Example 13.1. Creating an Additional Custom Layout for Visitors Coming from an Affiliate
Let's say we want to create a special look and feel for people who visit the store from a link on a particular affiliate's site. (Perhaps we want to include the affiliate's logo in the store's header, or change the text or colors around a bit. Any customization on any or all screens is possible.)
- The first thing to do is give a name to your new layout. For our purposes (and for lack of a more original name) let's call our new layout the "special" layout (a one-word term is best).
- This name serves as both the value of the
layoutURL parameter for visitors coming to the site, and as the name of the directory under/WEB-INF/layoutsthat holds the new layout's customized templates. So, go ahead and create a subdirectory under/WEB-INF/layoutsnamedspecial. While you're at it, within that directory create the same subdirectories found under thecustomanddefaultdirectories:core,product,order,customer, andpayment. - Tell your affiliate to add the
layoutURL parameter, with a value of "special", to any links that take visitors from their site to your store. For example, the link to your Welcome Screen would look something lie this:http://www.storesdomainname.com/softslate/Welcome.do?layout=special. When SoftSlate Commerce sees that parameter on the URL, it knows to use the "special" layout throughout the user's session. - At this point you can follow the same techniques for creating a custom
layout described in the Creating a
Custom Layout chapter to create the new "special" layout. Copy files you
want to customize from the
defaultdirectory to thespecialdirectory. If the visitor is assigned to the "special" layout, the store will first look in thespecialdirectory to include each template. If it does not exist there, it will then include the corresponding template in thedefaultdirectory.
![[Important]](images/important.png) | Important |
|---|---|
An important setting for controlling multiple custom layouts is the "Default Layout"
setting in the |