RealCart U Course: RealCart Templates 101

RealCart Templates 101 - The Basics

The object of this course isn’t to rewrite the RealCart User Manual but rather to pick up where it leaves off. The key to customization is modifying the templates instead of the finished pages.

Making a TEST store

Before we start modifying and customizing everything we should create a test environment to play with instead of trying this with your real store. You may want to make a “Test Store” for the sole purpose of testing your customizations before you make them a part of your live shopping site. This is always a good idea so that you do not accidentally render your existing store unusable. We need to first make a copy of your existing store files. Exit the RealCart Program (if running), minimize (or exit) all of your other open windows and then do the following:

Double-click “My Computer” on your Windows desktop.
Double-click “C:” (or whatever drive you installed RealCart on).
Double-click the “Program Files” folder (or folder where RealCart is installed if not installed to Program Files).
Double-click the “RealCart.com” folder.
Double-click the “RealCart” folder.
Double-click the “Stores” folder.
Locate your store folder (probably My Store).
Make a copy of this folder.
Rename the copied folder: “Test Store”.
Start RealCart and open “Test Store” through the file menu.

After completing these steps you will want to click the Finish button on RealCart’s large toolbar, then click the Advanced button. Now you will want to follow the instructions for publishing to a Test folder as described on this page in the RealCart On-line User Manual. Now we can have some fun without affecting your existing store.

Making a TEST theme

You can make a “Test Theme” by following the “copy theme” instructions on this page under the heading: Make a copy of your theme before you begin. Name the new theme: “Test Theme.” Then switch to this theme by selecting “Test Theme” in the Theme pull-down menu in RealCart. (Switching Themes is explained in detail at the bottom of this page in the RealCart User Manual.) After you make your Test Theme please click the View Cart button on the RealCart large toolbar. Now click the Template Folder link and your current template folder will appear.

Rename your existing catalog.html file

Locate the file in your current template folder called catalog.html and rename it to catalog.bak.html. This way we can save this file for use later. For now we want to rename it as a way of making a backup copy of the file so we can put another file in its place temporarily. We’re going to start out with a very simple file also called catalog.html.

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