Hardcode image and text links

[bekyed]

Hi Everyone.

What's the best way to hard code our affiliate links from our product images and text link underneath this please?
By default this goes to the section url and when this is hard-coded it seems all the images have the same URL

The website now will be basically an affiliate website with no logins or checkout pages, just need the links from the images and links to go to the affiiate page.


Can you help please?

Thanks.
Wayne.

[jont]

If you just add the same link into the one layout then all the links will be the same.

You need to set up a User Defined Variable set at product and section level (if pointing to a 3rd party site or to specific discreet section on your own site) or there are inbuilt variables you can use (depending on your software version) to go up a level to the parent section if you are wanting to link back to the section level containing the products.

[bekyed]

Hello Jont.

Thanks for your replies.

I am using version 8.5.3 IDHB.

set up a User Defined Variable set at product and section level (if pointing to a 3rd party site or to specific discreet section on your own site

Can you be more specific please?

Thanks.
Wayne.

[jont]

Create the new variable under Design > Library > Variables > Other ... right click an existing one and select new

Give it a name eg : AffiliateLink (this is the variable that sits in your layouts)

Description and Prompt are for the UI display so enter something like "Link to Affiliates"

Place of setting - section & product
Tab name = properties

Type = text

Allow empty value
Initial value = use parent

Apply and close out.

In the the sectionlink example I posted yesterday simply replace the link to google with the new "AffiliateLink" variable ... start typing it and select from the auto suggest.

Then switch to a product in the content tree and on the properies tab enter the full URL to the affiliate page

You can do the same for the product image based on the same instructions I sent for the SectionLink ... replace the internal linking with the AffiliateLink variable

[bekyed]

Hi Jont.

OK I have done this OK however I want each product in the section to link to a different affiliate page and not go to the product, I want to bypass this completely if possible.
Can you help again please?

To expand on this.

I have around 10 categories in each sub section created and by default these go to the product, I want each of these to link to the affiliate category page.

Thanks.
Wayne.

[jont]

You can edit the variable on the properties tab to point to any URL you want ... if you set the variable in the section properties all products will inherit ... if you set at the product level that will override and use that link instead.

You need to set up your variable link in product layout using the same principles as I showed for the section link ... simply replace the existing variable in the <a href="...."> tag to include your new AffiliateLink variable. Variables are shown in blue.

[bekyed]

Thanks Jont.

That works a treat.