Using the Instant Site Creator

Introduction
Corperate Web Presence
Personal Web Presence
Credit Card Order Form

This page is part of the documentation for WebCom's Instant Site Creator. Using the Instant Site Creator is quite simple as it gives you step-by-step directions as you go along. What you will find here are general descriptions of what the various Instant Site Creator forms do, and tips for avoiding the pitfalls most commonly experienced by users. The following are general tips and suggestions for using the Instant Site Creator:

Be sure to save

The most common mistake made by people using the Instant Site Creator, is that they fill out the proper forms, view the preview, and then forget to save what their created. When you are done filling out the forms and are viewing the preview, if you like what you see, be sure to click on the save button when you are done!

Be careful not to overwrite your existing site

The instant site creator creates files in your www directory. called "welcome.html", "credit.html", "feedback.html", "help.html", "info_req.html", "news.html", and "products.html", depending on which options that you select. This files will overwrite any file already existing in your www directory with the same name. If you already have a site in your www directory, make sure you have a copy on your local machine before you use the Instant Site Creator. (It is generally considered a good idea to keep a backup of your files in any case.)

Experiment

The best way to get an idea of what the Instant Site Creator can do is to play around with it, create a temporary site with it, and see the results that you get. If you don't like what you end up with, you can always go back and try it again.

This service allows you to create a full, business-oriented web site including (as options), Company Contact information, Products and Services page, Help page, News page, Feedback form, Information Request form, and Credit Card order form. (See below for information about Credit Card order form.) When you finish with this service, you have a complete site that can be customized with an HTML editor (or by editing the files through the File Manager) to include your own company logos and product descriptions and images.

The best thing to keep in mind when using this service, is that the Instant Site creator only creates the pages, and does not set up the accessories to the site, such as email addresses. For instance, one of the default addresses is webmaster@yourcompany.com. Unless you create this email address, it will not work, but the Instant Site Creator will create a link to that address on your page if you let it. For information about creating email accounts and addresses, see our email documentation .

This option of the Instant Site Creator will create a homepage, with the option of a seperate feedback form. The options allow you to determine what kind of information is on your homepage. The resulting page is a template that you can edit with an HTML editor or the Webcom File Manager, to include detailed information about yourself.

The Instant Order Form can be created alone, or as a part of the Corporate Web Presence. This options is most useful to people who would like a robust and effective order form without having to learn how to configure the WebCom Form Processor. It is also very useful for people who want to learn more about how the Form Processor works be creating and examining a working form.

An important note for this service, is that it creates a form application that works with our Form Processor utility. This means that you can re-configure it and change how it works. We do not recommend this unless you are familiar with the Form Processor, as it is complex in design.

By default, the form created the the Instant Site Creator is not secure. In order to make it secure, you need to edit the HTML of the form so that it submits to the secure server. Fore more information about this, please see our Secure Server documentation.

The Instant Form Creator does create a directory called "secure" that your orders will be placed in, however by default this directory is not secure. Before you offer the use of your order form to your users, we suggest that you Password Protect this directory so that no one else can download the order files.

If you are not familar with the Form Processor, and you need to add or remove items from your order form, we suggest using the Instant Site Creator once again to create a new form.