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Front Page Setup

Knowledgebase
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› Browse Nodes
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› Browse Node Lookup
› The Way Of The Web

Deals & Steals
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› OneHotFuzz
› OneHotPick
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› OneShoeBox
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› OneWatchBox
› PickABag

The basic install of ASM2 defaults to a landing (home) page which displays a short

Welcome Message, and
a boxed Store Category Menu.

The Welcome Message is parsed from the script/templates/welcomemsg.tpl file while and the Store Category Menu is essentially a duplicate of product categories thats available on the main menu column.

An alternative to this is of course you can setup your affiliate shop site to have it's own

Customized Welcome Message, and
a default Product Category display

Both are quiet eazy to do and is already catered for from within the script.

Customized Welcome Message

To have a customized welcome message for your affiliate shopping site all that you need to do is to open up the script/templates/welcomemsg.tpl file from your favorite text editor and rewrite/replace the existing welcome text from within the table layout HTMLs :

Template tags are recognized by their used of %% and %%. In the welcome message above, the %%sitename%% tag will be replaced by your real sitename which you have specified in the script/config.php file. Unless you know what you are doing, it's best not to change or edit these tags when editing the templates.

Default Product Category Display

To setup a default category display for your shopfront, you must of course know what you want displayed. First is to identify the SearchIndex (Books, Music, DVD..) and next the BrowseNode, a numerical value representing each of Amazon's product categories (1000 for Top Sellers in Books, 172282 for Top Sellers in Music, 404276 for Top Sellers in DVD...).

Next, open up the script/config.php from your favorite text editor, remove the hashes (#) that is disabling the $frontpage_SI and $frontpage variables, and change the SearchIndex DVD and BrowseNode 163296 to that of your selection.

In the example above, the display has been set to Amazon's Top Selling Books.

Looking Up BrowseNodes

Except for Books (1000), DVD (404276), VHS (404274) and Music (301668) you can easily acquire the BrowseNodes of other Amazon SearchIndices by visiting the main page of the category to pick and from the URL that is displayed in your browser's location bar.

Amazon URL	BrowseNode
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/30	30
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/5	5
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=3890411	3890411
http://www.amazon.com/gp/browse.html?node=1044440	1044440

You can also match the BrowseNodes to what is available from you site's script/nodes/*.inc files below (example : Books),

or use a BrowseNode Lookup service if you have access to one.

Save, upload your mods, and you'll have a spanking brand new shop in no time.

An extended tutorial on customizing ASM2 Landing Pages is also available from our knowledgebase.

© 2006, dinodino :
All articles/tutorials are copyright and may not be reproduced without prior consent of their owners.