Re: [mv] MiniVend is installed (?) but the demo catalog doesn'tappear

[jojo@buchonline.net]

Hi Rob,

first, i would recommend you to read the minivend documentation and
FQA! Search for a file "minivend.html" in your file system or get the
information from www.minivend.com. I believe it can help you more, if
you have more background. (It is a hint, not a criticism!)

> Thank you very much for taking the time to reply so thoroughly. You have 
> given me much food for thought.
> I am having trouble getting my ISP to answer questions. Here is the info I do 
> have:
>> maybe you have not created a catalog (bin/makecat simple)? 
>   I believe that has been done (by them) because all the 'Art Store' demo 
> stuff is present in my 'pages' and 'products' folders.

Perhaps? You get all files in all your folder by two ways. First by
simply copying the files and second by the makecat script. This is a
big difference, because the special catalog config file (catalog.cfg)
has a list of variables (or templates? I don't know the exact word!) and
and all variables get a new value. A stupid example from me:

Before building a new catalog:
Variable    SERVER_NAME  __MVC_SERVERNAME__
Variable    CGI_URL      __MVC_CGIURL__

After building a new catalog:
Variable    SERVER_NAME  www.mydomain.com

or in your case
Variable    SERVER_NAME  209.40.105.51
Variable    CGI_URL      /cgi-bin/titanic


If your ISP has install the minivend and he was able to start the
minivend server as a daemon, your ISP must be (so i think) able to
create a new catalog (shop). If your ISP has run a demo shop with
success, he can told you how to do a new running shop or how to see the
shop.

Maybe you can install perl, PWS and minivend (in this sort order /
succession)) in your own win machine?
This will improve your minivend knowlegde. If you are able to use a
unix machine, take this!

>>  Do you know about your cgi-bin root?
>   The 'reconfig' file says: $Script    = '/cgi-bin/titanic';

If i have visited the welcome page of your ISP, i see this:

--snip--------------
cgi-bin, status and icons are invalid (shared) directories - DO NOT USE THEM! 
upload your Perl/HTML/TXT in ASCII/TEXT mode 
own CGIs (*.cgi) or SSI (*.shtml): utilize any directory except cgi-bin for your own scripts (e.g. cgibin) and
set the permissions (chmod 755 filename in Telnet or FTP if your client supports it) correctly 
--snip--------------


Is the permission right? Have you more detailed information about your
directories? E.g.

CATROOT         /home/Rob/catalogs/titanic

# The location of the normal CGI directory. This is a
CGIDIR          /www/cgi-bin

# The URL location of the CGI program, without the http://
# or server name.
CGIURL          /cgi-bin/titanic

# Additional URL locations for the CGI program, as with CgiUrl.
ALIASES         /cgi-bin/titanic

# The base directory for HTML for this (possibly virtual) domain.
# This is a directory path name, not a URL -- it is your HTML
# directory.
DOCUMENTROOT    /www/titanic

# Where the sample HTML files (not MiniVend pages) should be
# installed. There is a difference.  Usually a subdirectory of
# your HTML directory.
SAMPLEHTML      /www/shop/titanic

# Where the image files should be copied. A directory path
# name, not a URL.
IMAGEDIR        /www/shop/titanic/images

# The URL base for the sample images. Sets the ImageDir
# directive in the catalog configuration file. This is a URL
# fragment, not a directory or file name.
#         <IMG SRC="/sample/images/icon.gif">
                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
IMAGEURL        /shop/titanic/images

Your ISP must be able to give you the above information (i hope).

>>  Do you know about your document root?
>>  Do you know about your catalogs root?
>  No, I really don't know what you mean by those things.

The catalogs root is outside from the normal webspace. 
E.g. the root like /www/public/Rob is your document root and all people
can see your index.html file with any browser, if this file is in this
root.

All webserver don't provide any access outside the public root (if the
webserver has a right setting). A cgi-bin root is normally hidden for
public. You get more information from the minivend documentation.
 
> What I want to be able to do is type a URL and see that "demo ArtStore 
> catalog" in action. Then I think I'll really be getting somewhere. My site 

I recommend you to get the anwser from your ISP. E.g.

What is the directory of catalogs, document, cgi, images, etc.!
How can i see the shop with my browser?
Normally, we create a new catalog by starting the makecat script
(...bin/makecat) and this script ask us about the directory.
Sorry! But i how no experience with telnet. I have another acces to my
webserver.

> URL is:
> http://209.40.105.51/
> 
> When I try the following, I get "File Not Found"
> http://209.40.105.51/cgi-bin
> http://209.40.105.51/cgi-bin/titanic
> http://209.40.105.51/cgi-bin/titanic/catalog.html
> http://209.40.105.51/cgi-bin/titanic/flypage.html


It seems me, the setting of the cgi-bin is not right in the webserver
of your ISP. I use apache as a webserver and i have seen this message,
because there was a wrong cgi setting in my apache config files. Maybe
this is the reason? But i am not sure!

> (catalog.html and flypage.html are both in my 'pages' directory)

In your public directory? This is not good! See the documentation!

Good luck!

Joachim 

-- 
Hans-Joachim Leidinger
buch online                 jojo@buchonline.net
Munscheidstr. 14            FAX: +49 209 1971449
45886 Gelsenkirchen