Currency Conversion in the Front End

Linking to Currency Converter

The currency converter is located in shopcurrency.asp, you can link to this page anywhere in your site by adding the following HTML code.

<a href="/shopcurrency.asp"><%=getlang("langchangecurrency")%></a>

If you want the currency to be displayed as show with the flag image and chosen currency displayed, you will need to include the following code:

<a href="/shopcurrency.asp"><%=getlang("langchangecurrency")%></a>
<p align="center"><%showCurrencyFlag%></P>
<p align="center"><%=getlang("langchosencurrency")%><BR>
<%=GetSess("Fullunitname")%></p>

The currency converter is contained in shopcurrency.asp.

This file will display the countries that have an image for a flag on the main display, and all countries in the currencyvalues table will be shown in the drop down box.

Once a customer clicks which currency they wish to use the prices shown in the shop are automatically changed.

Setting Up Currency Conversion

The VPASP currency converter allows customers to display the prices in your shop in a currency that they choose.

How it works

The default currency is configured in the International section of the Online Configuration.

Set the following to your currency. In this example we are using Canadian as the base currency.

xcurrencybase - CAD
xcurrencysymbol - CAD$ or just $
xdefaultcountry - CA
xlanguage - ENGLISH or French Canadian

Submit the changes by clicking the button at the bottom of the page.

The actual currency conversion values are stored in the currencyvalues table in the database.

Each row in this table represents a different currency.

The currency that has "1"in the conversionvalue field is the default currency and controls the master rate. So if your site is to display in Canadian dollars then you would set Canadian to 1.

You can edit and add currency values to this table by entering your shop administration and going to :
Occasional Tasks -> International -> Currency Tables

This page allows you to add a new currency or view and edit the existing currencies. The fields in the currency table are as follows:

TIP: You can bulk update your table rates by clicking on the Bulk Update link in the left column. This allows you to update all of your currencies at once.

TIP2: You can import new currencies into the currencyvalues table by going to Everyday Tasks > Advanced > Bulk Import. To see what the table needs to look like you can export the currencyvalues table first as a csv file. X-Rates has an export to Excel feature that allows you to quickly copy and paste the rates into your csv file.

Finding Exchange Rates

You can find currency values wherever you like. We recommend http://www.x-rates.com/. Click on the links to the right to have the default currencies for your site.

Using language variables with the Navigation Manager

This guide will outline how you can create language variables and use them within the navigation manager.

You will first need to create your language variables for each of your different languages.

1. Select Occasional Tasks from the top menu
2. Edit Language – under the International heading
3. Add a record – Top left cornerIn the lang field type the language you are adding the keyword to. For the example below it is English.
4. In the Keyword field enter what you wish to call your new language keyword
5. In the caption field enter the text you wish to appear.

Do the above 3 steps for each language your store offers. Make sure you keep the Keyword the same.

Once you have completed this for all of your languages choose Site Menu Setup from under the Navigation heading in Occasional tasks.

Now click on the edit option for the menu item you wish to use your new keyword for. In our example this is the home item.

In the menu name field enter the keyword of your word.

Then click submit.

Follow all of the above steps for all of the menu items you wish to dynamically change when switching languages.

create new menu links and also update sub menu links.

Language Switching

• Load the language into the ASP Online Store languages table
• Turn on Language displays
• Set the current language used in the cart
• Delete a language

You can add the following ASP statement to any ASP page or shoppage_header.htm or shoppage_trailer.htm. This will display a dropdownlist of all available languages.

<%NavigateShowLanguage%>%Navigateshowlanguages%>

Supplied Language Files

shop$language2_english.asp

When you purchase ASP Online Store you can request up to four additional languages, or you are free to translate ASP Online Store language files into as many languages as you can. To download language files please visit our web site.

Installing a New Language

Assuming you wish to install Spanish as your next language. Download the Spanish files from ASP Online Store. Then go to ASP Online Store administration and go to Occasional Tasks ->Languages -> Add Language

ASP Online Store knows that there are two language files so there is no need to specify shop$language2_Spanish.asp during this process.

Reset Language

The reset language is used to alter the default language being used by all customers. It essentially reloads all the language values from the database and resets the language application variables. This should be used after you have altered the language values using the edit or add facility.

You can do this by going to Occassinal Tasks and selecting from the International drop down "Reset Languages".

Select the language you wish to reset and press continue.

This will force the new language settings into application memory so the site can read them.

Drop Down List of Languages

Changing Language Values - Method 1

Language values can be changed in two ways. You can use your browser by selecting Edit Language from the language administration. The normal ASP Online Store edit display menu is shown. Search for the caption or the language keyword and make the change by editing that caption

For example to Change the word Tax to State Tax, search for caption Tax and then click edit next to the record.

Once the language has been updated you will need to Reset the language variables by clicking on the Reset Language link and selecting the language to update.

Alternate method for Changing Values

Using Language Switching

Local Currency

Or you can simply set your own currency symbol.

Your local currency should now display.

Dual Currency Display

• Language Changes

In shop$language.asp edit the captions for dual pricing

const LangDualPrice=" Euro Price "

const LangDualTotal=" Euro Total "

International Currency Conversion

The xcurrencybase is the abbreviation used by x-rates.com. For your currency abbreviation, please check their site. X-rates.com may at any time change or discontinue, their service and support for changes in ASP Online Store is not guaranteed. It is up to you to determine the usefulness and accurancy of their service. ASP Online Store and X-rates.com have no relationship.

Editing individual translateproduct records

VPASP has the ability to store different language translations for any product, category or product feature. To enable this functionality, set xtranslate to "Yes" in the shop configuration. This will ensure language translation options appear at the bottom of the normal edit form. These new options display the current translations and provide links to add a new language translation or to edit existing ones.

NOTE: The product, category or product feature you wish to add language translations to, must first exist in the products table. You may then "Edit" the item, and add additional language translations.

Individual translate product records can be changed, added or deleted. The next section describes the
translation edit form.

Clicking on Add New Language, brings up a blank form.

Editing Translation Record

Navigation
At the top of the form there are two hyperlinks

Select Table translateproducts | Main Record

Translation Package

The ASP Online Store translation facility allows you to dynamically switch major fields in the products, categories
and product features a table depending upon what language the customer selects.

For example of the customer selects German, then the product description, product name and product
extended description will all change with the language. The feature captions and values will also change
into German.

The translation facility works both with template formatting and with normal ASP Online Store formatting.

The ASP Online Store translation package provides enhanced features and facilities.

* Dynamic switch for product name, description and extended description
* Dynamic switch for category description
* Dynamic switch of product feature captions and values
* Dynamic switch of hyperlinks generated on category and product displays
* Works with and without templates
* Work with dynamic header facility of ASP Online Store
* Shows product dependent product name on facilities such as tell a friend, reviews, ask a question and other ASP Online Store product displays.
* Requires that you enter the values to be show for product and category into new tables.
* There is no limit to number of languages supported
* If a translated field does not exist, the default language value is displayed
* Three additional tables are now used:
translateproducts to hold the translation for products and translatecategories for categories and
translateprodfeatures to hold product features.
* Allows products and categories to be displayed in any language while keep a single stock control
record.

Adding your language values

This section assumes that you have already added additional languages and are using them to change the captions in your shop. Now you may wish to use the ASP Online Store translation facility to dynamically change product details such as description, name and extended description based on the language chosen, and want to display category names based on the language chosen by your customer.

ASP Online Store provides a number of methods of updating the translation tables, translateproducts and translate
categories. The methods include:

1. When editing a product, a new button is provided to let you add and update existing translation
2. When editing a category a new button is provided to add and update an existing translation.
3. When editing a product feature new buttons are displayed to let you add and update a translation.
4. It is possible to use the bulk Import routine, to load the new translation tables.
5. Using the standard ASP Online Store edit/display facilities. This allows you to add and delete records as per any standard ASP Online Store table.

Advanced Extensions

You may wish to extend this facility to other fields with in the products table. For example you may wish to translate the pother5 field. This can be supported in templates in the form

[translate pother]

To make this work, you must also add the field pother5 to the translateproducts table. The standard shopa_edittranslateproducts.asp file will not automatically know about this new field but the raw ASP Online Store editor shopa_editrecord.asp will pick up the new field.

The new field will NOT be translated outside of templates.

Restrictions

Once an item is added to the cart in a specific language, it will remain in that language throughout the
ordering process. This includes emails to both customers and merchants.

Only specific fields are dynamically translated. These are

Changing Category Template

If you plane to use templates and the translation facility, then you need to edit your templates such as
tmp_categorytemplate.htm change a few lines.

Changing Product Templates

If you plane to use templates and the translation facility, then you need to edit your templates such as
tmp_product.htm and tmp_productformat.htm and change a few lines.

In the templates you may have control statements such as: for products.

Bulk Updating

The translation tables, translateproducts, translatecategories and translateprodfeatures can be be bulk
updated just like any other ASP Online Store table. The field names are shown below. All field names are in lower
case in the database.

Translateproducts table.

Translatecategories table.

Translateproductfeatures table.