when associated with a given item like an article.
Name – The JavaScript valid name for this custom property that is used when programming and accessing the properties from code.
Type – A drop down of options that includes:
- Image – The property is set by selecting an image from the media library.
- Article – The property is set by selecting an article from the site. When displayed it would typically be shown as a link to that article.
- Text – Plain text value shown directly as keyed.
- Integer – A numeric value only shown directly.
- Boolean – A true false value, typically shown as a checkbox type display
- Options – A set of choices that can be picked with a drop down control. The selected option is what is shown when a given item is display that has this property applied to it.
- Rating – A values between a low and high (defaults to 1 to 5). The value is typically shown using a rating type control that can pick a value between the given range.
Secure – Indicates if the property should only be shown to authenticated users. Anonymous users will not see the property in displays.

Note that the order the properties are listed in the grid is the order that they will be displayed to unless driven by custom code. Use the up and arrow buttons in the grid’s footer toolbar to change a properties position.

Use the grid footer toolbar delete button to delete the selected property. NOTE: Items that already have values for that property stored in the database will still have those values even though they wont normally be displayed. If you recreate the property, those older values would be shown again.

User Post Filtering

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:09:39 +0800

Site Menus

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 23:09:17 +0800

Advanced System Admin Pages

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:26:20 +0800

Various Other Admin Pages

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:26:09 +0800

ECommerce Admin Pages

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:24:39 +0800

Content Management Admin Pages

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 07:24:30 +0800

Language & Culture Management

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 06:17:35 +0800

Syrinx CS Administration

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 06:13:45 +0800