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We've added new fulfillment methods to make Vae's eCommerce even better. Our Australian customers will be happy to know that they can now utilize Australia Post eParcel. For those of us in the states, you can now use USPS fulfillment with Endicia; this means you can print up postage right from your office!

To start using these new fulfillment methods, clicking on the 'Settings' subtab of your 'Store' tab:

Click on any of the Fulfillment Methods to add them:

(Australia eParcel)


(USPS w/ Endicia)

 When two Collections are linked by an Association Structure [single], it sometimes can be a pain to add a new entry to the Child Collection, when creating a new entry in the Parent Collection. Vae loves making your clients' lives easier, so we've added a new feature to make alleviate this issue. The Association Structure [single] create screen now contains a checkbox called Display "Create New" option. When enabled, it gives users the option of adding a new entry to an associated Child Collection, when modifying its Parent Collection. Confused? Let's try an example.

Here we are creating an Association Structure between two Collections called 'Shows' and 'Venues':

Notice the enabled Display "Create New" option. Now, when we add a new 'Show' to the 'Shows' Collection (aka the Parent Collection), we can select "Create New Venue" from the Venue select menu. We're then presented with an inline form where we can create a new Venue, without having to navigate to the Venue Collection:

Great. Now the next time a band on Action Verb Records goes on tour, we can easily add new Venues as we add new Shows.

Today we bring you a video on Image Sizes. Image Sizes allow you and your clients to crop your image files immediately after they are uploaded, and display them in the cropped format on the website. Vae lets you specify multiple Image Sizes, making it possible to display both a thumbnail version of an image and a larger one on the same site, without uploading more than one image. See our documentation page on the Image Structure for more information.

Our Documentation and Integration Center contains many more videos and tutorials. Check it out!

Following up with yesterday's lesson on setting up coupon codes, today we'll show you the code to accept coupon codes. Once you've set up your Coupon Code in the backend, all you need to do is add a simple code snippet to your store's page:

<v:store:if_discount>
 Special Offer code applied.
 <v:else>
  <v:store:discount>
   If you have a Special Offer Code, enter it here and click Apply: <v:text_field name="discount" />
   <input type="submit" value="Apply" />
  </v:store:discount>
 </v:else>
</v:store:if_discount>

We used the <v:store:if_discount> and <v:store:discount> tags to allow the user to input a coupon code. Lets see how this renders:

After entering our 2buxoff coupon code (that we created yesterday), we can see the discount is reflected in the total:

The thought of adding coupon codes to your site's Store might make you worry about keeping track of convoluted rules, but we've done our best to keep this feature of Verb's eCommerce uncomplicated. To add a new coupon code, just click on the 'Coupon Code' subtab of the 'Store' tab. With two clicks, you can have a new coupon code. When you create a code, there's lots of options that you can choose to specify (or not):

Note all the fields that you can work with here:

• Code: The alphanumeric code your user will need to type in to redeem their discount.
• Description: A description of the coupon, for your own reference.
• Fixed $ Amount: Removes a fixed amount from the total price.
• Percentage % Discount: Removes a percentage from the total price.
• Coupon Start Date: Allows you to specify a certain date when the coupon will start to be functional.
• Coupon Expiration Date: The date at which you want to coupon to cease functioning.
• Number Available: The total number of times this coupon may be used (by all customers) before it stops functioning.
• Max Uses Per Customer: The total number of times this coupon may be used by a single customer before it stops functioning for them.
• Minimum Order $ Amount: The minimum amount the customer may be spending before the coupon code functions.
• Minimum Number of Items In Order: The minimum number of items the customer must have in their cart before the coupon code functions.
• Apply discounts to shipping fees?: When checked, this sums the total with the shipping costs before applying the coupon code.

Vae can integrate seamlessly into the XML backend of your Flash site. Here's a small example where we'll automatically feed MP3s into a Flash MP3 player on our Action Verb Records website. The player plays songs specific to whatever Artists page we're viewing, and when we add a new MP3 to a certain artist in our site's Backstage, they are instantly

We have more videos in our Documentation and Integration Center.

It can be a headache to edit, save, and upload the files via FTP onto your Vae site. That's why we recommend using an editor with integrated FTP. With one of these editors, you can type in your ftp information once, bookmark it, and then edit files directly in your web space. Every time you hit save, the editor uploads your changes to the file. Here's a few recommendations for possible editors:

Mac OS X

• Coda has a great interface. We use it here at Vae, and so do many of our designers. Besides integrated FTP, Coda has many other advanced features that can make your coding process more efficient.
• BBEdit is also a fine editor. We think it's impressive that BBEdit integrates with VMWare Fusion, giving you the ability to preview your work in Internet Explorer - on a Mac!
• Smultron is free and easy to use. A good editor for basic text editing.

Windows

• Coffee Cup will help our Windows-using friends edit code just as well as us Mac-nerds do.

If you have a favorite editor that we're not mentioning here, please let us know. We're always looking for new ways to make our designers' lives easier.

 Are you concerned with the fact that Vae is a hosted solution? It’s something we often get asked about as designers assess Vae. Not having full control over your site is a scary prospect for many people, understandably. At Vae, we know that being a hosted CMS means added responsibility, and we take that seriously. We work closely with our webhost to ensure uptime and perform regular analysis to alleviate any bottlenecks.

There are many other benefits to using our hosted CMS. No longer will you need to toil with software installs, worry about security patches, or bargain with hosting companies. Your clients benefit too from the simplicity of only paying a single bill.

It’s our aim to provide you with a stellar CMS and the best hosting possible, all at a fair price. If you’re interested in more details about our webhosting, please contact us and we’ll answer any and all of your questions.