I had people asking how to disable some UI pieces in some pages. Here are some detail questions and my answers.

1) how do I disable the action buttons e.g. "Ask a Question", "Update Alert", "Tell a Friend" in product detail page?

In web\store\ProductAction.aspx, find <asp:ImageButton id="btnAskQuestion", <asp:ImageButton id="btnUpdateAlert", <asp:ImageButton id="btnTellFriend" and put visible="false" inside the tag.

2) Remove register link

In web\controls\blocks\LoginMenu.ascx, remove line <li><a href="<%=SiteNavigation.RegisterPage %>">Register</a></li>.

In web\controls\core\Login.ascx, remove these lines.

<td class="logincell">

In web\controls\core\Login.ascx.cs, remove these lines.

btnRegister.OnClientClick = string.Format("window.open('{0}{1}', '_self'); return false;",

3) Remove customer Reviews in product detail page

In web\store\Product.aspx, remove those lines

<tr>

In web\store\Product.aspx.cs, remove those lines

prvReview.Product = product;
prvReview.DataBind();

4) Remove Redeem Gift Certificate in shopping cart page

In web\store\Cart.aspx, find <asp:Panel id="pnlGiftCertificate" runat="server"> and put visible="false" inside the tag.

DotShoppingCart CMS page is comprised by the server blocks, which are the pre-built server side controls. The out of box software comes with a handful of common blocks. The article is going to talk about creating your own server block.

Notice: read this blog entry for DotShoppingCart V2.5+.

1) Create the Standard ASP.NET stardard User Control and derive it from DotShoppingCart.OpenSource.Core.BlockUserControl

In the Page_Load method add the following code.

 public partial class YourCustomControls : BlockUserControl {
    protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e) {
        EnableViewState = WebUtils.IsPageEditorEnable();
        editor.BlockUserControl = this;
        if (ShowEditor) {
            pnlBlockContent.CssClass = "BlockEditPanel";
            editor.BlockTitle = string.Format("Your Custom Control {0}", BlockId);
        }
    }
}

In the ascx file add the following code.

 <%@ Register tagprefix="dsc" tagname="BlockEditor" src="/Controls/Blocks/BlockEditor.ascx" %>

A simple example is to check web\controls\blocks\Search.ascx and Search.ascx.cx files.

2) Hook up the new block in DB

Insert a new entry to dbo.DSC_Block_Type_lkp table e.g. INSERT INTO DSC_Block_Type_lkp (type, virtualPath) VALUES ('My Block', '/Controls/Blocks/MyBlock.ascx')

Insert a new entry to dbo.DSC_Block_Type_Group_Block_Type_Map

I had many people asking how to add return policy or other information to the checkout page. Here is the video shows how to do it.

Often times web site design involves image design such as buttons and box header etc. If you want to show a gradient color and make it compatible to all the browsers, you'd better start doing graphic design images. All these have made web site design a much harder to enter for average non-technical site owners. Part of the goals of DotShoppingCart is to enable non-technical people to easy use the software and turn it into a good looking e-commerce web site.

We have built several themes inside DotShoppingCart. The theme can be further customized such as changing colors and the sizes of building blocks such as side boxes. Normally when a theme consists of image buttons and image header bars, you cannot change the image button colors or the size of building blocks unless you re-draw these images by using the graphic design software. To resolve this problem we used the Windows GDI+ API to create image buttons dynamically based on the colors and sizes that you wish to customize. So in the end you first pick up a theme that you like and then further customize the overall looking by adjusting the colors and sizes of the building blocks. Within one click and "Crtl -F5" in the browse (complete refresh hot-key in IE), all the images defined in the theme are created on the fly.