In order to organize your products by Classes/Sub-Classes, you will need to do the following.
Example:
Main Classes / Sub Classes:
Computers (Main Class)
- Desktops (Sub Class)
- Laptops (Sub Class)
- Accessories (Sub Class)
- Storage Devices (Sub Class)
Step 1
You
will need to create all your sub-classes by going to Classes > Add a
New Class for each sub-class that you would like to add to your site. In our example above, these sub-classes would be “Desktops”, “Laptops”, “Accessories”, & “Storage Devices”.
Step 2
Now
that you have added all the sub-classes to your site, you will need to
go to “Products > View/Edit Product” to ensure that all of your
existing products are placed into the appropriate sub-class. You will notice this by clicking on any of your products and then looking at the “Class” field (Drop-Down Box). You
can select the appropriate class from the drop-down box and then click
on “Update Product” at the bottom of the page when you are done.
Step 3
Now that you are done placing your products into the correct sub-class, you are ready to create your main class pages. To
do this, you will need to click on “Add Page” from your admin area, and
then select “COOL Cart / Catalog” as the page type that you would like
to add to your site. Next, type in a name for your page. You should name your page according to your main classes. For example, in the given scenario above, “Computers” will be the page title. Click on “Add Page” when you are done entering a page title. From the next screen, you will need to select “Class List” from the options given. Finally, click on “Submit” when done.
For each main class that you would like to setup on your site, you will need to repeat the above instructions.
Step 4
You
will now need to add individual catalog pages to your site, for each
sub-class that you have created previously in “Classes > Add a New
Class”. For example, in the scenario above, you
will need to add a new catalog page for each of your sub-classes, which
are “Desktops”, “Laptops”, “Accessories”, & “Storage Devices”.
You can repeat the process from the step above (Step 3) to add each of the individual catalog pages to your site. Once again, you will name your new catalog pages according to your sub-classes.
When
you get to the screen where you can select from the four types of ways
to categorize your products, click on the radio button corresponding to
the "Show Products" choice. Then, select the corresponding class from
the drop down box and leave all other settings intact. For example, if
you named your catalog page "Desktops", you would select "Desktops"
from the list of classes.
Note: when you are finished making your selection, click "Submit" at the bottom of the page.
Repeat Step 4 for each individual (sub-class) catalog page that you would like to add to your site.
Step 5
You
have now setup and configured the catalog pages for your main classes
as well as your sub-classes, and are ready to proceed to the final step. The last step would be to organize your pages into a DHTML Navigation Style. See below for an example of the DHTML concept and how to setup your pages as such.
We
have added a new Drop-Down (DHTML) Menu function to our system. The
DHTML Menu feature will allow you to create a mouse-over type effect
for sub-pages within a main page. For example, lets say you currently
had the following pages listed on the navigation menu on your website:
- Desktops
- Laptops
- Accessories
- Storage Devices
- Computers
Using the new DHTML feature, you can have these pages organized in a drop-down menu style as follows:
- Computers
> Desktops
> Laptops
> Accessories
> Storage Devices
As
you can see, with the above menu structure your clients will
see "Computers" listed on the left navigation menu on your website.
However, when they mouse-over to that page, "Desktops", "Laptops",
“Accessories”, & “Storage Devices” will drop-down as sub-pages.
This effect is very similar to that which is currently in the admin
area of your website. For example, in your admin area, you will notice
that when you mouse-over "Products", you will see sub-pages such as
"Add a New Product" & "Upload a Product Photo".
Using the
< (left) and > (right) arrows next to your page names, in
the "List Pages" section of your admin area, you will be able to
set your pages as sub-pages under main pages. You can still use the up
and down arrows under the "Rank" column to move pages up and down
accordingly.
*Note: In order to use the DHTML feature, you
will need to click on "List Pages" and select the option for "Drop-Down
(DHTML) Menu" under 'Navigation Style" and then click on "Submit"