 This article involves editing Core Files so please proceed
with caution. Make sure you make a backup BEFORE you start working and that you have
read the tutorial on editing the MMUI.mv file or
are familiar with such things. THIS CANNOT BE DONE ON THE COMPILED VERSION OF MIVA
MERCHANT (i.e. V4.14) but can be used on any version of Merchant before V4.14.If you have compiled Merchant you will need this module to create your custom error message.
If you have had Miva Merchant for a while you have probably
seen the unsightly fatal error page that is displayed when you (or your potential
customer) try to access an invalid URL (a product that you have deleted, a category that
you no longer use, etc.).
It is possible to have Merchant display your custom error
page (which no matter how lousy of a designer you are will be better than this) by using
the following steps:
 Step 1
Create your custom page using your favorite html editor.
Make sure it is uploaded to the server. Use absolute
references to any images you have on it (i.e. do not use ../images/logo.gif but use
http://yoursite/images/logo.gif instead). We will call this page custom.htm for this
tutorial. On our page we did not put the words "error", or "bad
URL", or "Oops!", but used instead words that encourage the visitor to
click on the links we have placed to various active categories and products. This is
so that search engines that may have indexed an outdated product or category page will
"see" a normal looking page versus a "catch all" bad URL page.
Step 2
Download the file responsible for generating the error
using FTP. The file is called util.mv and is located under the lib
folder. The path will look something like Merchant2/lib/util.mv or Merchant2/4.12/lib/util.mv.
Special thanks to Pamela from DesignExtend for pointing out where the file is located.
Step 3
Open the util.mv in a text editor, just as described in the
editing mmui.mv tutorial.
Locate the following text:
<HEAD>
<TITLE>
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00002">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE = "en-US">Miva Merchant: Fatal
Error</MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<!-- Title -->
Replace Miva
Merchant: Fatal Error with something like "Welcome to Our Store".
Then right after <!-- Title
--> insert the following:
<MvDO FILE="../../../custom.htm">
The number of ../ is dependent on where the custom.htm file
you created in step 1 is located.
Step 4
If you DO NOT want the error text to show at all then you
need to do one more step. Comment out the part that comes right after the one
mentioned above, i.e. put <!-- in front of it and end with -->
<!--
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 1 CELLSPACING = 0 WIDTH = "100%">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR = "#ffffff">
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 5 CELLSPACING = 0 WIDTH = "100%">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR = "#ffffff" WIDTH = "100%">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica">
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00003">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE = "en-US">text goes
here</MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
</FONT>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
<BR>
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 1 CELLSPACING = 0 WIDTH = "100%">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR = "#e6d5c7">
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 5 CELLSPACING = 0 WIDTH = "100%">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR = "#e6d5c7">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00004">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE = "en-US">
</MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
<BR>
<BR>
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 2 CELLSPACING = 0>
<TR><TD>
</TD><TD ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "middle"
NOWRAP>
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00005">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE =
"en-US"></MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
</FONT>
</TD><TD ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "middle">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvEVAL EXPR = "{ g.Error_Code }">
</FONT>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD>
</TD><TD ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "top"
NOWRAP>
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00006">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE =
"en-US"></MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
</FONT>
</TD><TD ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "middle">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvEVAL EXPR = "{ g.Error_Message }">
</FONT>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</FONT>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
-->
Step 5
The part we edited will look like this: (the edits we
did are in RED)
<HEAD>
<TITLE>
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00002">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE = "en-US">Welcome to our Store</MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<!-- Title -->
<MvDO FILE="../../../custom.htm">
<!--
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 1 CELLSPACING = 0 WIDTH = "100%">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR = "#ffffff">
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 5 CELLSPACING = 0 WIDTH = "100%">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR = "#ffffff" WIDTH = "100%">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica">
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00003">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE = "en-US">text goes
here</MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
</FONT>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
<BR>
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 1 CELLSPACING = 0 WIDTH = "100%">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR = "#e6d5c7">
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 5 CELLSPACING = 0 WIDTH = "100%">
<TR><TD BGCOLOR = "#e6d5c7">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00004">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE = "en-US">
</MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
<BR>
<BR>
<TABLE BORDER = 0 CELLPADDING = 2 CELLSPACING = 0>
<TR><TD>
</TD><TD ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "middle"
NOWRAP>
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00005">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE =
"en-US"></MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
</FONT>
</TD><TD ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "middle">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvEVAL EXPR = "{ g.Error_Code }">
</FONT>
</TD></TR>
<TR><TD>
</TD><TD ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "top"
NOWRAP>
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvLOCALIZED ID = "MER-UTL-00006">
<MvLOCALIZED-TEXT LANGUAGE =
"en-US"></MvLOCALIZED-TEXT>
</MvLOCALIZED>
</FONT>
</TD><TD ALIGN = "left" VALIGN = "middle">
<FONT FACE = "Arial, Helvetica" SIZE = "-1">
<MvEVAL EXPR = "{ g.Error_Message }">
</FONT>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</FONT>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
</TD></TR>
</TABLE>
-->
Step 6
Save the file then FTP it back to its appropriate location.
Check that it works by going to your store and checking a category or product that
doesn't exist.
If you have multiple
stores under the same domain (mall) you can have a custom page for each store. You
will need to put the following code instead of <MvDO
FILE="../../../custom.htm"> that we put in step 3. Of course you will have to have 2
custom pages, in this example First_Store.htm and Second_Store.htm.
<MvIF EXPR = "{Stores.d.code EQ
'FirstStoreCode'}">
<MvDO FILE="../../../First_Store.htm">
<MvELSE>
<MvIF EXPR = "{Stores.d.code EQ 'SecondStoreCode'}">
<MvDO FILE="../../../Second_Store.htm">
</MvIF>
</MvIF>
Special thanks to William Weiland from Emporium Plus for this
great tip.
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