# VP-ASP Shopping Cart 6.00 Install Document
# Table of Contents Introduction Documentation Installation on Windows Installation on your own PC - Access Database Installation on a Web Hosting Company Installation Problems Diagnostic Tools Administration ## Introduction VP-ASP Shopping cart is one of the most comprehensive e-commerce solutions available anywhere and for any price. It allows you to build an Internet shop that can sell one product or tens of thousands of products. VP-ASP is ready to use and comes with extensive customer facilities for browsing, searching and ordering products. The back end administration allows the merchant to alter and manipulate products, run reports, bulk mail, track and display orders. Installation Summary Installation should only take 5 minutes. When you receive VP-ASP it will be in the form of a zip file. You will need a utility such as WinZip to uncompress the one file into 300+ files. All are files stored in a single folder. This document includes details for Windows both on your local PC and on Windows web hosting company. The VP-ASP Starter Pac for Windows supports Microsoft Access databases. Microsoft SQL Server and MYSQL databases are supported by VP-ASP Value, VP-ASP Plus and VP-ASP Deluxe. ## Documentation The VP-ASP website provides you with a detailed Help section, which includes information on setting up your VP-ASP store, Design Guides and general troubleshooting. Please visit our Help Centre at http://www.vpasp.com/helpnotes. ## Windows PC Install - Access Database Running VP-ASP on your own local Personal Computer First determine what Windows operating system you have. Then determine if you have the appropriate Microsoft prerequisites.
Windows 95/98 | If you have Windows 95/98 VP-ASP requires that you have the free Microsoft product called Personal Web Server (PWS). If you do not have PWS installed, then you must install it. It comes either free on your Windows CDROM or it can be downloaded from the web. Please see http://www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_pws.htm
Windows NT/2K/XP Professional | VP-ASP requires that you have Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS). This is available on the NT or XP CD-ROM.
Windows ME/XP Home | Unfortunately Microsoft has not made available any software that can run ASP on these operating systems. To evaluate VP-ASP you will need to use VP-ASP on your web hosting company.
Steps to install VP-ASP on your local PC Unzip the files to a folder on your hard drive Tell IIS or PWS that this is a virtual directory. See Windows 95/98/NT PWS or Windows XP set-up for the proper way to do this if you have never done it before VP-ASP is installed The next step is to run VP-ASP 1. Start your browser 2. Type http://127.0.0.1/shopping or http://localhost/shopping The 127.0.0.1 is Microsoft's magic number meaning my own personal PC. Shopping is the virtual directory that you created. If you have installed VP-ASP on a web server that has an actual domain name the 127.0.0.1 will be replaced by your normal domain name. If you are using Windows 95/98 and are unsure how to create a virtual directory go to www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_pws For Windows XP Profession go to www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_xpsetup.htm You should now see the default VP-ASP home page Click on the shop button and you should see the demo shop categories. What can go wrong? The most common problems are these: 1. Instead of seeing the shop categories, a program tries to load. This is caused by an incorrect setting of your virtual directory. Please see http://www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_helpme.htm 2. On Windows NT/XP an error occurs trying to write to the supplied VP-ASP Access database. This is because the correct permissions have not been set that allow people from a browser to update the database. Use our diagnostic tool diag_dbtest.asp to test the database and then see our help file at http://www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_databasesetup.htm 3. The Database cannot be opened, You get errors such as ADODB.Recordset error '800a0e7d' The application requested an operation on an object with a reference to a closed or invalid Connection object. See above link on database setup. ## Web Host - Access database If running on your web host, make sure they have the necessary pre-requisites. See www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_hosting.htm Create a folder on your web host. Copy the files from your PC to your web hosting company using your normal FTP tools. such as CuteFTP or WSFTP. Copy the supplied Access database, shopping600.mdb, to a special directory your web host supplies. It cannot be in the same folder as the rest of VP-ASP. Most web hosting companies supply a special database directory since normal directories on a web host are read only. You must edit shop$config.asp to tell VP-ASP where the database is located. See www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_databasesetup.htm To use VP-ASP and see demo shop, use your browser go to the location that you uploaded VP-ASP to (eg. http://www.vpasp.com/demo600/). Now run our supplied diagnostic tool, diag_dbtest.asp. Make sure the database can be read and written. ## ## Administration Shop administration is for the merchant or web developer and not for the customer. The administration facilities include: Details of Administration are in the VP-ASP Merchant's Guide and VP-ASP Developers Guide. shopadmin.asp is the main Administration page. · Add, delete and modify products · Add, delete and modify any other VP-ASP table · Define administrator userids · Define menus and tasks for each administrator · Restrict administrators to viewing or updating specific tables · Display sales reports · Perform searches of the database · Export data from tables · Mail to selected customers · Configure most of VP-ASP options · Send messages to customers via order tracking and much more Two userids are defined: admin with password admin vpasp with password vpasp The first step is to verify the shop works by clicking on the shop. This should bring up the demo categories if the demo store is installed. If you simply want to play with the demo store, it will run immediately and no further configuration is required. To log into VP-ASP Administration, click on the Merchant Administration hyperlink. After you login go to Shop Configuration. Administration is used to: Change the store name and address, e-mail address and more Configure options for taxes, shipping, discounts, product layout, and many other options Which categories and products you have To run sales reports To update any table Turn on or off the hundreds of VP-ASP features using the Shop Configuration ## Customizing VP-ASP VP-ASP "look and feel" are controlled by these files. The VP-ASP Developer's Guide goes into great detail on how to make VP-ASP look any way you want. shoppage_header.htm will be displayed as your top and or top/left navigation bars and logo. shoppage_trailer.htm will be displayed as your bottom navigation bars. shop$colors.asp has much of the HTML generated by VP-ASP shop.css is the style sheet used ## Diagnostic Tools The diagnostic facility, diag_dbtest.asp, can be used to determine if your database and mailing system are working. The fields displayed come from the configuration file shop$config.asp. You can play with different values. If you move the database, we recommend you run this diagnostic tool to verify the database can be read and written to. If diag_dbtest.asp works, you should receive a message such as: VP-ASP Diagnostics 6.00
Database Read | Database can be read
Database Write | Database can be written
Database Permissions | Database permissions tested OK
Summary | No problems reading or writing database
Check the FAQ at www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_databasesetup.htm if you have any problems
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