Basic Concepts

MMUI.mv is the basic code that controls the Miva Merchant cart.  MMUI.mv controls the layout, that is, how the shopping cart displays in your browser and how it interfaces with Miva shopping cart functions.  Think of MMUI.mv as the .htm files that control the layout of your website.  One great thing about Miva Merchant is that you can modify much of the layout of your website through Miva Merchant Administration.  You can add logos, and control much of the look and feel of your Miva shopping cart by adding HTML code in Miva Merchant Administration.

However, there are some things that you cannot do to control the layout of your website because some things are hard-coded into the MMUI.mv file.  A decision to modify your MMUI.mv should not be taken lightly. 

Before making the decision you should:

1. Make sure that you really need or want to make this modification.  Can you handle this another way?

2. Examine ways to make the modification by using Miva Merchant Administration.

3. Realize YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for changes to your MMUI.mv file.  Miva Merchant support cannot and will not help you once you've made changes.

MivaScripting and HTML

Once you've taken the plunge and decided to modify your MMUI.mv file, you will want to become familiar with MivaScripting.  Extensive MivaScripting is beyond the scope of this discussion. Miva Merchant has a website to help you become familiar with MivaScripting.  However, the principles of MivaScripting are similar to HTML.  In fact, you will find some plain old HTML statements such as <TABLE> and </TABLE> statements in your MMUI.mv file.  These ordinary HTML statements control the layout of your shopping cart. But the real heart of MMUI.mv is organized around functions that begin with <MvFUNCTION Name = > statements and close with </MvFUNCTION>.  Each one of these <MvFUNCTION> statements control a particular screen or function in the Miva shopping cart.  Plain old HTML statements are located within the <MvFUNCTION> statements.

There are many versions of Miva Merchant due to upgrades. The lastest version is 4.x.  Modifications that work in one version may not work the same way in another version.  Remember YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE for the modifications that you make to your MMUI.mv file.  And it is YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to understand those changes.  If you make a modification in one version and later upgrade, your changes are not retained.  You will have to make those same changes to your upgraded MMUI.mv file.  For this reason it is a good idea to keep a log of the changes that you've made to your MMUI.mv file.

One tool for modifying MMUI.mv is to comment out sections. In HTML we use the tags <!-- and --> to comment out sections. This will work in your MMUI.mv file as well.  MivaScripting uses the tags <MvCOMMENT> and </MvCOMMENT> to comment out sections (for an example of using comment tags click here).  The difference between the HTML and Miva tags for commenting out sections is this:  suppose you open your webpage in IE and want to view your HTML code,  you would click on VIEW and then SOURCE.  If you've used HTML tags you will see the commented out sections.  If you've used the Miva tags, you will NOT see the commented out sections.

Before editing your MMUI always remember to BACKUP, BACKUP, BACKUP!   Save the original MMUI.mv file to your hard drive and, to prevent overwriting this file, rename the file to "MMUIoriginal.mv".  Then save "MMUIoriginal" a second time to a diskette, zip drive, or external hard drive in case of internal hard drive failure.

Click here for the Step by Step tutorial "Editing Your MMUI".