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.
VP-ASP for Windows databases are Microsoft Access,
Microsoft SQL Server and MYSQL.
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.
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.
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$config.asp to tell VP-ASP where the database is
located. See www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_databasesetup.htm
- To use VP-ASP and see demo shop, use your browser
go to the location that you uploaded VP-ASP to (eg. http://www.vpasp.com/demo600/).
- Now run our supplied diagnostic tool,
diag_dbtest.asp. Make sure the database can be read and
written.
SQL Server is a complex Microsoft software product.
From the VP-ASP point of view it is very simple to use.
The steps in using SQL Server are:
-
Create the SQL Server database. This
can be done using SQL Server's Query analyzer or it
may have been created for you by your web hosting
company
-
Add the VP-ASP Tables
-
Load the configuration table with default values
-
Optionally add the demo shop values
Web Hosting company has created the database
If your web hosting company has already created the database and you DO NOT have the ability to use Query Analyzer, then VP-ASP supplies a tool called
convertsql.asp. This tool can be used to build
the VP-ASP tables but cannot create the database.
It can build the tables and load the default configuration. It can also load the demo shop if required.
To use convertsql.asp, you must first tell VP-ASP where the empty SQL Server database is located by changing these lines in shop$config.asp
Xdatabase=”yourdatabasename”
xdatabasetype="SQLSERVER”
xSqlUser=”youruserid”
xSQlpwd=”yourpassword”
xSQLServer=”www.vpasp.com” or IP Address in form “123.12.123.12”
Use convertsql.asp from your browser
www.yourvpaspsite.com/shopping/convertsql.asp
Building SQL Server Tables
Type in the filename
Create600sqlserver.txt
You will see messages being displayed telling you the tables that are being created. If you get an error that the database cannot be read or written, check the shop$config statements above.
Loading the Configuration File
The next step is to load the default configuration options.
Now start convertsql.asp by typing the location where you installed VP-ASP
www.vpasp.com/shopping/convertsql.asp
Type in file name below.
This loads the initial configuration and language file
Create600admin.txt
Loading Demo Shop
This step is only necessary if you want to “play” with VP-ASP demo shop. Otherwise it is not necessary. Use convertsql.asp and type in the filename
create600demo.txt. This loads the database with the demo shop. The
SQL Server database is loaded and ready. You should now
be able to click shop on the home page and see the
product categories.
Creating the SQL Server – Query Analyzer
If you have expertise with SQL
Server, you can use the SQL Server tool called Query
Analyzer to create the database. The database needs to be created using SQL Server Query
Analyzer or your web hosting company sometimes creates the database for you. Query Analyzer comes as part of the Microsoft SQL Server Product and is not supplied by VP-ASP.
Please note
YOU CANNOT USE THE UPSIZING WIZARD TO BUILD VP-ASP TABLES
1 Query Analyzer Creation
Simply start Query Analyzer. Open the file create600sqlserver.sql and run the script. It should take about ten seconds.
The database and the tables are now created.
Updating Shop$config.asp
The shop$config.asp settings should be as follows:
Xdatabase=yourdatabasename
xdatabasetype="SQLSERVER”
xSqlUser=”youruserid”
xSQlpwd=”yourpassword”
xSQLServer=”www.vpasp.com” or IP Address in form “123.12.123.12”
Continue in
the step to load
default Configuration
above.
MYSQL Setup
Windows - Creating MYSQL database
- Use the Windows tool WinSqlAdmin to create your database. This will create an empty database. You click on databases and then right click on the computer name. This should bring up a dialog to create a new database.
- Edit shop$config.asp and change the following values
const xDatabase="mysql600" 'Database name
const xdatabasetype="MYSQL" ' Do not change this
const xSQLUser="myuserid" ' change to user userid
const xSQLPwd="mypassword" 'change to your userid
- const xSQLServer="localhost" ' Normally this will be OK
- After updating shop$config.asp, start the file convertmysql.asp from your browser. (eg. http://www.vpasp.com/demo600/convertmysql.asp or http://localhost/shopping).c
If you have trouble starting VP-ASP or running ASP files see http://www.vpasp.com/virtprog/info/faq_helpme.htm
- Type the file name create600mysql.txt
It will try to connect to the database, add the VP-ASP tables. If successful it will list the commands being issued and tell you of a successful completion. This only takes a few seconds.
- Next run convertmysql.asp again and type in filename create600admin.txt
This adds entries to the VP-ASP configuration table
- Next run convertmysql.asp again and type in filename create600mysql1.txt
- To add the demo shop data use the file mysqldemo600.txt
Using the browser command convertmysql.asp, type in the name create600demo.txt
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
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
|