Trading Center Site Starter Kit
Welcome to your new Trading Center Site sample application.
The key features are:
-
Searching for Listings. Allow users to search and respond
to Listings.
-
Posting and Managing Listings. Allow registered users to post and
manage Listings.
-
Configuring Site. Allow Administrators to manage site
characteristics.
This site is ready to run! No changes
are needed. Press CTRL+F5 to run the site and navigate to site start page 'Default.aspx'
Site Members and Roles
Your Starter Kit Web site allows
visitors to register as members and then log in. Members have specific privileges
defined by roles such as Administrator or guest. Each Starter Kit Web site defines
site-specific roles. The following table describes what features are available to
visitors in different roles.
|
Visitor
|
Privileges
|
|
Anyone (not logged in)
|
May view and respond to Listings.
|
|
Logged in
|
May additionally post and manage
Listings and maintain a list of bookmarked Listings.
|
|
Logged in as Administrator
|
May additionally edit all Listings and
classified categories, locations, general site settings, and activations and deletions.
|
Important:
Running the site will automatically generate the site's predefined roles.
After running the site for the
first time, be sure to create a user name for
yourself and assign yourself to a role (such as Administrator) that can manage the
site. Note: do not create users with the Web Site Administration
tool because user information
will not get persisted to the correct table in the TradingCenterDB database. Instead, create users by
clicking
the Register link. New
members are activated automatically, and are assigned to the Guests role.
Administrators
can manage users roles using the ASP.NET Web Site Administration tool when the Starter
Kit database is hosted locally. Only use
the tool to manage roles.
In hosted scenarios you can not use the Web Site Administration tool to manage roles.
For more details on creating users for local and hosted scenarios, see Appendix A.
Posting Listings
As a registered user of the Trading Center
Site you can post an for a wanted item or an item for sale. Registered and unregistered
users can browse all Listings and respond to them. When you post an ad, you specify characteristics
of the ad including the category the ad is in, the title of the ad, the description
of the ad, a price, and a location.
Additionally, you can include photos for an ad.
To create an ad
1.
Log in to the site as an registered user.
2.
In the top navigation bar, click on the
Post an Ad link.
3.
Select the category in which you will place the ad.
4.
Click on the Next
button.
5.
Enter the characteristics of the ad. For both
For Sale and Wanted ad types,
the required fields are Title,
Description, Price, and
Location.
6.
Click the Finish
button when you are ready to submit the ad.
To upload a photo for an ad immediately after creating
it
1.
After you clicked the
Finish button for an ad click the Upload
Photos for your Ad now link.
2.
In the Manage Photos
section, click Browse to select the
image to upload.
3.
Click Upload.
4.
Repeat steps 2 through 3 for any additional photos
you wish to upload.
To upload a photo for an existing ad
1.
Log in to the site as a registered user.
2.
In the top navigation bar, click
My Listings & Profile.
3.
In the My Current
Listings section, click the Edit
link of the ad you wish to upload pictures to.
4.
Click the Manage
Photos link in the Actions section
of the page.
5.
In the Manage Photos
section, click Browse to select the
image to upload.
6.
Click Upload.
7.
Repeat steps 5 through 6 for any additional photos
you wish to upload.
Managing Your Listings and Profile
The Classified Site allows you
to manage your active and inactive Listings, your saved bookmarks, and your profile characteristics.
Profile characteristics include your first name, last name, email and password.
To change your profile
1.
Login to the site as a registered user.
2.
In the top navigation bar click on the
My Listings & Profile link.
3.
Click on the My
Profile link.
4.
Your profile information consists of:
a.
First name, last name and email.
b.
Password.
5.
To change your first name, last name, or email
a.
Change
the appropriate text box.
b.
Click
the Save button to commit the changes.
6.
To
change your password
a.
Enter
your existing password, new password, and confirmation in the appropriate text
boxes.
b.
Click the Change
Password button to change the password.
To remove bookmarks
1.
Login to the site as a registered user.
2.
In the top navigation bar click on the
My Listings & Profile link.
3.
Click on the Saved
Bookmarks link.
4.
Click
the the Remove link of a bookmarked
ad you wish to remove from the bookmark list.
Site Administration
The
TradingCenter Site includes an Administration feature users in the Administrators
role can use to perform Administrative tasks including:
·
modify any ad in the TradingCenter Site
·
manage activated and deleted Listings
·
create, modify, and delete categories
·
create and delete locations
·
manage site settings
The
site settings are the business logic of the Classified Site. The settings are managed
using the Web form Settings.aspx page and stored in the site-config.xml file in
the App_Data folder. The site settings include:
·
whether Listings require validation before appearing on
the site
·
number of days an ad remains active
·
whether users are allowed to edit their Listings
·
how Listings are treated when a user removes an ad
·
maximum number of photos that can be associated with
an ad
·
whether to notify the Administrative contact email
when new Listings are posted and at what frequency
·
whether to store photos in a database or in a directory
·
name of the site that is ad response and notification
emails
·
site contact email
·
SMTP host name
To create a category
1.
Log
in to the site as an Administrator.
2.
In
the top navigation bar, click the Site Administration
link.
3.
Click
the Manage Categories
link.
4.
Select
the category that will be the parent category of the new category. Click a category
name in the Sub-Categories list box
to drill down into that category.
5.
Type
in a name for the category in the Add Sub-Category
text box.
6.
Click
the Add button to add the new category.
To manage site settings
1.
Log
in to the site as an Administrator.
2.
In
the top navigation bar, click the Site Administration
link.
3.
Click
the Manage Settings link.
4.
Change
settings as needed.
5.
Click
the Update button. The site-config.xml
file is updated as well as the copy of the settings stored as an application object.
Your Starter Kit Web site allows visitors to register as members. Members have specific
privileges defined by a role you assign to them. A special Administrative role has
rights to perform all functions in the site. How you manage users and roles will
depend on how the Starter Kit is hosted.
If the kit is hosted locally you can use the Web Site Administration tool to manage
user roles. For example, you can assign a user to the Administrators role using the
tool. Do not use the Web Site Administration tool to create new users because new
user information will get persisted to the ASPNETDB database but will not be persisted to the TradingCenterDB
database and the account will not function correctly. If possible, create user accounts
using the Register link in the kit. Advanced users can use
custom Administration tools to create users automatically, or interact directly
with the membership database tables in both the ASPNETDB and the TradingCenterDB database.
In scenarios where the kit uses a hosted SQL server database you will not be able
to use the Web Site Administration tool to manage roles. In this case you will need
another means of managing user roles either through a custom Administration tool
or by interacting directly with the ASPNETDB tables. As in the local scenario, create
users with the Register link in the kit whenever possible.
Note: After creating your Starter
Kit Web site, create an Administrative user for yourself so you can manage the site.
To create an Administrative user local or hosted database:
1.
Create
a user using the Register link in the kit.
2.
Use
the one of the procedures below to change the new user's role to Administrators.
To modify an existing user's role local database:
1.
In
the Website menu, click
ASP.NET Configuration.
2.
Click
the Security tab.
3.
Under
Users, click Manage users.
4.
In
the user list, click Edit roles
for the member. (If you do not see the member's name, use the search box.)
5.
Under
Roles, select the role
to assign to the selected member.
6.
Close
the Web Site Administration Tool.
To modify an existing users's role hosted database:
1.
Connect to the ASPNETDB
database and open the Users, Roles, and UsersInRoles
tables.
2. In the Users table, find and note the UserID
of the user to modify.
3. In the Roles
table, find and note the RoleID of the role to include the user
in.
4.
In the UsersInRoles table, find the UserID
identified in step 1 and replace the existing RoleID with the
RoleID found in step 2. Make sure changes are saved to the table.
Appendix B
- Publishing Your Site
When you are ready to share your Web site with others, you can copy it to your Web
server. You need to know the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) address of your server,
and if required, the user name and password assigned to you.
1.
In
the Website menu, click
Copy Web Site. The Copy
Web Site tool displays the files from your Web site under
Source Web Site.
2.
In
the Connections list,
select Connect to....
3.
In
the Open Web Site dialog
box, click the FTP Site
tab.
4.
Type
the FTP address of your server, and if required, the user name and password that
your hosting site has provided. The FTP URL usually has a format like this:
ftp://ftp.servername/foldername
5.
Click
Open. The files on the
Web server are displayed under Remote Web
Site.
Note: If you have trouble connecting to the server, contact the server Administrator.
6.
In
the Source Web site box,
select all the files.
7.
Click
the Copy selected files from source to remote
web site button.
The files from your site are copied to the server.