How To Customize Web Host

To edit Web Host pages, you will need to be familiar with HTML, Javascript, CSS style sheets, and Collect!'s Report Writer. Take detailed notes of what you customize. Web Host updates do not preserve customizations.

Collect!s web host pages are stored in two locations:

1. HTML pages, include text files, and script files, are located in sub-folders in each database's HTML folder. For example, Collect!\masterdb\html.
2. Reports that are used to display results of form submits from the browser are in Collect!'s Report Definition List accessed through the Print menu, Customize Printing, Edit Report Templates option when you are in Web Host test mode or signed in with operator ID 99.

To easily determine which page to edit, sign into Web Host via a web browser. The report that is rendering the page is displayed in the browser's title bar. You can then go into the web host application and to the report definition list to fine the reports that you want to edit.

The browser will perform unexpected results if you generate a page from the browser while the Web Host instance has a report open. Always report list after you make your changes, then return to the browser to test your changes.

Reports use the @include or @inc commands which pulls template information from text files. These *.txt files may be edited in any raw text editor, such as Notepad, WordPad, or Ultra Edit. When a change is completed, the changes are updated instantly.

Editing Web Host Logo, Footer And Company Details

This section will help you change the Logo, Footer, and Company Details displayed in Web Host pages.

Logo

Your image must first be saved in the \html\global\images folder.

Collect! Web Host uses a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) file to setup the banner displayed at the top of each page, as well as providing the style for the content of each page.

You need to be a familiar with CSS files to make advanced changes to the CSS file. This topic will just show how to modify one style affecting the logo.

1. Open the collect.css file in a text editor program, for example, Notepad, WordPad, or Ultra Edit. This file is stored in the html\global folder.
2. Scroll to line 22: td.logo

Our logo filename is logo_stock.png. You can save your file as the same name, or, if you save your logo as a different filename, you will need to replace logo_stock.png with your logo's filename. Ensure that you have re-sized the image to the correct dimensions using an image editor.

Each time you make the change in the CSS file and save it, you will want to refresh your viewed page. Sometimes this requires that you clear your cookies and/or temporary Internet files as the browser can cache the page information.

Company Details

With the exception of the Header, Footer, and Landing Page, the Company Information is pulled from the Company Details form in Collect!.

For the landing page, you can edit the information in the html\guest\index.html file. The 3 attributes to change are Phone, Website, and Email.

At the top of each page is the text: Collect! Online

To change this, you must edit all files that end in .HTML and also the success.txt file.

Footer

The pages generated from the Web Host use an @include command with the file 'footer.txt' This file is located in the html\global folder. The pages that are not generated from the Web Host (*.HTML and success.txt) will need to be edited manually. Obviously, we'd prefer that you leave the Copyright information intact.

User Levels

The Web Host User Levels are independent of the Collect! Application User Levels. To edit a web host user level, you will need to sign into the web host with a user level that has privileges. For example, the default user level permissions for 1, 10, and 99 have full access.

In order to sign into web host, your operator record needs the ALLOW BROWSER SIGNON box checked.

Once sign in, navigate to Settings, then User Levels, then the user level you just created, then set the permissions for each of the options.

Please refer to the Help topic Web Host User Levels for more information on the options.

Secondly, if you need to alter the access that this user level has to debtors or clients, you will need to open File Explorer and navigate to the Collect\database\html\user folder. Select the user level folder that you want to modify, then open the applicable loop_list_xxx.txt file that you want to edit. The SQL Condition variable is injected into all SQL queries where records all called to prevent unauthorized access to records.

Language Files

This is still a work in progress for foreign languages. The English file is current, but may be updated if we add new functions to web host. Make detailed notes or keep a backup of the file after you make any edits. The files are located in the html\global\language folder.

Print Files

All of the Web Host report and letter output is stored in include files located in the html\global\print folder. This allows you to customize your letters easily. It also allows the same code to be reused, like client statements.

Select Files

Most of the pick lists are stored in include files located in the html\global\select folder. At the time of shipping, these files will match up to the shipping defaults of Collect!. If you modify the pick lists in the program, you should update the web host pick lists to match.

SQL Files

These files located in the html\global\SQL folder. The queries stored here are global queries that are used in several locations throughout the web host. There should be no need to modify these files unless you are adding more columns or filters to your result set.