Publishing your Web Site

The Web Site Publishing form - accessed from View->Web Site Publisher on the main menu or from the Publish icon on the toolbar - provides all the functionality you need to manage your inventory on the web. Use this form to configure the settings needed to upload the data to your web site, create and update the site based on your current inventory and manage the style sheets that give your site it's very own look and feel.

Preparing to Publish:

Before publishing your inventory for the first time, you must select your preferences for your web publishing settings. As well as completing the fields described below on the Publish Settings tab of the Web Site Publishing form, you will need to configure your upload settings on the Publish Locations tab and select a style sheet for your web site from the Style Sheets Setup form (opened from Publish->Edit Style Sheets on the toolbar). You should also review the data in your Gallery Express program to ensure your web site will include all the information you want to appear. (See Related Topics below for more information on these subjects).

Field Name	Description	Required	Validated
Default Extension	The file name extension for your web pages (usually htm, html or asp).	Yes	Yes
Publish Art Inventory	Check this box to publish Art Inventory items to your website. (See What gets published? for more information on this topic.)	Yes	Yes
Publish Regular Inventory	Check this box to publish Regular Inventory items to your website. (See What gets published? for more information on this topic.)	Yes	Yes
Display Prices	Check this box if you want to have the display price of your inventory written on your website. If you have 'Include Taxes In Display Price' selected on the Company Information form and choose to display the prices, this will be indicated on the page also.	Yes	Yes
Enable E-commerce	Check this box if you will be using Gallery Express e-commerce on your website. *Your e-commerce account must be set up prior to publishing your web site with this setting. See Enabling E-commerce for more information on this subject.	Yes	Yes
Publish Titles on Contents Pages	Check this box if you wish to have the titles of the Art Inventory items and/or the inventory name of Regular Inventory items appear on the contents pages below the thumbnail image of the item.	Yes	Yes
Publish Regular Inventory with Zero(0) Quantity	Check this box if you are publishing regular inventory items and you wish items to be included whether or not you are currently out of stock of the item. If the box is unchecked when publishing regular inventory, only items that are currently in stock will be included.	Yes	Yes
Publish Artists Biographies	Check this box if you are publishing Art Inventory items and you wish the artist biographies to be included on your website. When the biographies are included, links to the biographies are created under the artist's name on the main inventory pages and thumbnail pages for that artist.	Yes	Yes
Frame Art Work (for Netscape viewers only)	Check this box if you wish the Art Inventory images on your web pages to be framed. This affects both the larger images on the main Art Inventory pages and the thumbnail pages. NOTE: This setting will only affect web pages viewed with Netscape browsers. If your visitors are using Microsoft Internet Explorer, the frames are controlled by the style sheet used on your website. (See Creating and Editing Style Sheets for more information on this topic.)	Yes	Yes
Post Sold Items	Completing this field will allow you to maintain the inventory published to your web site for the specified number of days after the item has been sold. When the web site is updated, any item that has been sold but is within the number of days specified will be marked as 'Sold'. If you are displaying prices, the price will be removed and if you are using e-commerce, the item can no longer be sold through your website. When the web site is updated after the number of days has expired, the item will be removed. (*Enter only numbers between 0 and 90 in this field.)	No	Yes*
Max Picture H(eight) or W(idth)	Determines the size of the picture on the main art inventory pages on your website. Measured in pixels. The image on the page will be sized proportionately based on the larger dimension (height or width). If you choose to change this setting it may affect the formatting of your web pages. * The recommended size for this setting is 400 pixels.	Yes	No
Thumbnail Width	Determines the width of the pictures on the artist contents page on your website. Measured in pixels. All thumbnail images will be sized proportionately based on this width. If you choose to change this setting it may affect the formatting of your web pages. *The recommended size for this setting is 70 pixels.	Yes	No
Default Product Page Web Info	Determines the text that will appear on the main art inventory pages under the detail information about the art work. You can add any text (up to 255 characters in length) here including links to other web pages. The default text for this field is: 'All images are property of the artists. Do not copy without expressed written permission.'	Yes	No

Publishing for the first time:

Once all the web settings have been completed, you are ready to publish your web site. The web pages will be initially created on your local machine at the path specified in your FTP settings. *Note: If you are using Gallery Express over a network, you must now select a specific computer to use as the local machine where the pages will be stored. To maintain data integrity, you will not be able to update your web site from any other computer on the network. If you wish to change the computer you are using as your primary web publishing machine, you must reset the local web site by following the steps under Resetting the Local Web.

To begin publishing, click the 'Publish Local' button on the Publish Settings tab of the Web Site Publishing form.

Previewing your web site:

Once your web site has been published locally, you can check the pages that have been published by clicking the 'Preview Local' button on the Publish Settings tab of the Web Site Publishing form. If this is the first time you have published your web site, you should carefully preview the local site before uploading to your web server.

If you are not happy with the information that appears on the pages, follow the instructions under Resetting the Local Web, make the necessary changes to your data, and begin publishing again. If the information that appears on the pages is correct, but you are not happy with the appearance of the pages (e.g. colors, fonts) you do not need to republish the web. The appearance of the pages can be changed by editing the style sheet that you have selected (See Creating and Editing Style Sheets for more information on style sheets).

If you have already uploaded the web site to your web server, you can preview the actual web site by clicking the 'Preview Remote' button on the Web Site Publishing form.

Uploading your web site:

Once your local web site meets your approval, it must be uploaded to the web server that will be hosting your web site. If this is the first time you have published your web site, this procedure may take some time, but subsequent uploads to maintain the site should be much faster as only the pages that have actually changed will be uploaded.

FTP Uploading - If you have selected 'FTP Uploading' on the Publish Locations tab of the Web Site Publishing form, first click the 'FTP Connect' button to establish the connection with the web site. The status of the connection will be displayed on the form. When you have successfully established the connection, click the 'FTP Upload' button to begin to upload the files. If for some reason the connection is broken or the procedure does not complete successfully, you can simply re-start this procedure and the uploading will carry on wherever it left off.
FrontPage 2000 - If you are using Microsoft FrontPage 2000 to maintain your web site, and have selected 'FrontPage 2000' on the Publish Locations tab of the Web Site Publishing form, just click the 'FrontPage' button to publish your new site. *Note: review Configuring your FTP or FrontPage Settings to make sure you have correctly set up your local web site prior to uploading with FrontPage 2000 as incorrect use of this feature may result in loss of data.

Maintaining your web site:

Maintaining your web site after you have published for the first time is very fast and easy. It is recommended that you perform this task regularly (once per day, or more often if you have a high turnover of inventory). This is especially important if you have enabled e-commerce on your site to avoid selling an art work to more than one customer. To maintain your site, follow these steps:

Click the 'Publish Local' button on the Web Site Publishing form to update the local web site.
Upload your web site as described above in Uploading your web site.

Resetting the Local Web:

There may be occasions when you would like to start publishing again from scratch. You may wish to change the data that appears on the web pages, or your web site may no longer be correctly synchronized with the local files due to accidental tampering of the files on either the local or remote web. Do not use this feature if you simply want to change the appearance of the web pages as appearance of the pages can be changed by editing the style sheet that you have selected (See Creating and Editing Style Sheets for more information on style sheets). To reset your web site, follow these steps:

Click the 'Reset Local Web' button on the Web Site Publishing form to remove all saved settings.
Delete all files from the local web site directory specified in the 'Default Local Web DIR' field on the Publish Locations tab of the Web Site Publishing form OR specify a new local web site directory in the 'Default Local Web DIR' field.
If you are using 'FTP Uploading' to upload your files, use your existing FTP program to remove all web pages and images under the 'artists', 'shows' and 'categories' directories on your remote website prior to publishing again.
Begin publishing again as described in Publishing for the first time.

NOTE: If you have made changes to any of the publishing settings described above, the changes will only be applied to new web pages and not to the existing web site. It is recommended that you reset your website and re-publish after ANY changes are made to the settings described in Preparing to Publish above.

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Updated: 10-Jun-2008	© 2001 DevWave Software Inc. All rights reserved.