Account Support

Creating a Logout link

Support — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 05:00:00 GMT

When you have created pages that are password protected, sometimes you need to have a link for your users to click on to log out of the CMS.

Login to your website.
Navigate to the page where you want the Logout button or link to be.
Add a graphical button or text and highlight it.
Click the Hyperlink Manager button.
Give the URL as /Utilities/logout.aspx and Click the OK button.
Click the Save my changes button.

How long will my template update versions be saved?

Support — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 05:00:00 GMT

Each time a change is made to your HTML, CSS, INC, or JS files, and you click the Save button, LightCMS saves a version of the file you were just working on. This allows you to revert back to a previous save state if you were to make a mistake. LightCMS allows you to save an unlimited amount of template versions for the last 30 days. This is a rolling 30 day period.

You will see a dropdown menu beneath your HTML, CSS, INC, or JS files if you have versions saved. To use a previous version, just click on the dropdown menu and choose a past version.

Adding a favicon

Support — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 06:00:00 GMT

Using FTP, put your favicon.ico in the root (same folder as your HTML files) of your design files.
Then add a link tag to each of your HTML templates like this: < link rel="Shortcut Icon" type="image/x-icon" href="favicon.ico" /> The CMS will add the full path to your icon at runtime.

Note: You can create the favicon with an icon creation program, or you can use this website, http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon.

That site will take a .gif, .jpg, .png and convert it to the favicon for you. For best results you want to use a 16x16 pixel image.

Text editor CSS dropdown

Support — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:03:41 GMT

LightCMS sites have the ability to earmark sections of your CSS for inclusion in the text editor CSS dropdown. Simply add the special syntax (see example below) around the CSS statements that you want the text editor to pick up.

Using third party forms

Richard Blankenship — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:55:38 GMT

This is a nice solution for integrating forms from third party applications, especially if they do not work when inserting your code directly into the Text Element's Html view.

1) Create a new HTML file with the correct format, by including the !DOCTYPE deceleration and tags so there is a complete HTML file.

2) Then, add it to your website files through ftp. You will need to put the HTML file outside any of the folders.
http://accountsupport.elementfusion.com/ftp

3) Now, access the HTML view of the Text Element and insert an iFrame tag. Here is a quick example of what this should look like. You might need to change the height or width, but the code is correct if your HTML file was named YourHTMLfile.html.

4) It may also help you to better understand the true path to your website files.
http://accountsupport.publishpath.com/the-path

Changing your admin tool bar colors

Support — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 19:08:23 GMT

Login to your website.
Click on the My Account button.
Click on the Account Settings tab.
Scroll down to the "Top toolbar colors" heading and choose your colors.
Press the Update your toolbar colors button.

Using the Signup element

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:11:13 GMT

Login to your website.
Add the Signup element to your site.
Click on Settings on the Signup element dropdown menu.
Upload your own design template if you would like something different than the default template.
Put your email address in the field if you would like to be emailed when someone signs up.
Choose if you want these websites to be for Businesses or Ministries.
Click on the Advanced tab.
If you want to use a custom sub-domain, put your domain name under the Custom Based Domain Name section.
Modify the Additional Terms of Service, the Welcome Email, or the Confirmation Message if you would like.
Press the Update button.

The path to your files

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:17:10 GMT

There might be times that you would like to pull something directly from files that you have uploaded via FTP, or you have a special XML feed and you need to know what the address is to pull in your pictures. Below is the address you will need to get to your files.

Address to your files:

http://yourdomain.publishpath.com/websites/yourdomain/

Address to your files if you added a folder called media:

http://yourdomain.publishpath.com/websites/yourdomain/media

Use a custom sub-domain name for the Signup element

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:16:03 GMT

Login to your website.
Make sure you have a Signup element on your site.
Click on Settings on the the Signup element dropdown menu.
Click on the Advanced tab.
Under the Custom Based Domain Name heading, put your custom domain name in the field.
- Please see the important notes below!
Update any other information you would like and press the Update button.
Next, go to your DNS and put in a wildcard A record pointing to 75.126.211.188. Below is an example of Go Daddy's Total DNS Control area with the wildcard A record input.

Note:

This will not work unless you have a wildcard A record created for your custom domain name pointing to 75.126.211.188.
If you have questions about setting this up, please contact your DNS provider as they will be able to help you out.

Apply a new design to your site

Support — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:36:36 GMT

Login to your website.
Click on Designs on the admin toolbar.
Click on the Design Gallery tab.
Click on a template that you would like to apply to your website.
Click the Apply link.

Point your domain name to your website

Support — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Using your own domain name is an important part of launching a new site or making a new site "live".

All domain registrars use different wording or processes to accomplish the editing of your DNS. The guide below is an overview of the process. Please refer to your domain registrar's help manual for more detailed instructions. Please see below for more information.

Here are links to the help files for accessing or changing your A records with a few of the major domain registrars:

Generic A record change instructions:

Login to your domain registrar site (ex.-GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Register.com).
Choose the domain you would like to make the updates to.
Look for a link to edit your DNS.
Change both the www and non-www A record to 75.126.211.188. Do not touch any other records.

Note- You may need to approve these changes via email.
Note- This could take several hours before it populates around the internet.

Click the Ok button.
Login to your website.
Click on Settings on the admin toolbar.
Click the Advanced tab.
Under Domain Names heading click on the Add a new domain link.
Type in your domain address without the www. and click the Save link.
You will now see your domain name in the Domain Name list.
Now, type in your domain address with the www, and click the Save link.
Select what domain name you would like to be your main domain name that all sites would point to by clicking next to the domain name. For example www.yourdomain.com.
- Make sure you have your domain name with and without the www in front of it entered in your Domain Names list in order for it to work.
Click the Update button.

Note: If you get an error like the error below when you go to visit one of your domains, you will need to double check to make sure you have the domain name correct in the Domain Name list.

Article Keywords: make site live, DNS, launch new site, custom domain name

Adding Google Analytics

Support — Fri, 01 May 2009 15:28:07 GMT

Your website has built in stats for paid accounts. This will work for some, but when you need to have stats that tell you more, many, including ourselves, use Google Analytics. Adding them to your templates is very easy.

Go to http://www.google.com/analytics and sign up for Google Analytics. They will give you a snippet of HTML that you will need.
Login to your website.
Under the My Website button at the top of the page, click on Designs in the dropdown menu.
Click on the My Designs tab.
Find your design and click the edit button
In the file listing on the left, click on your home template.
Navigate to the bottom of the code and paste the html code that Google Analytics gave you before the ending </body> tag.
Continue the process by doing this for each of your HTML templates.

Add another website

Support — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 15:46:33 GMT

Login to your website.
Click the My Account button in the top admin bar.
Click on the Websites tab.
Click the Add a website button.
Type in the address that you want.
- Note: If the address is already taken you will receive an error that says "The unique ID for your new website was already taken." You will have to click on Add a website again.
Choose whether you would like a website for a Business or a Ministry.
Click the Create Website button.

Reseller marketing guidelines

Tim Wall — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 06:00:00 GMT

As a reseller of our LightCMS system, you are invited to market and promote the CMS as your own product through your own website and through any other materials you care to produce. To facilitate this effort, we have provided some helpful marketing resources that you are welcome to use at no cost.

However, there are some guidelines we need you to adhere to when marketing the CMS in order to ensure the integrity of the system. So, we've compiled the following marketing guidelines to help you understand what you can and can't do with regards to marketing.

Things you CAN do:

You can utilize the content that we make available through our dynamically updated reseller marketing scripts. We make available a lot of great content that we keep up to date for you including text and video content for the web. You can find out more about what scripts are available on our reseller resources page.
You can use the concepts of our product sites as guides for your own site. In other words, you can shape your own site around how ours are shaped if you wish.

Things you CAN'T do:

You can't copy our text word for word. This is bad for all of us as search engines will punish us all for the duplicate content. Again, utilize our reseller scripts instead as described above.
You can't use our product site templates or site imagery. Naturally, you can use our included website templates as they are freely available to anyone, but the imagery and templates we create that are unique to our own product sites (i.e. not a part of a freely available design template) should not be used. A quick test to figure out if something is usable is to ask yourself if we have made it available for download. All of our included design templates can be downloaded through our system but our product website templates cannot.
You can't use the names of our products such as LightCMS, Radium3, Design Xpress, Custom Xpress, HTML Xpress ... etc. You can create similar products to these but you need to come up with your own names.
You can't reference any client of Element Fusion as a case study or design example for your own work. Only work that you have done or work that we have done on your behalf should be used in promoting your own product.

Should you have any questions about whether your marketing implementation adheres to these guidelines, please contact us at support@publishpath.com.

Using the reseller features script

Tim Wall — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:00:00 GMT

To display an unbranded list of CMS features on your own website, simply cut and paste the following code snippet into the HTML of your website.

See an example of an unstyled features list dropped into one of our system's default templates.

You can style the features list in one or two columns

We've balanced the content on the features list into two columns. Each column is wrapped in a div. So, by default, the divs will display stacked on top of each other, creating a single column of features that fills its containing element. Or, by applying styles to the divs, you can allow them to display in two-column form. Here are the CSS statements we use to create a two column effect on our product sites.

#featuresColOne { float: left; margin-right: 5%; width: 47%; }
#featuresColTwo { float: right; width: 47%; }

You can also include links to demo videos

We offer a version of the features listing that includes links to feature demo videos where available. To implement the version including video, use the following code in place of the code listed above:

See an example of the features list with video dropped into one of our system's default templates.

Extra header content required for video version

To really make the videos work like they are intended, there's some additional code you'll need to drop into the header of your HTML page. If you're putting this on a site on our CMS system, you can easily do this by going to the page settings' advanced tab and dropping the code into the "additional header" field. If you're using any other system or a static site, you'll just need to place it between the <head> and </head> tags. Here's the code:

These scripts and styles provide the necessary functionality to open up the videos in a nice overlay on the features page for the best viewing experience. If you don't include them, the videos will still work, but they will open in the browser and scale to the size of the browser window, which usually results in a video that is dramatically larger than intended.

Using the reseller video script

Tim Wall — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:28:51 GMT

To embed a group of unbranded CMS demo videos onto your own website, simply cut and paste the following code snippet into the HTML of your website:

See an example of the reseller video script dropped into one of our default system templates.

Watch the width

Because the video script embeds videos that are 640px wide with a 2px border on each side, you need to be sure the content area in which you drop this script is at least 645px wide. Otherwise, the videos my disrupt the layout of your web page.

Using the reseller pricing grid script

Tim Wall — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:25:50 GMT

To display an unbranded pricing grid showing the package levels of the CMS, the page, storage and user limits of each package, and a listing of which features are included in which packages, simply copy and paste the following code snippet into the HTML of your website:

See an example of an unstyled pricing grid dropped into one of our system's default templates.

Set your own package names and pricing

You can customize the names and pricing for the packages output by the script. To set custom pricing, use a script as follows with a comma-separated list of prices for each package, starting with the lowest level and moving up to the highest:

To set custom package names and custom pricing, use a script as follows, pre-pending the name of your package followed by an underscore in front of your package price:

What about styling?

In order to provide you with ultimate flexibility to create your own styles, we have not included any styles inside the script (other than styles required to create the popup help functionality on the pricing grid). The markup is pure and will take on the style of whatever site you place the script in (you can see this on the examples above which are included in our templates with no special styles applied). That said, here are a few helpful ideas for styling the lists.

You can use our styles as a starting point on the pricing grid

If you want, you are welcome to take a look at the style sheets we have created for the pricing grid on own marketing websites for WaterCMS, SkyCMS and LightCMS. You are welcome to utilize these style sheets as a starting point for your own styles or even link directly to them to utilize them as is. You can find them at the following links:

WaterCMS -- http://publishpath.com/Websites/h20/templates/waterfinal/c/pricing.css
SkyCMS -- http://publishpath.com/Websites/divum/templates/sky/c/pricing.css
LightCMS -- http://publishpath.com/Websites/lumina/templates/light/c/pricing.css

Some basic CSS to add borders to the pricing grid

Adding borders to the pricing grid makes things a little easier to read. So, here are a few simple CSS statements you can add to your style sheet to achieve basic borders. Naturally, there's much more that you can do with CSS, but this will at least turn on some basic borders easily if you need a little help getting started.

div.tableholder { border: 2px solid #333; padding: 5px; }
table.signup td { border: 1px solid #333; padding: 5px; }
table.signup th { border: 1px solid #333; padding: 5px; }
table.signup { border-collapse: collapse; }

Add another website to your account

Support — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:49:13 GMT

Watch video here.

Login to your site.
Click the My Account button on the toolbar at the top of the page.
Click the My Websites tab.
Click the Add new a website button in the top right.
Enter the site address you would like. In the example below your address would be http://mywebsite.publishpath.com.

Note: Click the check availability button to see if that name is available.

Choose the type of website you want to create.

Business- This CMS can be used for any business, industry or organization. If you are unsure what to choose, use this default option.
Ministry- This CMS is for churches or ministries interested in having a website.

Click the Create My Website link.

Backing up your website

Support — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:43:53 GMT

Flash slideshow using XML

Support — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:37:26 GMT

Login to your site.
Go to the Design Manager by clicking on Designs on admin toolbar.
Click on the My Designs tab.
Click the Edit link beneath the name of your template.
Check to make sure your XML file is in with your other templates. If it is not, you will need to upload it to your template via FTP, http://accountsupport.elementfusion.com/ftp to make sure you are able to see it. We will need the XML file there for later steps.
Now, go to the text element where your embed code is and click on settings to edit it.
Click on the < > symbols at the bottom left of the text editor to put you into the HTML view.
Add this attribute to your embed tag, base="http://accountsupport.publishpath.com/websites/WEBSITENAME/templates/TEMPLATENAME". This will tell your Flash player where to find your XML file. In step 5 we made sure that our XML file was in the template folder with our other HTML templates, so that is why we are using that address.
- WEBSITENAME- This is the name of you site that you signed up for. It is the name that is in front of .publishpath.com. If your address was http://lightcms.publishpath.com then your website name would be lightcms.
- TEMPLATENAME- This is the name of your template from the design manager. If you need help finding what this is, go to your design manager and see what template has a check to the left of the name. That is the template that your XML file needs to be and the name to use.
Next, go to your XML file in the design manger. Follow steps 1-4 above to get to the design manager.
Open a new window and make sure you are logged into your website.
Go to one of your text elements and upload your photos if you have not already. We suggest making a special folder for it so that it is easier to update in the future.
In the example below I have five images that I have in my FlashRotator folder.
Copy the Image URL that is at the top of the Image Manger.
Go back to your XML file and add this as the image location as seen in the image below.
If you have done everything properly your Flash slideshow will be showing up

What template will be used for my blog posts and calendar events?

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:47:41 GMT

Blog posts and calendar events aren't really "pages" so you can't apply a template to them from the page settings screen. By default, blog posts and calendar events will use the default template of your website, which can be set on the My Website --> Settings screen.

However, if you want to utilize a different template from the default template to use for blog posts and calendar events, follow this procedure:

Create a template to use for blog posts and calendar events
Name the template "detail.html"
Add the template to your design and re-upload.

The system will find your detail template by its filename and use it whenever it displays the detail page of a blog post or calendar event.

Transferring a Site

Support — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 19:59:12 GMT

Using 301 Redirects are crucial when you are transferring an existing website to our CMS. Your existing website probably has pages indexed in the search engines or someone may have a link to one of the inside pages of your site. Frequent visitors may even bookmark or tag pages they visit often.

If you choose not to use the 301 Redirect Manager the pages indexed on the search engines will return a 404 or page not found error. This can set back any search engine rankings temporarily or even permanently in some cases. It will also take the links/bookmarks/tags to the default 404 page which in our CMS is the sitemap.

How to avoid design conflicts with the admin toolbars

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:28:50 GMT

The admin menus in LightCMS are added dynamically as inline elements that flow with the rest of the page's content, usually "pushing" other content down in order to make room. Often designers who choose to create layouts with an absolutely positioned structure will run into issues because the layout cannot adapt to the changing content. Furthermore, the drop-down menus in the admin view use a variant of the Suckerfish method which requires some positioning via CSS.

Because the menus are inline with the rest of the page, they are subject to any CSS rules that might be in effect on that page and potentially their appearance/behavior can be modified unintentionally. I would recommend that anyone looking to explore these issues becomes familiar with the /Styles/water.css that is added to every page and avoid overriding the CSS rules in that document. To view the water.css stylesheet you will need an add-on for Firefox such as the Web Developer toolbar. It is also helpful to avoid re-using the same class names.

Downloading your design template

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:35:38 GMT

Login to your website.
Choose Designs from the My Website menu on the admin toolbar at the top.
Click on the My Designs button.
Click on your template beneath the My designs header.
Click on the Download button.

How to edit your design templates

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:31:22 GMT

Login to your website.
Choose Designs from the My Website menu on the admin toolbar at the top.
Click on the My Designs button.
Click on your template beneath the My designs header.
Click on Edit button.
Select the HTML, CSS, XML or javascript file you would like to edit.
Edit the HTML, CSS, XML or javascript in the editor.
Click the Save button.

Changing the date format of the date token

Chad Jaggers — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 15:40:16 GMT

As you have seen the date token is pretty plain and the format is set in place. But with adding some simple extras to it you can format the date in many different ways. All you need to do is add format="Insert Formatting Here" in your date token as seen below.

Original date token: <$date/$>

Token update: <$date format="MMMM d, yyyy"http://accountsupport.publishpath.com/$>

There are many other ways to change the formatting of the date token by adding the format="Insert Formatting Here". Please view http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/8kb3ddd4.aspx for many other options.

No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. Connection closed.

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 18:37:30 GMT

Problem

When you try to connect to the FTP server you get one of the following error messages: No connection could be made because the target machine actively refused it. Connection closed. Connection timeout. No response from server.

Causes/Solutions

FTP server settings

The error is occurring because there is no server listening at the host name and port you entered. Check that you have specified the correct host and port. Port 21 is the default FTP port.

Software/Personal Firewall Settings

Another common reason is that a firewall software (Microsoft OneCare, McAfee Total Protection, Norton Internet Security, etc) running on your system is stopping your FTP client from making outgoing connections. To fix this problem add your FTP client to the list of allowed applications in your firewall software.

Multiple Software/Personal Firewalls

If you have Windows XP firewall enabled and a third party firewall software (e.g. McAfee Total Protection, etc.) installed, disable the Windows XP firewall or uninstall the third party firewall software. There are known problems with having both firewall applications running at the same time.

Anti-virus Software

If you are running anti-virus software and having strange problems connecting, disable the "Worm protection" in Norton Anti-virus. If McAfee VirusScan is installed and the "Spyware Plugin" is enabled, go to McAfee VirusScan Console and uncheck the "Prevent FTP outbound" option in the "Port Blocking" dialog of the "Access Protection Properties". You also might need to add your FTP client to the exception list.

LSP Layer

Software firewall applications and other utilities hook into the LSP layers of Winsock. If the hook is not properly written, connection attempts may fail under certain situations.

The solution is to identify and update the application causing the problem. Spyware and adware are known to hook into the LSP layers as well. To remove them install and run Ad-Aware. To manually remove LSP hooks install the LSP Explorer add-on for Ad-Aware. This procedure is recommended for experienced users only. It's easy to break the system.

Router Firmware

This is an unlikely case but a buggy router firmware may cause exactly the problem described above (e.g. Linksys). To fix it update the firmware of your router. You can usually update the router firmware in the router web administration interface or visit the manufacturer's website for router updates and further information.

How do I override styles for the form element?

Support — Mon, 10 May 2010 14:08:32 GMT

By default, the form element embeds styles for your forms onto the rendered HTML page. This can make it difficult to override those styles if you desire to create custom styles for your forms.

But, there is an easy fix.

Once you have added a form element to a page, simply hover over the edit button for the element and select "settings." Then, uncheck the box that says "include basic form styles" and update. This will remove all default styles for the form element and you will be free to style your form however you wish.

HINT: You might want to copy the default form styles which are rendered on the page over to your custom stylesheets before you disable the form styles. By doing this, you will have a starting place for the form styles and can simply tweak and change as needed.

How do I upload and choose my design?

Support — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 21:42:46 GMT

Login to your website.
Click on Designs on the admin toolbar.
Click on the My Designs tab.
Click on the "upload your own design" link.
Choose your file and click the Upload link.
After your template has uploaded, click on a template that you would like to apply to your website.
Click the Apply link.

How do I add thumbnail images of my designs to the admin system?

Support — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:06:39 GMT

You may notice that the designs included with your website have thumbnail images that display anywhere you select or edit a template in the system. You can also include thumbnail images like these with your own design templates. Here's how:

Take a screen shot of a website page that is using your template. You can take a screen shot by putting the site on your screen and pressing the "print screen" key on your keyboard (at the upper right of many keyboards). This will copy the image to your clipboard. Then, open an image editing software and paste the image from your clipboard.
Size the image to EXACTLY 160 pixels wide by 120 pixels tall.
Export the image as a .GIF file and name the image exactly the same as the name of the template for which you are creating the thumbnail, appending the .GIF extension. For example, if the template is named "Inside.html" the thumbnail image should be named "Inside.html.gif".
Save the image to your computer.
Repeat for each template in your design.

Once you have created a thumbnail image for each template in your design, you now need to get the thumbnails loaded onto the system with your design. Follow these steps:

Login to your website and select My Website --> Designs from the top toolbar. This will take you to the design manager.
Click on "My Designs" and look for your design in the list.
Click the "Download" button next to your design. This will download a .zip file containing your design.
Locate the .zip file on your computer and unzip the files.
Rename the .zip file you just downloaded to something different. This will serve as a backup of your design.
Copy the thumbnail images you created earlier into the folder that you just unzipped.
Rezip the design folder containing all of the downloaded files plus the new thumbnails and name the .zip file exactly what the original .zip file was named when you downloaded it.
Go back to the "My Designs" page on your website and click on "upload a design now" at the top.
Browse to the location of the new .zip file you just created and upload.
That's it. The new design files should overwrite the old files and everything should be the same, with the addition of the thumbnails you just created.