Views Manager

OVERVIEW

At this point you have either created your own custom viewset, or someone has done that for you.  In either case, you need to upload it to your site in order to use these new custom views.  The custom viewset should have come to you in the form of a zip file.  We can use that zip file to change the viewset that is used as a default in our store.  You also have the option to create copies of viewsets and change the "current" one in use by the store.

REQUIREMENTS

The following information is required to already be known:

• Must have a working Hotcakes store ready
• Must have a store admin login

GETTING STARTED

If you don’t already have your own custom viewset, there are a few samples available for you.  Each of these viewsets can be used to change the way your site displays the various views of the store to customers.  Go ahead and login to your store with a store admin login.

VIEWS MANAGER

The views manager is only available to store admins and can be found in the Admin menu as shown below.

The views manager allows you to do a few things to help you manage your store. 

1. Upload a custom viewset to use
2. Select a default or “Current” viewset for the store to use
3. Create an editable copy of the selected viewset to modify

• Upload Custom Viewsets
• Update Current Viewset
• Create Editable Copy

Uploading a Custom Viewset

In order to upload a custom viewset, you must first have a custom viewset.  Go ahead and get yours ready, or choose one of the samples we created.  Next, click the Upload View Set link.

This will open up a popup view that allows you to choose your custom viewset.  Go ahead and browser for it on your computer.

There is a checkbox that asks you if you want to upload at the host level.  If you ever expect to have more than one store with different branding on your DNN CMS instance, do not check the checkbox.  Otherwise, feel free to do so.  This simply changes the folder the views are saved to, which determines if the viewset is available to one or all sites on your CMS.

Once you’re happy with your selections, then click the Save Changes button.  You will be presented with a success message, and you’re done.

Select the Current Viewset

Updating the store to use a new viewset as the default or “Current” is quite simple, as you might imagine.  First, select the viewset from the drop down list.

Next, click the Save Changes button.  The page will reload (probably very quickly), and you’re done.  The selected viewset will now be used by default.

Create an Editable Copy

The option to create an editable copy exists primarily to allow you to make a copy of whichever existing viewset that you would like.  It is important to know that this is useful to do so that if you do want to make changes, especially for things like A/B testing, you won’t lose anything from your original viewset.  This is never truer than of your _default viewset.  The _default viewset is updated every time you upgrade.  Therefore, you will lose your changes if you decide to make modifications to it.

Let’s begin making an editable copy by first selecting the viewset we want to copy in the drop down list.

Now, click Make an Editable Copy link. 

A pop-up will appear.  Give your new viewset a unique name.

There is a checkbox that asks you if you want to upload at the host level.  If you ever expect to have more than one store with different branding on your DNN CMS instance, do not check the checkbox.  Otherwise, feel free to do so.  This simply changes the folder the views are saved to, which determines if the viewset is available to one or all sites on your CMS.

Once you are happy with your changes, click the Save Changes button to save the new copy of the viewset.  You will see a success message like shown below.