Projects

The [Project] tab is the start page when you open PayPal Shop Maker.

The recently saved projects are listed. If it is the first time you open PayPal Shop Maker, only the sample project is listed.

To open an existing project, select a project in the list and then click the [Open Project] button or you can simply double-click the project. Alternatively, click the button in the toolbar.

The currently opened project is displayed in bold.

To create a new project, click the [New Project] button. Alternatively, click the button in the toolbar.

To go back to this tab from other tabs, click the icon in the toolbar.

Project Files

Project Folder

A project consists of one or more files under the project folder. When you save a PayPal Shop Maker project, a project folder is created under your personal folder, e.g. "My Documents\PayPal Shop Maker\Projects\<Project Name>\". You may find the following files under the project folder:

Project File

A project file (*.psp) is a XML file which stores database information and settings of a particular project. It can be used as a good save-and-restart point for the customization process and is also useful as a trace in case of problematic generation. It is therefore a good practice to save a project file for each site you are generating.

Like other XML document, project file is human-legible. You should be able to open a project file in any text editor. With a basic understanding of XML, you should be able to read an XML file and change the settings.

Each template object is represented by an XML node in the project file. The object properties are saved as attributes of the node. The property name is same as the attribute name.

Note: The project file is in utf-8 encoding, if you want to modify the project file with a text editor, make sure you use a text editor that supports utf-8 or you may corrupt the project file and make the project file unopenable in PayPal Shop Maker. Always backup your project file before editing.

Project Databases

Most of the the your project information, especially your product information, is stored in a database named paypal.mdb. If you are familiar with Microsoft Access, you can even open the database and directly modify the data. For example, you can directly add or change product information, you can import product information from other data source such as Excel, etc.

Notes:

1. DO NOT modify the structure (schema) of the database or PayPal Shop Maker may not be open the database properly.
2. Always backup the database first before you make any changes to it.

Auto Backup

When you save a project, the old version will be saved to the subfolder "PayPal Shop Maker\Backup" under the My Documents folder first, you can recover older versions of your project from the backup folder in case of corrupted projects or other accidental losses.

Notes:

1. Only the latest 10 versions will be kept, older versions will be deleted.
2. Only the project file (*.psp) is backed up automatically, the database is not. However, you can click Tools->Backup Project in the main menu bar to back up all files (including the database) in the project folder to a zip file.

Project Name

Each project file has a project name. By default the file name (without extension) of the project file is used as project name. Before you name your project file when saving it for the first time, a temporary name, Project<n>, where n is a number, is used. The project name is an important property, it is used in the generated codes to identify your project.

Note: It is recommended that only alphanumerical characters is used in project name.

When you want to create a new project based on an existing project, you can use [Save As...] under the [Project] menu.

If you use IIS (Internet Information Services) for testing PHP, our products can create virtual directory for your project. The project name is used as virtual directory alias as well as the path under the default Web site of IIS. Therefore, if you want to create a virtual directory with a specific name, you can save the project file using that name first.