Hello,

I'm very new to Commerce, I just signed up today. We are looking for a new way to replace our old and more expensive eCommerce system. I've got my account set up and rolling and it's time to start working on a design. Can anyone help let me know the easiest way to make a design work with MonsterCommerce? I'm an experienced designer and slightly experienced coder, I'm just trying to find the best way to go about it. I was just planning on using Dreamweaver but I heard someone mention something about designing with Photoshop in layers. I don't know the MonsterCommerce system at all and I'm just trying to figure it all out! Thanks!

There are a lot of great examples of what can be done with the cart, using the tools you described, on our design site.

http://www.monsterwebdesign.com/

Take a look. Some very attractive work done there.

Good luck and welcome!

Chris

You can also get some good information from the QuickGuide for Designing Your Storefront -
http://kb.monstercommerce.com/support/quic...de_designI.html

Thanks!

Dreamweaver will work fine for generating the code that you will need for your design. Use photoshop or fireworks to create your graphics. Basically it is the same as designing any html page but you just divide the sections up into a top part, a left side, a right side and a footer. Or you can lose the left and/or right side for a different look. It is very customizable. Be sure to check out function calls. They really open things up for you. See the link below:

http://kb.monstercommerce.com/support/acti...Id=226&catId=17

If you go to your admin panel and click on Site HTML, you'll see the following:

1. Top of Page HTML Editor. This is where you would put the coding for the top of the page (don't use head tags or body tags). This is where you would enter the code to pull up your banner and any top of page horizontal navigation, etc.

2. Left Column HTML Editor. If you don't want to go with the standard draw functions found elsewhere, you can use this to custom code your left column. You can also do a combination of both custom and MC-generated code (-generated = Site Layout > Left Column Display Options). For example, I use the -generated Search box, but the rest of my left nav is custom coded.

3. Right Column HTML Editor. Same as above.

4. Homepage Messages Editor and Homepage News Editor. These both control the center content on your homepage. You can custom code whatever you want here.

5. Bottom of Page HTML Editor. This controls what appears on the bottom of every page.

You can also eliminate any right or left columns elsewhere in the software, depending on the look you want.

Play around with it a bit and see what you come up with.

You can also post your domain here and see if anyone can help you with specific questions.