Appendix A. Control Panel Quick Reference

What follows is a really brief account of every tab and sub-tab. Where we have already covered the tab I will remind you in which chapter(s) this occurred.

Catalog

When you click on the catalog tab you can quickly create, edit, and delete categories and products. Here is what you will find on the sub-tabs.

Tracking

This is a summary of your shops categories including empty categories, disabled and out-of-stock products.

Manufacturers

This tab enables you to enter the names and details of the manufacturers of your products. Doing so is entirely optional but can have some benefits. See Chapter 2 for details.

Suppliers

You can enter the names and extra information about your suppliers. There are a number of good reasons for doing this. If your supplier is a trade secret then this one is not for you. The details are in Chapter 2.

Attributes and groups

This is a very powerful feature that enables you define product attributes, group them and then assign them to products. This can be a big time saver as well as really useful to your catalog and your customers. See Chapter 3 for full details.

Features

It is a great way to add a list of product features to a separate tab underneath the main product description. This is a good place to put all the information a customer might want to know without cluttering the main product description. See Chapter 3.

Image mapping

This is cool. Assign multiple clickable zones to an image so that different product pages can be opened by a single image. Go and have a look on the Image mapping sub-tab. A full guide is given there.

Tags

Create tags for any or all of your products and assign different tags for each language.

Attachments

This is potentially very useful. Here is an example. On the attachments tab add a new attachment. An attachment is a file. Perhaps an image or a PDF file. Then on your product creation page you can click on its attachment tab and add as many attachments as you like. Now on the product page that the customer sees there will be a downloads tab. This is great for technical documents, instructions, large images, or anything else you might want the customer to have access to but do not want to actually put in the product description.