VMM Auto Gallery - Frequently Asked Questions
How do I add agents to VMM Auto Gallery?
How do I add vehicles to VMM Auto Gallery?
How do I create a link directly to a specific category?
How do I create a link directly to the listings of a specific agent?
How do I link to a specific vehicle?
Is my database safe?
Now that I have VMM Auto Gallery set up, how do I make the most of this software?
Why is my vehicle image distorted?
How do I add agents to VMM Auto Gallery?
- Navigate to the Login page on your web site.
- Click the link under "Not Registered?". This link will direct you to the "newagent.asp" page.
- Click the "Continue" button.
- Enter a Username, Password, and Email for the agent (do not use the same info as the Administrator account).
- The Administrator will be sent an email stating that a new agent has signed up and must be authorized before he/she can begin to enter vehicles. Follow the link in the email or login as the administrator and click on "View Agents".
- You will notice that at the top of the page it states, "There are new agents accounts awaiting your authorization. Click here to view these accounts." Click the link.
- Select the "Authorize" radio button and click finish. The agent can now login and begin to list vehicles.
- Logout.
Each agent will have access to their account information, contact information, their own vehicles, and the list of "Shared" vehicles. Agents cannot access the administrative tools such as in the "Web Site Options" area.
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How do I add vehicles to VMM Auto Gallery?
The administrator and all agents can add an unlimited number of vehicles to the system. The administrator has access to all listings, while each agent has access to only his/her own listings and those listings that are designated as "Shared".
To add a vehicle to VMM Auto Gallery:
- Click on "Add Listing" on the administrative home page.
- Follow the "Add Listing" wizard through the necessary forms. Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*). We recommend that you be as thorough as possible.
- On the final page of the wizard, you will be presented with a 'summary' of the new listing. (At this point, the data has not been submitted to the database...please review the data carefully before clicking "Finish".)
- When you are satisfied with the data, click "Finish" -- only once!
- The data will be entered into the database and the new listing will be immediately available on the web site.
- After clicking "Finish" you will be given an option to add another listing, or upload photographs of the new listing.
Adding photographs:
- An agent or administrator can upload an unlimited number of photos of each vehicle. Using the "Photo Manager" utility.
We recommend that your photos conform to a 4x3 proportion. (for example: 640x480, 800x600, 1024x768, etc.) These are standard image sizes on most digital cameras. Please do not make your photos too large -- large photos can take a long time to download. We recommend that you limit their file size to less than 80 kilobytes.
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How do I create a link directly to a specific category?
To link directly to a specific category, you can add a variable to your URL called "categoryID_list". The script assumes that the incoming information is a "list"...even if there's only ONE element in that list.
vehiclelistings.asp?categoryID_list=1
This link will open our online demo and display all the properties in the main category with a categoryID equal to "1": usually called "Farms and Acreages" unless one of our visitors have been making modifications to the demo!
vehiclelistings.asp?categoryID_list=5_9
This link sends a "list" of categories to the listings page. The first element in the list is always the MAIN category. All subsequent numbers (separated by an underscore: _ ) represent SUB-categories.
So how can I find out the categoryID?
There are many different ways to find out the exact categoryID of your categories. The easiest way is to browse to the pages you want to link to using the category "drop-down" menus and then cut-n-paste the link that appears in your web browser's address bar.
Another option would be to open the "Category Management Utility" in the "Web Site Options" area and view the source code of those pages. Within the source code for the "drop-down" menus, you'll find:
<option value=(#a number)>
where the number is the categoryID you're looking for.
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How do I create a link directly to the listings of a specific agent?
To link directly to the listings of a specific agent, you can add a variable to your URL called "agentID".
vehiclelistings.asp?agentID=5
So how do I found out my "agentID" number?
The easist way is likely to click on the link beside the agent's contact information (while looking at a detailed listing) which says "Click here to view all listings by this agent..." and then look in the address bar of our web browser. It will look something like this:
http://www.stetsonford.com/2020applications/[thepage].asp?agentID=[a number]
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How do I link to a specific vehicle?
To link directly to a specific vehicle, you can add a variable to your URL called "vehicleID".
vehiclelistings.asp?vehicleID=1
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Is my database safe?
Yes
Your database has been password protected. Your database has been assigned a unique code which is encrypted within the source files of your product. The database cannot be opened or modified without that unique code.
Now that I have VMM Auto Gallery set up, how do I make the most of this software?
Auto Gallery is very versatile and provides a broad range of functionality. We have tried to balance this application for both the web savvy guru, and the inexperienced novice -- ease of use versus versatility and power.
Tips to get the most out of VMM Auto Gallery
Good information - and lots of it!: VMM Auto Gallery looks best when there is an abundant amount of information about each listing. Customers may upload dozens of photographs for each vehicle, fill out all the fields in the "Add Listing" wizard, and type at least one paragraph in the "Features", and "A word from Us" fields. Those customers have benefitted from higher search engine ranking and very favourable visitors response.
Search engines: VMM Auto Gallery has been carefully designed to promote optimal search engine response. While we cannot garauntee results from search engines, suffice to say that Google.com and other search engine spiders are able to successfully navigate and index all your listings -- our customer web logs show that search engine spiders will visit the vehiclelistings.asp page multiple times to grab each listing for their index. Therefore it's up to you to provide an abundant amount of good information in each listing and be conscious of keywords that your visitors might use to find your web site.
Maintenance
We recommend that you backup your database regularly. The database is the *.mdb file on your web server. It is good practice to make local copies of the database on your own hard drive and mark them by date or time. For example: backup_August_2003.mdb, backup_September_2003.mdb. There are other steps that one can take to provide insurance against disasters; we might recommend you speak with your server administrator about "data recovery", regular backups, and/or mirrors.
Many customers have made good use of our tools to upload photographs for each listing. In some cases, photos require many hundreds of megabytes on their web server -- in those cases, it is best to reformat those photos to ensure that they will download to the visitors as quickly and efficiently as possible. Consider this:
All photos are located in the "uploads" folder.
One might consider downloading the largest files in that folder to their own computer, and resizing them or recompressing them to minimize their file size.
Or perhaps one might develop a "batch processor" to automatically downsize the images.
Why is my Image distorted?
Your photos must be 300 pixels wide by 225 pixels tall. (This is not optional. If your photo is a different dimension, then we cannot guarauntee that images will display correctly on the public pages.)
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