LetMeShop User Manual

If you are hosting your LetMeShop catalog with Web Transitions or one of our affiliates your site setup will be complete. You may, however, want to review the folder structure and permissions to understand where you may (and may not) upload files using an FTP program.

• Setting up the site file structure and assigning permissions
• Installing the encryption component
• Installing the image upload component
• Installing the license connector component

LetMeShop is a complex and flexible program that gives you everything you need to operate a successful online catalog. This flexibility combined with the high need for security in an e-commerce site also means that the site setup is complex. This section covers the file structure and permissions and installation of the necessary components. Database setup and initialization are covered in the database setup section.

Site file structure and assigning permissions: There are hundreds of program scripts that make up your LetMeShop catalog site. And since your site is an e-commerce site that takes orders over the web security is a top issue.

If Web Transitions is hosting your site all of this has already been setup and all you have to do is start entering products. If you are installing the program on your own servers or on a shared hosting server you will need to follow these guidelines.

Unpacking your files: All of the program scripts that make up your catalog site was provided in a single .zip file. 

• Unzip the files to a location on your computer. The unzip process will create a set of folders like the folder tree illustrated below.
  
  
• After unzipping the files you will need to upload them to your web server.

Upload files to the server:  You can do this with any FTP program supported by your host. When you finish uploading the files the structure should look like the illustration above.

Creating users and assigning permissions: Unlike most static HTML sites, you LetMeShop site requires a very specific set of users and permissions to operate correctly and securly. 

Your first step will be to create 2 new user accounts. One for FTP access and one for administration access. We strongly recommend strong passwords for both of these accounts! Strong passwords are at least 8 characters long and contain upper and lower case letters and at least one number or special character. For illustration purposes our user accounts will be ftpuser for the FTP account and adminuser for the administration account. You will also need to set up the IUSER_MACHINENAME (default internet user) user permissions. This account will be referred to as iuser. Permissions are indicated by the following codes:

E = Execute Scripts Permissions
R = Read Permissions
W = Write Permissions
C = Delete Permissions

Assign Permissions

These permissions are NECESSARY to insure that the average visitor cannot get to the administration sections of the site and that you cannot inadvertently delete or over-write the program files. 

Installing the encryption component: The encryption component comes in a separate .zip called webtrans_encrypt.zip. You will probably need to send this file to your web host or server administrator. Unzip the file and run the setup program. You may have to restart the server for the component to be visible to your catalog program.

Installing the image upload component: The image upload component is a commercially available file upload component (ASPUpload V3). Many hosting companies already have a license for this component. If not you will have to purchase a single site license. ( www.aspupload.com)

Installing the License Connector component: he encryption component comes in a separate .zip called webtrans_LConnect.zip. You will probably need to send this file to your web host or server administrator. Unzip the file and run the setup program. You may have to restart the server for the component to be visible to your catalog program.