Graphics are very important on the Internet.  CoastCart has several features that allow you to give your cart a graphically rich appearance.  There are a couple of important things to know ahead of time to make graphic placement easier.

Each product can have two pictures.

You have the option of two image views - thumbnail and enlarged.  The primary display image, or thumbnail, will be displayed in the cart.  It will also display a link next to the can be linked to a larger "better view" image.  To make this work, you will need two versions of each picture.  Normally the thumb will be smaller - somewhere in the 100 - 300 pixel range works best.  The larger picture can be any size but images larger than 1200 pixels will not display on most computer screens.  A general maximum is 800.  They do not have to be the same picture but the link will always say, 

You have the option of displaying chosen product on the home page of the cart.

In the Items Maintenance view of the Shopping Cart Administration portion of your Control Panel.  This is called a Deep Link, which is a feature that allows a graphic and brief description for this item to be displayed on the home page of the cart.  This is perfect for special items. The link will go to the full description and order form for the item.  

There is no limit on how many items you can display on the home page.  However, it is important to note that any items displayed below the initial screen are not likely to be viewed.  Unless you have a small product list, it is usually best to feature a smaller number of important items or one from each of the Product Categories.

Important things to Note:

All graphics will appear in the cart the exact size that they are.  

The cart does not offer image scaling as an option.  So, if your graphic is 500X500 pixels, that's the size it will be on your customer's screen.  Be sure to size your graphics appropriately.  The width of the white portion of this page is 650 pixels.

The scale below gives some idea of what some common image sizes are:

Make sure to have images ready for upload ahead of time. 

Have any graphics ready in a folder on your hard drive so you can upload them as necessary or upload the items into a graphics folder in the cart subdirectory, /images.  (If you choose to upload ahead of time, you will need to remember what the names of the individual files are because you will need to type them into the relative path field.

You can place your logo on each page.

The logo will appear on the top of the cart above the "Shopping Cart" title.  This is just a graphic file, not an HTML page, so it cannot have any links or hotspots.  

Advanced Graphic Features

You can also use a graphic in the header and footer of your cart (this is set up in the Appearance Setup View).  These headers and footers can sport image maps so your customer can navigate throughout your site easily.   This is considered an advanced feature, however, and should only be used by those comfortable with HTML.  Click here for more information.

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