Building a Website With XSitePro V2 and DLGuard

Although I can build websites with html or use Dreamweaver and Frontpage I am not an expert website designer and to be honest I struggle with software and scripts. Accepting my limitations I bought the XSitePro web design software in 2007 and upgraded to XSitePro V2 last year.

When I first got XSitePro I built my digital download site solely using that. Used Paypal as my payment processor and had thank you pages with download links for every product. It was a cheerful but not very professional looking site. I was fond of my efforts but there were problems with my download links being accessed by cheats and as time passed I began to cringe at the unprofessional look of my website.

As I had made a major investment in some software called Memberspeed I decided to rebuild the site using that. Although the software was intended to build membership sites it has a shopping cart and article directory which meant that I would get regularly updated content to help the site along in the search engines.

Fine but the fatal flaws were that using the software was time consuming and difficult for me to figure out and that it wasn’t flexible enough. For somebody with greater website design skills it might not be a problem but for me it was. My website looked more professional on the surface because I used a ready built Memberspeed template, but the shopping cart looked an uninviting mess that I simply did not have the skills to rectify.

Sales disappeared and another solution was called for. I wanted part of the solution to be XSitePro V2 because I love working with it. I have tried to use other shopping carts but find them difficult to understand and I don’t find them flexible enough for my limited skills. I had regularly seen posts in forums about using DLGuard as a shopping cart, or indeed paying memberships. Most but not all of the posters recommended DLGuard, but not everybody is going to like the same thing.

One day a question was asked about whether or not DLGuard could be integrated with XSitePro V2. The replies were all in the positive and when I checked out some of the sites indicated as using both I was quite impressed. A timely payment from Google Adsense was deposited into my PayPal account so I thought ‘go on girl go for it’.

I bought DLGuard for the princely sum of $146.05 including VAT. Before I could use it I needed to build the bones of a site, and being an impatient bod it was a good job that I had the speed of XSitePro. I used XHeader (a freebie with XSitePro V2) to make the header and utilised the many inbuilt design features to build the rest of the site. Not perfect but it looks more professional than my first digital download site and I can make alterations very easily.

My next step was to unzip DLGuard and upload it to my website following quite easy instructions. It wasn’t long before I’d uploaded my first product and added my Getresponse autoresponder details. That’s built in with both XSitePro and DLGuard so that was the easy part.

My next step was to redesign the DLGuard shopping cart to make it look like my website design. I sat and looked at the screen, scratched my head a few times before I decided that I was out of my depth. I went on to the DLGuard and XSitePro forums looking for how to tutorials and couldn’t find any. I thought about it for a while and decided that the only way to do what I wanted was to experiment.

I had a list of alterable DLGuard pages so I visited my sites Cpanel and viewed the source files. I wanted to edit them but being cautious I copied the source files into notepad before I began. That way if I boobed I would be able to replace the original source files.

An hour later I had added my new header to the shopping cart, altered the background colour and a few other things to give the appearance of integration. Considering how hopeless I am with scripts and software and my lack of design expertise I have surprised myself with what I have achieved.

My website now has an integrated shopping cart and my downloads are secure from cheats. It has flexibility in that I can add articles and reviews quickly and whenever I want. To my eyes it looks better than the previous two designs and it’s even started to make sales again after a spell in the doldrums.

One little glitch was with my first sale on the new site. I had redesigned the product download page and to check to see if everything was working I reduced a product to $0.01 and bought it with a joint Paypal account that I have with a partner. As I was testing I got called away and when I got back to my computer somebody else had bought the product and told me that the download link didn’t work. No it didn’t because I hadn’t uploaded the blooming product at that point. But, never mind the lower price than normal sale tested the rest of the work that I’d done and showed me that yes XSitePro and DLGuard do work together and it isn’t all that difficult.

Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com

Visit Ebook World for low cost ebooks, software and templates. You will even find genuine product reviews at Ebook World!! BB Articles provides quality free content for websites, blogs and ezines and article submission.

Digg This Post

Where to Put a 3rd Party Script with Xsitepro

I ran across a question regarding php scripts. This person was having a problem utilizing a 3rd party script…..and I think they really need to get a new hosting account. However there could be some miscommunication between the hosting provider and user……but, I think the problem comes from trying to put the script in the wrong place when using Xsitepro. Anyway, here’s they’re question:

I have been having issues with an enquiry form and my Hosting webspace.
Basically to enable PHP with my hosting company I have had to enable something called CGI which sits on a different server. They have told me ‘basic html files need to go on the ftp site and any php and scripted files on the CCGI’.
What I am trying to do is use option 5 (redirection of an filled in client enquiry to a specified e-mail address). Aside of switching to host gator is there anything I can do?.
I am using plus.net hosting.
Any help much appreciated.

Here’s my attempt at answering:

Sounds like they are making it more complicated than it has to be.

I’ve 4 or 5 hosting accounts and I have never had to put my php scripts into a designated folder…and you should not have to.

I’m not an authority on hosting and someone might have a better explanation, I’m assuming their reason has to do with security.

If your script is a cgi or perl script, you need to put it in a folder or directory of your hosting account called “cgi-bin” ….perhaps this is what you’re dealing with.

You probably already know this, but often times you have a script hosted on your server, and this script performs some kind of function…..as an example, lets say it resizes some images. Next you call the function of this script into your webpage with a php include or a SSI….server side include.

When using Xsitepro you would first go to “Other” tab—-> then “Resource Manager” and click on “Add” and you add the page that has your php script. Then you would follow the directions for using the script.

If your script is a cgi or perl script, I’m assuming you would have to use a ftp program to upload the script to the cgi-bin folder and then follow the directions to make the script do what it’s supposed to do…..keeping in mind the file structure and location of your script and webpage.

Sorry couldn’t be of more help…..Good Luck!

Scott

Digg This Post