X-Cart:General Options

The 'General settings/General options' page allows you to adjust the general configuration of your store.

Common store options

• Close your shop temporarily: This option allows you to close the storefront when performing maintenance tasks on your store or making changes to your store's settings/configuration. When this option is selected, no one can access the Customer area of your store without a special key.
  
  

X-Cart 4.3or above

The current status of the storefront (open or closed) is displayed at the top of each page in your store's back-end:

Important: You should understand that making changes on a live store without closing the storefront may cause temporary inconsistencies in the store's functioning, which may lead to undesirable consequences. For example, if you change the store's tax or shipping settings while some customers are checking out, these customers may get wrong order totals.

While the store is closed, visitors attempting to view any page in the Customer area see X-Cart's 'shop closed' page (shop_closed.html). If you wish to use a different HTML page as your 'shop closed' page, edit the $shop_closed_file variable in the config.php file of your X-Cart installation.

• The secret key to access a closed customers front end: This field allows you to enter a key that you or the other store staff will be able to use for access to the Customer area while the store is closed. For example, if your store's Customer area home page URL is httр://example.com/xcart/home.php and the key is 'qwe123RTY', the Customer area can be accessed by pointing the browser to httр://example.com/xcart/home.php?shopkey=qwe123RTY. For X-Cart versions 4.5.3 and later, the secret key must not be empty and must be at least six characters long. The allowed symbols are alphanumeric characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and underscores (_). Make sure you change the default secret key "qwe123RTY" to a different value after X-Cart installation.

Important: For security reasons, the key must never be the same as the master, FTP or MySQL password.

• Always show root categories: If selected, root categories are shown in the Categories menu of the Customer area regardless of what category level a customer is currently viewing. You can unselect this check box, so the categories list will always show categories available for browsing on the current level.

X-Cart4.0-4.1

• Enable default password warning: If selected, a JavaScript warning is displayed to the store users who log in to the store with a password that coincides with the login name. The warning is supposed to be an irritating message that reminds the users of the necessity to change their password.
• Enable anonymous checkout: If this option is disabled, users are allowed to use the 'Create account for this Email' check-box option to access the form section on the checkout page where they can specify their email/login and password. If this option is enabled, the 'Create account for this Email' check-box option and the respective form section are unavailable, and it is possible to checkout without creating a regular account (checkout anonymously).
• Enable sign-up for membership: If selected, customers are allowed to sign up for memberships, and administrator moderates the signup process (reviews each customer's application and decides whether the membership should be granted). As a result, customers become members of this or that group only with administrator's approval. You can uncheck this box if you wish to disable membership sign-up for customers (You will still be able to add them to membership groups besides the default group, but it will be outside of the view of your customers).
• Use counties: If selected, use of counties in your store is enabled.

X-Cart4.0-4.1

• Use Java Script version for state and county selector: If selected, a JavaScript version of the state and county selector is enabled for all the forms where users are required to provide a billing/shipping address. You can leave this check box unselected if you do not wish to use the JavaScript version.

How it works with JavaScript version: The JavaScript version of X-Cart's state and county selector provides a mechanism that makes the process of specifying the state/county components of an address more user-friendly.

When a user selects a country from the 'Country' drop-down box in any address form, the JavaScript mechanism ensures that the 'State' drop-down box, from which the user is supposed to select a state, shows not all the states available in the store, but only the states of the country selected from the 'Country' drop-down box. Similarly, in stores that use counties, the list of counties displayed in the 'County' drop-down box includes not all the counties defined in the store, but just the counties of the state selected from the 'State' drop-down box. Please note that the situation described is true only for 1) countries that have their 'has states' check box selected and some states defined; 2) states that have some counties defined. If the user selects a country whose 'has states' box is selected, but for which no states are defined, an input box is provided for the 'State' field, so the customer can type in the name of his or her state manually. If the user selects a country whose 'has states' check box is not selected or a state that does not have any counties defined, the 'State' and 'County' fields are disabled, respectively.

How it works with non-JavaScript version: The 'State' drop-down box provides a list of all the states available in your store (the format of each entry in the list will be 'Country code: State name'). The 'County' drop-down box provides a list of all the counties available in your store in the format 'State name: County name'. Please note that 'has states' check boxes do not affect X-Cart's non-JavaScript state and county selector in any way.

• Redirect customer to cart after adding a product: If selected, your customers are redirected to the shopping cart page every time they add a product to the shopping cart. Important: This option is currently not compatible with X-Cart's Add To Cart Popup module. If you are going to use Add To Cart Popup, be sure to disable this option.
• Return the customer to the dynamic part of the store if the option 'Redirect customer to cart' is disabled and the customer got to the cart page from the HTML-catalog: If selected, a customer who adds a product to the shopping cart from a static HTML catalog page is redirected to the dynamic part of the store. If unselected, the customer is redirected back to the static part of the store.

Note: Using this option makes sense only when the option 'Redirect customer to cart after adding a product' is disabled.

Why you may want to enable this option: Assuming the option 'Redirect customer to cart' is disabled, customers do not get onto their personal cart page after adding a product to cart. When a customer cannot go to the cart page, the only way for him or her to find out how many product items are currently contained in the shopping cart is by looking at the product items counter in the 'Your cart' menu box. As the number of product items displayed in the 'Your cart' menu box can be updated only in a dynamic store, it makes sense to redirect customers to the dynamic part so they can see the updated number of items in their shopping cart.

Why you may want to disable this option: Load on the server where your store is installed can be reduced by having customer activity related to browsing categories and products relocated to the static part of your store (thus relieving the PHP and MySQL).

X-Cart 4.4or above

• Preferred checkout module: This option allows you to choose either One page AJAX checkout or Fast Lane checkout.
  
  

X-Cart 4.4or above

• Allow users to change their usernames: This option allows you to specify whether your store's users should be able to change their usernames.

Note: The option 'Allow users to change their usernames' works only in 'Username as login' user authentication mode. User authentication mode can be changed in the 'Maintenance' section of your store's Admin area, which can be accessed via the 'Tools' menu. For details see X-Cart:Advanced Tools.

X-Cart 4.4or above

• Enable ZIP+4 support for US customers: This option allows you to enable or disable the use of ZIP+4 codes in US addresses entered by customers. ZIP+4 are extended codes which include the five digits of the ZIP code, a hyphen, and four more digits that determine a more precise location than the ZIP code alone (ZIP+4 format: 12345-6789). If this option is enabled, a customer who selects 'United States' in the 'Country' field of an address form will see the 'ZIP/Postal code' field as two boxes separated by a hyphen in the middle; this field will allow for ZIP+4 codes as well as basic 5-digit ZIP codes. If this option is disabled, the 'ZIP/Postal code' field will appear as a single box and will only allow for 5-digit ZIP codes for US addresses (Anyone attempting to save a US address with a different number of digits in the ZIP/Postal code will get an error message).

Note: The option 'Enable ZIP+4 support for US customers' does not affect the 'ZIP/Postal code' field in the Seller address form in X-Cart PLATINUM and PRO.

X-Cart 4.1

• Allow searching by individual words of a search phrase: If selected, store users (including customers) can specify whether the results returned by a product search should match 'All words', 'Any word' or the 'Exact phrase' of the search pattern. You might want to disable this option if you wish to reduce load on your MySQL server. With this option disabled, search results will include only exact matches of the search pattern.

Default (anonymous) customer options

• Default country: The country used as the country of residence of the default customer and displayed by default in the 'Country' field of user registration/user profile forms.
• Default zipcode: The zip/postal code used as the zip/postal code of the default customer.
• Default state: The state used as the state of residence of the default customer.
• Default city: The city used as the city of residence of the default customer.
• Presume that a not logged in customer is from the default country: If selected, the location defined by the values of the 'Default country/zipcode/state/city' fields is regarded as the place of residence of any anonymous customer. As a result, customers can get an estimate of shipping and tax costs for their orders even when they are not registered or not logged in. (For an anonymous customer, the cost of shipping is calculated based on the shipping rate defined for the destination zone that includes the default customer location and the shipping method selected by the customer from the list of methods available for the default customer location; tax amount is calculated based on the destination zone that includes the default customer location).

Note: Shipping cost estimates are displayed to anonymous customers only when the 'Fast lane checkout' module is disabled.

General parameters

• Primary currency symbol: The symbol to be used for the primary currency.
• Primary currency display format: The location of the primary currency symbol relative to the amount: before the amount, after the amount, with or without a space between the currency symbol and the amount.
• Alternative currency symbol (empty to disable). Note that credit card charges are made using primary currency: The symbol to be used for the alternative currency. If specified, all the prices in your store will be displayed twice: first in the currency defined as primary, then in the currency defined as alternative.

Note: If you specify an alternative currency symbol, be sure to set an alternative currency exchange rate further in this section.

If you do not wish to use an alternative currency, leave the 'Alternative currency symbol' field blank.

• Alternative currency display format: The location of the alternative currency symbol relative to the amount: before the amount, after the amount, with or without a space between the currency symbol and the amount.

• Alternative currency exchange rate: The conversion rate to be used by X-Cart to convert prices defined in the primary currency to the alternative currency.
• Weight symbol: The symbol to be used for units of weight (like lbs, kg, etc). By default, the value of this field is lbs.
• Number of grams in the unit of weight defined by the weight symbol: The number of grams in the unit of weight used in your store (X-Cart needs this value to be able to convert weights expressed in the units of weight specified in the 'Weight symbol' field to the units of weight used by specific shipping services like U.S.P.S, FedEx, etc). By default, the value of this field is 453.6.
  
  

X-Cart 4.2or above

• Unit of length symbol: The symbol to be used for units of length (like cm, inches, etc). By default, the value of this field is inches.
  
  

X-Cart 4.2or above

• Number of centimeters in the unit of length defined by the unit of length symbol: The number of centimeters in the unit of length used in your store (X-Cart needs this value to be able to convert lengths expressed in the units of length specified in the 'Length symbol' field to the units of length used by specific shipping services like U.S.P.S, FedEx, etc). By default, the value of this field is 2.54.

Purchase limitations

• Minimum allowed order subtotal: The minimum subtotal amount with which an order is accepted by your store (Customers are not allowed to place orders with a subtotal smaller than this value).
• Maximum allowed order subtotal (0 means no maximum limit): The maximum subtotal amount with which an order is accepted by your store (Customers are not allowed to place orders with a subtotal greater than this value).
• Maximum allowed total quantity of products in an order (0 means no maximum limit): The maximum number of product items a customer is allowed to order at a time (regardless of product titles). For example, if you set this value to 5, and a customer of yours attempts to order three books and three CDs, he or she will not be allowed to place the order.

Provider commission options

X-Cart 4.4or above

X-CartPro

X-CartPlatinum

• Providers commission rate (%): The rate in percent to be paid to all the providers.
• Minimum commission payment: The minimum amount which can be paid out to a provider.

See Provider commissions for more information.

Inventory options

• Disable inventory tracking: If selected, tracking of the number of product items in stock is disabled. You might want to disable inventory tracking only if the number of items in stock is unlimited for all the products in your store.
• Show products which are out of stock: This option defines whether products should remain viewable on the storefront after they run out of stock. If this option is enabled, unavailable products remain on the storefront with an Out of stock label: such products cannot be added to the shopping cart; however, their product details remain viewable to customers. If this option is disabled, products that run out of stock are removed from the storefront; customers attempting to access the Product details page of such a product (for example, by using a previuosly saved bookmark) get the message "This product is unavailable or temporary disabled".

Tip: In earlier versions like 4.3.2 and older this option is known as "Disable products which are out of stock". You should disable this option if you want unavailable products remain on the storefront with an Out of stock label.

Payment options

X-Cart4.0-4.4

• Do not ask customers to enter CC information while getting registered: When this option is enabled, the 'Credit card information' section is not included into the user registration and checkout forms.

Note: It is strongly recommended to keep this option enabled.

If you choose to disable this option, be sure to set the value of the $store_cc variable in config.php to "true" (See X-Cart:Config.php#Storing Customers’ Credit Card Info).

X-Cart4.0-4.4

• Enable 'Issue Number' and 'Valid from' fields in the CC info form: If selected, 'Issue No.' and 'Valid from' fields are included into the 'Credit card information' section on the customer registration form and at the last stage of checkout.

X-Cart4.0-4.4

• Display CVV2 input box on the registration form and at the last stage of checkout if Manual CC processing is used: If you use manual credit card processing, this option allows you to include an input box for CVV2 into the 'Credit card information' section on the customer registration form and at the last stage of checkout. To ensure collection of CVV2 codes entered by customers, before enabling this option, set the value of the $store_cvv2 variable in config.php to "true" (See X-Cart:Config.php#Storing CVV2 codes).

X-Cart4.0-4.4

• Use dynamic (JavaScript-based) Credit Card info validation: If selected, a special validation routine performs a preliminary check of compliance of the credit card number, CVV2 and expiration date provided by a customer with several different formatting rules.
  
  

• Number of days in advance that you want a reminder to be sent to the Orders department email address about an order in Pre-authorized status for which the authorization period is going to expire: This setting allows you 1) to set up X-Cart to send email notifications to your store's Orders department about orders for which the authorization period is going to expire soon and 2) to specify the number of days before the end of the authorization period that you wish such notifications to be sent. If you do not wish notifications of this kind to be sent, set this value to "0" (zero).

Miscellaneous

• Enable debugging console: If selected, X-Cart's debugging console is enabled. X-Cart's debugging console is a tool that can show the hierarchy of templates on any of the store pages and, when Webmaster mode is enabled, can help you find specific templates. You can enable this option when customizing the look and feel of your store; be sure to disable the debugging console as soon as you finish editing the store templates.

X-Cart 4.0

• Enable tracking statistics: If selected, X-Cart gathers tracking statistics for your store ('Top paths through site', 'Top page views' and 'Shopping cart conversion funnel' sections are added to the 'Statistics' section of the Admin area of your store).
• Parse Smarty tags in the content of embedded static pages: If selected, you can use Smarty tags in your embedded static pages. As a result, static pages using Smarty tags are treated not just as plain HTML pages, but as templates.
• The full path to Perl interpreter executable (e.g. WIN32: 'd:\perl\bin\perl.exe'; UNIX: '/usr/bin/perl' or leave this field empty): A full path to the Perl binary; set this value if Net::SSLeay is selected as Preferred HTTPS module in your X-Cart configuration, otherwise leave it empty.

The full path to Perl binary should be also specified to be able to perform X-Cart upgrades on Windows operating systems (in 4.0.x and earlier versions). The Perl binary is also used by the CyberCash credit card payment processing module (in 4.0.x and earlier versions); it is also used by the CyberSource credit card payment processing module (in 4.2.x and earlier versions).

• Preferred HTTPS module (if not found the first available module will be used): The HTTPS module that you wish to use for sending HTTPS queries (Net::SSLeay, CURL, libCURL, Open SSL executable, HTTPS-cli executable). Make sure the desired module is installed on the server.

To find out what HTTPS modules are installed, refer to the 'Environment info' section of the Summary page in the Admin area.

If the module selected to be preferred is unavailable, X-Cart uses the first available HTTPS module that it can find.

• HTTPS proxy: If you are using Curl or LibCurl, enter the HTTPS proxy data in the required format. Some parts may be omitted, the following variants are possible:

username:password@host:port

username:password@host

username@host

username@host:port

host:port

host

If no proxy should be used, leave the field empty.

If you access Internet via proxy and fail to enter the proxy data here, you will not be able to specify external URL addresses for product/category images.

X-Cart4.2-4.3

• Allow provider users to edit their Seller Address: This option is available in X-Cart PLATINUM and PRO editions. Using this option, you as a store administrator can allow/forbid your store's providers to access the Seller Address section in their user profile and edit its contents. If this option is enabled, your store's providers will be able to define the address from which their products will be shipped by themselves; they will also be able to edit this address at any time. If this option is disabled, only you (and other store administrators, if any) will be able to define and edit provider seller addresses.

• Secure key for launching the cron.php script: This field allows you to set a key that you will use to launch cron.php from the command line. cron.php is X-Cart's script that launches execution of periodic tasks. The key is needed to prevent unauthorized access to this script. The key must be an alphanumeric code no less than 6 characters in length. After the value entered into this field is saved, X-Cart will automatically generate a command that you will be able to use to launch cron.php from the command line. This command will be displayed below the 'Key for launch of the cron.php script' field like the following:

NOTE: Command for launching the cron.php script:
cd /var/www/vhosts/yoursite.com/httpdocs/xcart; /usr/bin/php -d safe_mode=Off cron.php --key=c901d65fc15ff15d0ac0af967437d051

• Run the script that launches execution of periodic tasks once per N user sessions (Set to 0 or leave empty if you do not wish to use this script): This setting allows you to set up X-Cart to automatically launch the script cron.php once per a predetermined number of user sessions (The desired number of user sessions can be entered into this field).

AJAX options

X-Cart 4.3or above

• Update mini-cart in background on product list and product details pages: When this option is enabled, adding a product to the shopping cart results in that the mini-cart on your store's product list and product details pages in Customer area is updated dynamically in the background without reloading the entire page.

Optimization settings

X-Cart 4.4or above

• Use speed-up tool for Javascript: Select this check box to speed up JavaScript.
• Use speed-up tool for CSS: Select this check box to speed up CSS.
• Edit the file <x-cart_directory>/var/cache/.htaccess to insert the following lines: Include this code into your .htaccess file to allow optimization tools to work.

<FilesMatch "\.(css|js)$">
Allow from all
</FilesMatch>

When you select to speed up JavaScript and CSS, the respective files are cached, which takes more space on your file system.

Please note that when you enable the optimized mode, all your JavaScript and CSS files are combined into a single temporary file, which makes editing the code impossible. So if you need to customize the code, do it before enabling CSS and JavaScript optimization tools. You can also switch the optimization off, customize the code and switch the optimization back on. This way the edited files will be cached again.

• Generate X-Cart cache every N hour(s): Recommended value is 24. Note that you can disable data caching in your store by setting the value of the USE_DATA_CACHE constant in X-Cart's configuration file config.php to 'false'. Also note that starting with X-Cart version 4.5.4 the option 'Generate X-Cart cache every N hours(s)' is no longer present in the General Settings->General options section; instead, it is now available as the DATA_CACHE_TTL constant in the file config.php.
• Use cache for language variables: Please use this option if you have a lot of memory dedicated to your PHP engine. This option can slow down your shop pages in some cases. Please, check your pages before keeping this option enabled in production mode. If your store uses multiple languages, make sure all used labels are defined for each language if the option is enabled.
• Do not check if templates are changed (Smarty compile_check): Once an application is put into production (i.e. the templates won't be changing), the compile check step is no longer needed. Note that if you change this to enabled and a template file is changed, you will *not* see the change since the template will not get recompiled. Be sure to enable the option for maximal performance.
• Do not delete empty strings in templates: Recommended value is ON. Before showing a compiled Smarty template you can select to remove two or more successive empty strings if there are any. This can decrease productivity if many templates are to be displayed. Disable this option if you have any problems with your page appearance.
• Use cached buy_now.tpl template calls: Recommended value is ON. You can use smarty's {include_cache} function instead of the standart {include} function for the maximum performance. Disable this option for the development mode, to generate HTML code from scratch.
• Do not log changes in PHP configuration settings: Recommended value for production mode is ON. Disable this option if you would like to track changes in PHP configuration settings. The changes will be logged in files like var/log/x-errors_env-<date>.php. It can be useful during development or during problem research phase.
• Check only main category condition for products selection and product search: Enable this option if you have many additional product categories.
• Do not check product's category availability and product's category membership on all the product related pages: You should define product availability and product membership individually for each product if this option is enabled. Affected pages are Feature Comparison product list, Featured products, Product search, Special offer pages, Manufacturer products. Enable this option if you have a lot of categories and problems with shop performance. Please note that the 'Order by' field defined on category details page will not be used when the option is enabled. This option can slow down your shop pages in some cases. Please, check your pages before keeping this option enabled in production mode.
• Use simple sorting by productid on all the product related pages: Enable this option if you have problems with shop performance. Please note the 'Sort by' feature will not be available on all the product pages. Affected pages are Feature Comparison product list, Featured products, Product search, Special offer pages, Manufacturer products.
• Do not use product international descriptions on all the product related pages: Recommended value for single-language store is ON. Enable this option to search by default language. Please note international descriptions will not be used on all the product pages. Affected pages are Feature Comparison product list, Featured products, Product search, Special offer pages, Manufacturer products, Recently Viewed, Bestsellers, etc.
• Use new module initialization routine: Recommended value: ON. Disable this setting if you have problems initializing 3rd-party modules.

See also: JavaScript and CSS optimization

Gift wrapping

X-Cart 4.4or above

• Allow adding a gift wrapping to orders: This option allows you to specify whether customers should be able to order gift wrapping for their items. If this option is enabled, the shopping cart page provides the checkbox option 'Add gift wrap' which can be selected to order gift wrapping for the items in the shopping cart.
• Allow adding a greeting message to orders: This option allows you to specify whether customers ordering gift wrapping for their items should be able to also add a greeting message. If this option is enabled, selecting the 'Add gift wrap' checkbox option on the shopping cart page opens up the 'Add a greeting message' box below it where the text of the desired message can be entered.
• Gift wrapping cost: This option allows you to set the price of adding a gift wrap for ordered items. Depending on the 'Sum up wrapping cost' setting, gift-wrap price may be applied per order or per provider (see below for an explanation). Any discounts applied to the order do not apply to gift-wrap price.
• Sum up wrapping cost: This option allows you to specify whether the gift-wrap price defined by the 'Gift wrapping cost' field should be applied per order or per provider.

If the option 'Sum up wrapping cost' is enabled, the cost of gift wrapping for a customer's order is calculated as the contents of the 'Gift wrapping cost' field multiplied by the number of individual providers whose products are contained in the order. In this case, each of the provider invoices shows the cost of gift wrapping as a sum equal to the contents of the 'Gift wrapping cost' field.

If the option 'Sum up wrapping cost' is disabled, the cost of gift wrapping for a customer's order equals the sum specified in the 'Gift wrapping cost' field. This sum is divided equally between the individual providers whose products are contained in the order. As a result, each of the provider invoices shows the cost of gift wrapping as the contents of the 'Gift wrapping cost' field divided by the number of providers whose products are contained in the order.

Example:

'Gift wrapping cost' is defined as $8. A customer's order contains products supplied by 4 providers.

If the option 'Sum up wrapping cost' is enabled, gift wrapping cost will be calculated as $8*4=$32; each provider invoice will contain $8 for gift wrapping.

If the option 'Sum up wrapping cost' is disabled, gift wrapping cost will be $8, and each provider invoice will contain $2 ($8/4=$2) for gift wrapping.

Provider registration

X-Cart 4.4or above

X-CartPro

X-CartPlatinum

• Allow provider registration: This option enables you to allow registration of provider accounts by new users via the 'Create profile' form in your store's Provider area. The 'Create profile' form is available via the 'Register' link on Provider login page. When the option 'Allow provider registration' is enabled, anyone can use the 'Create profile' form to set up a provider profile with your store. When the option 'Allow provider registration' is disabled, the 'Create profile' form is unavailable, and only Admin users can add new provider profiles.

Further options in this section ('Moderated provider registration' and 'Show a link to Provider area in Customer area') work only if the option 'Allow provider registration' is enabled.

• Moderated provider registration: This option enables you to approve/decline newly registered provider accounts. When this option is enabled, a user who registers a new provider profile needs to be approved by the store administrator before he or she can actually gain provider privileges: the new provider profile is suspended immediately after registration, and the store administrator can either approve or decline it. When the option 'Moderated provider registration' is disabled, new provider profiles are approved automatically, so the respective users can log in to the Provider area and start their activity immediately after profile registration.

• Show a link to Provider area in Customer area: This option allows you to provide a link to the 'Create profile' form for provider registration in your store's Customer area. When this option is enabled, a sidebox titled 'Become a provider' is displayed in the Customer area; that sidebox contains the link 'Click here to register as a provider' which can be used to access the 'Create profile' form for provider registration. When the option 'Show a link to Provider area in Customer area' is disabled, no such sidebox is displayed.

Troubleshooting

X-Cart 4.4or above

CSS and JS files are not loaded on my X-Cart pages when CSS and JavaScript optimization tools are enabled

The problem may be caused by the following code placed in .htaccess file in your store's root directory:

RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/var/.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php

Such code is used to prevent access to sensitive areas of the X-Cart file structure.

To solve the issue, modify the code as follows:

<FilesMatch !"\.(css|js)$">
RedirectMatch permanent ^.*/var/.*$ http://www.yourdomain.com/x-cart-path/error_message.php
</FilesMatch>