Themes: Dynamic Content

Pixel Cart is one smart system. When you start to create your own theme, there are a couple of useful things to to bear in mind...

1. To customise the template for your store, open the skins/default/ folder on your PC/Laptop/Mac and edit the .tpl template files

2. The first files you need to open with your code editing program are outline.tpl, welcome.tpl, style.css and layout.css. All pages are displayed through the {$main_body} variable within outline.tpl but outline.tpl will be the containing template file.

3. You can use the JQuery UI Theme Roller ( http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/ ) to create a custom UI theme in order to style any tabs, accordions or buttons. Simply upload any images to the skins/default/images folder, and replace the skins/default/jquery-ui-1.8.16.custom.css file with the CSS file that the Theme Roller gives you. All Javascript (.js) files are already in your system (see etc/js/ folder) and you wont need to re-upload them.

For assistance with any aspect of our software, and to get a quick response to any questions or suggestions, you can contact us any time . We offer 24/7 support on our Pixel Cart software.

Variables

You can add the following variables to the template files in order to create a theme for your site. The following examples can all be used within outline.tpl and some can be used in other .tpl files too:

Display the logo, as uploaded in Core Settings

	
		{$company_logo}
	

This will display the variable header banner, you can set it as an image, or code to show Google adverts.

	
		{$header_adsense_code}
	

This informs a visitor of how many items have been added to their cart.

	
		{$cart_status}
	

This will show a dynamic menu of any pages (and sub pages) or even forms that you choose to display.

	
		{$page_menu}
	

This variable shows any slideshow images you have uploaded, you can use the standard JQuery Cycle plugin or another to animate the transitions.

	
		{$content}
	

This will display any categories which you have at your store. The list will show any sub-categories too once an item is clicked.

	
		{$category_list}
	

This variable will show a list of news articles. You can determine how many items appear in your shop settings.

	
		{$site_news}
	

Display a tag cloud! The words are taken from page data at your site and when clicked, perform a search. The size of the words are determined by the frequency that they occur in your database.

	
		{$tag_cloud}
	

This variable changes depending on the page that the visitor is viewing.

	
		{$main_body}
	

This will display the variable footer banner, you can set it as an image, or code to show Google adverts.

	
		{$footer_adsense_code}
	

This will show the Shop Name / Site title as defined in Core Settings.

	
		{$site_name}
	

Display the amount of people that are online and looking at the site.

	
		{$number_of_online_users}
	

Show a system message, to help the user validate a form or to inform of the status of their last action. You can style this however you want, inline or as a modal.

	
		{$system_message}