Manual Customization Help

Table of Contents

Overview

This is technical documentation for the PhotoShelter Customization option. For a general overview, click here.

Customization is broken up into three parts:

the global Master Templates
Public Page Templates (e.g. galleries, search)
Customer Page Templates (e.g. My Account, My Purchases -- pages that require an authenticated account)

Note that templates allow you to lay out the contents within each page's <BODY> tags. Tags such as <HTML>, <HEAD>, and <BODY> are already included and should not be used.

The Master Templates

The Master Template allows you to set global "header" and "footer" elements to be included on every page. This saves you the time and trouble of reproducing blocks of HTML code that are shared on every page of your site.

There are (4) Master Templates:

Public Page Master Template
Defines the look-and-feel for all public (non-authenticated) pages within the customized site. These include:
- Fully-customizable Public Page Templates
- Lightbox pages
- Shopping Cart pages
- Login page
- Signup pages
- Account Password Reset pages
Customer Page Master Template
Defines the look-and-feel for the authenticated pages within the customized site. These include:
- My Account
- My Gallery Invitations
- My Purchases
- My Downloads
This master template can be essentially identical to the Public Page Master Template, except that it may optionally include a sub-navigation for the authenticated area (e.g. my account, gallery invitations, etc). All pages which use the Customer Page Master Template are guaranteed to be logged in (authenticated), so additional functionality such as a "log out" link may also be included. The individual customer pages are not fully customizable because they have a high degree of PhotoShelter functionality that cannot be altered.
Email Master Template (text only)
When emails are dispatched from your customized site, the Email Master Template allows you to customize a header and footer for the message body. The text-only version is read by clients who are using text-only mail readers, or whose mail readers do not display HTML emails for security reasons.
The following emails will have your Email Master Template(s) applied:
- Gallery/Gallery Collection invitations
- Lightbox invitations
- Account activation/password reset emails
- Shopping Cart purchase confirmation (receipt) emails
- "Royalty-free download ready" notice emails
- "Self-fulfill print order complete" notice emails
Email Master Template (html)
When emails are dispatched from your customized site, the Email Master Template allows you to customize a header and footer for the message body. The HTML version allows you to embed graphics and control the layout of email message. The HTML template is applied to the same emails as the TXT version.
NOTE: Formatting HTML emails can be very tricky due to numerous factors involved such as MIME message RFC compliance, ISP spam filtering, and mail reader compatibility. For more information, try a Google search for "html email guidelines."

Public Page Templates

Public Page Templates define the look-and-feel for the public pages (non-authenticated) pages within your customized site.

Advanced Search
A page which allows users to search your image archive by keyword, date, pricing info, and several other fields.
Gallery Display
Displays thumbnails for images contained in one of your galleries.
Gallery Image Display
The screen resolution (500 pixel) display of a single image.
Gallery List
A list of all your publicly listed galleries.
My Homepage
A page to display feature and sub-feature galleries.
Search Results
Search results page which shows thumbnails of matching images
Search Results Image Display
Displays an image after a user clicks on it in search results. This page will also display images that users have gone to directly (e.g. via a public URL link you sent them).

To ensure that your clients stay inside your customized site, you should set up all available Page Templates.

Customer Page Templates

Customer Page Templates are for the areas that require authenticated access (e.g. lightboxes and gallery invites). Unlike the Public Page Templates, the Customer Page Templates have limited customizability due to the inherent functionality. You cannot change the page geometry or styles of the Customer Page Templates, but you can create minor adjustments to the page.

The following have Customer Page Templates:

My Account
Allows the user to alter basic contact information.
My Gallery Invitations
A list of gallery invitations that client has received from you.
My Purchases
A historical list of print/electronic purchases from your archive.
My Downloads
A list of available, purchased electronic downloads.

E-mail Templates

The E-mail Templates offer you a limited customization. You can add header/footer text and/or graphics (in the HTML template). PhotoShelter automatically inserts the message "body" which is specific to the action you initiate. For example, if you send a gallery invite, PhotoShelter will automatically insert the appropriate link and language that instructs the user. The template you create will wrapper this content.

Working with Templates

The preview feature allows you to look at what your page will look like before you save it.

Note that refreshing the preview window in your browser will not reflect changes made to your template since you brought up the preview. To be sure your preview is current, you must click the "Preview" button on the template editing page each time you wish to preview.