Website Builders Common FEatures

Common Features:

Below are listed Common Features which are available in all website builders. Other than these more Website Builder specific features are listed in each builders own section.

This is also the feature list for "personal Website Builder".

Please don't get confused by reading this list. These features are there for you, and you may or may not use them depending on your requirements.
Everything is made very very simple to use. Most of the times, you just need to select/click a feature, add your text/images and click save. Website Builder handles the rest.

If you can type, and click with mouse, you can easily use these!

Security:

On the web, security is of utmost importance, and we understand this.
Please read about security features here.

Installation:

Easy to use self-guided installer inbuilt. You just need to provide your access/database details to it.
Inbuilt cleanup utility to remove the installer files, so no one can run them again

Admin:

Password reminder: If you forget your admin password, this can be used to remind you the password. Please see security features here to know about all security measures that script provides you.
3 different navigation systems. Use the one you like. Hide the navigation and bring up the menu on a click, or always see the menu in side area, or use a dropdown selection box to naviggate. Use the one you like easiest.
CSS based design so you can change the look/feel as per your likes. Brandable logo image. Only this logo needs to be changed to rebrand the admin panel.
MS-WORD like WYSWYG editors in admin panel wherever needed.
Admin settings: change admin acceess login.
Payment & other settings: Select default currency, add a secondary currency, set affiliate commission, minimum payout for affiliates, offline payment information, Turn ONN/OFF maintainance mode (user activity will stop here. Useful if you are upgrading Website Builder, or modifying tables manually etc...), Onn/Off user comments, on/off auto approval of comments, on/off email verification for members at registration time, on/off new registration, on/off, member list, on/off mailing archive, set paypal email etc.
Settings extra pages/messages: text/pictures for your contact page, User Login Message, Moderator login Message, Affiliate Login Message, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy
General Site settings: These change depending on which Website Builder you are using. For example "E-commerce builder" has different "Site settings" from "Web Hosting Builder".
Please view appropriate sections.
Directory Settings: Use this if you need a directory builtin your website. Useful for link exchange as well. Turn on/off directory viewing, set notify email when new websites are submitted, set fields on which visitors can search directory, 6 different packages (paid, or free is upto you), on/off detail page, on/off logo upload, on/off auto approval of listings, on/off email confirmation, set your terms & conditions for directory submission.
Edit HomePages: Website Home (your home page), Directory Home (any special message for directory home page), Affiliate Intro (messages for affiliates ex: details of your affiliate program etc).
Additionals: People searched (list of terms people are searching on your site), Comments (read/approve/delete comments submitted), Support Depts (make/delete unlimited support departments. Used in the inbuilt support ticket system), FAQs (build unlimited FAQ pages), Newsletter (email notification to all registered members), Affiliates (check/process affiliate payments), Block IP (Ban an IP from seeing your site. Useful to avoid hack/DOS attacks, ban unwanted naughty users etc.), Blocked IP (list/unlock locked IPS), Constants (edit s ome site constants. Useful to add data to some elements of menu, top bars, footer, content etc), Publish website news and list published news (details of NEWS below).
In addition to sending newsletter in email, the website builder also stores the page to be shown on website. If you do not want newsletters to be seen on website, you can turn off archive mailing in settings above. However this is a good way to have new content on website.

Please note that this section shows more features depending on the Website Builder you are using. For example: E-commerce builder has a CSV/text importer for products where you can upload a file to edit/add new products to site.
Information pages: These are articles/content of your website. For example this page you are reading is an information page.
You need not know HTML. You have a MS-WORD like WYSWYG editor. You type your text, add things (if needed) like bold, italic, images, links, tables, colors etc and click the process button. Website Builder publishes the page for you. Don't worry about making mistakes. You can easily change things later if needed!
Website Looks: This is something we like most. It allows site owners to quickly, extremely easily, efficiently change the looks of the website. You can change colors, logos, banners, flashes, alignment from this area.
You can even set a template to be used as your website theme from this section.
This area also allows you to upload themes/templates to be used with the site.
Note: Every theme you upload here will appear in the drop box in front and visitors can view your site in their own favorite theme!
Replace Words: Here you can change any output that script is generating. For example if you want to add a word/phrase just before another word/phrase, you can do it here. So "My name is" can become "my full name is" etc... You can even change HTML with this.

Example: All links you see to common features here and security features here is done using this. We kept typing those words where we wanted to show these links. Then later did a replace to convert them to links easily. Even if the URL of the page changes, we need not edit all pages, just that replacement and entire site will update itself!

This is just an extension to the "developer" code. If you do not know coding, you can use this tool to change the output.
In addition to this, you can even run your own php code, by declaring functions in "c.user_func.php" and actual calls in "c.user_code.php". Using this you can completely change the output of a page, or even add your own functionality!
Export: Currently you can download the color scheme of your current theme using this section. That way you can keep making color schemes for themes and download the settings to your PC for future use etc.
In the next version this section will have some more advanced functionality.
Import: Use this section to import the color schemes you downloaded. The change will immediately affect your website by changing theme, colors, logos, banners etc...
You can also use this section to Download files from web. Useful if you want to transfer a huge database, downloadable files etc. Because the download uses your server connection, so imports will be much faster than downloading to PC.
Uploads: Upload images, flashes, files to your webserver using this. You can upload multiple files, images in one go. This is here so you need not connect to FTP seperately to upload some files. Do it easily in admin panel.
Web Stats: This logs total hits every day. You can view hits today, hits this month, hits previous month.
More advanced tracking will be available in future versions.
Banners and Ads: You might want to show/sell some advertising space on your website. This is where you can easily paste ad codes, and they show on website as ads.
If you do not have ad codes, the system can build an ad for you using a picture on your PC (can be resized automatically), a URL you enter. You can also build text ads if you do not want to use images.
These ads rotate per page, so if you have 10 ads, few will show on this page, few on other page. They automatically rotate.
Form Builder: This is where you can build your forms like contact us form, or some feedback form etc. All available html boxes (input, textarea, radio buttons, checkboxes, listbox, dropbox, submit buttons) are available.
You simply select which box type you need, enter unique name for it, and click add. It's added to form.
The system can also automatically process the form, and send the data entered to your email you enter. Without this system, you need a different script to process forms. If you have one, you can also post the form to that script.
Easiest is enter your email, and let the script process and send the form to you.

Our contact form you see is built with this.
That form is automatically available to you. You just need to click a button to show it on site.
Customers: View a list of all registered members, their last login time, last login ip (useful to ban using Block IP in admin), email, name etc.
This is where you can alot moderator permissions to certain trusted users, and they can help you manage the site. 2 users are registered by default here. Our developers, and you as "admin".
Alot moderator permissions to admin and when you login using this account, you can answer support tickets, manage user files, images, music etc depending on which Website Builder you are using.
In admin panel you can edit customer details like their name, email, address, funds in their account and more.
Directory Categories: If you have an active directory, here you can add/edit/delete unlimited categories/sub-categories to it.
Listings: In this section you can check pending listings, approve/delete them, view all listings, edit/delete them.

Front:

User Registration: This also checks if the person registering is at least 14 years old as collecting information about people below that age is against law in some countries. This keeps you protected in law bounderies.
Login for members: Securely done, with multiple checks, and allows your members to use a cookie to remember them. Data of cookie is encrypted ensuring that no sensitive information is sent out for viewing. See security features here for more details.
Forgot Password: If your members forget their password, the script can generate a new one for them and an email is sent to member with their new password.
Auto generation of menu, content, banners, ads, footer and similar based on settings you have in admin.
Links to directory, faq, information pages, search, login, register based on what you do in admin panel.
Switch between themes, and system remembers it using a cookie.
Affiliate tracking using a cookie.
Advanced search if your Website Builder type has it. For example in "real-Estate Builder", visitor can search on many criterias like price, city, country, postal-zip etc. Other criterias are available in other Website Builder types.
Please see appropriate sections.
Once logged in visitors see "logout", "Load funds", "More...". "More..." has all additional functions for your members depending on the Website Builder you are using.
Please see appropriate sections.
Common ones in "More..." are:
- support ticket system: Your website visitors can open new support tickets in case they need help from you. You and Your other members with moderator permissions can answer them. This way you can have many staff to answer support.
- My Profile: They can build a home page for themselves by entering their details (specially useful for social network builder, press release builder, article manager builder, real-estate builder). here one can enter their company info, and show this as their home page.
- Inbuilt Blog publishing. Your members can have their own blogs going on within the website. This is a very useful way to keep adding new pages to your website. This helps in SEO to some extent. This feature is specially useful when using the social network WebBuilder. Each blog post can be tagged and members can browse the tag pages to see new post by other members under that tag.
- Inbuilt Social bookmarking. At the bottom of each page a "bookmark this" link is displayed. Clicking it bookmarks the page in the members account. Members can later browse these pages. This feature can also bookmark pages from other external websites giving it a complete feel of social bookmarking. This helps you get returning visitors.
Account details: This is where registered members can change their password, address and the like.
Account details has further extensions:
- Earning status: Logged in affiliates can view their earnings here.
- Funds: Visitors can check/load funds in their account here. They can later use this loaded funds to shop on your site (if you are selling something)
  Funds can be loaded using paypal.com if you enabled it in admin, or using offline methods if you enabled it in admin. When paying offline, members can send you checks (cheques), pay-orders etc, and then you type the amount in the members account inside admin panel. (Customers > "click customer name" > type new balance > save)

In addition to above, you'll see some added tools like calculators, currency converters and similar at various places depending on the website builders you use. For example calculator and currency converter are linked from any place where any price displays.

Forums, Chat, communication, and interaction:

User interaction is the life of any website on internet. People need to do something when they are on your website, otherwise they leave quickly, and never return...

Inbuilt Forum system: Allows admin to run a forum in the website. Forums can be started by all members of the site if this is allowed by admin. (Site Admin can turn off this feature and run just 1 forum, or none). Members can post new topics, reply, edit their posts, change their forum avatars, signatures and more. Forum owner can edit any posts, delete any posts or topics, move topics and more in the forums they own. Site Moderators have similar permissions like forum owners but they can manage any forum. This helps keeping objectionable content off the boards. Rich text editor is available while posting messages.
Inbuilt Live chat: (Extremely less resource intensive and quick)
When viewing member list, member "A" can click chat link under the name of member "B". If member "B" is logged in, they get a note for a chat invite. If they click the link in note a chat window opens for them and these 2 members can chat with the instant messaging utility. A rich text editor is available for bolds, italic, etc.
Dropping short notes:
Similar to chat, but just short messaging. (similar to what you see on sites like orkut etc). This is a nice way to send short notes, messages etc to other members. Maximum length of any message sent cannot exceed 255 characters.

Note: Dropping notes is allowed only between friends, so is available in social network builder only. Chat is available in all builders. When a chat invite is sent, those notes can be read in all webBuilders.

You can disallow chats in Admin settings. (payment and others). This is completely text file based, so database load is nill with chat even if many members are chatting at the same time.

Website News support:

Quickly and easily publish NEWS about your website, offers and company. A small description is shown on home page and when clicked leads to news details. (3 last published news) shown together. This also helps keep your website fresh and active.

You can very easily write news in admin panel and it will be published by the website builder. All the ne ws you publish will be stored for future viewing.

RSS and Feeds:

Auto generation of feeds for RSS readers. This includes:

RSS for Pages published.
RSS for news published.
RSS for products, articles, press releases etc depending on the website builder you are using categorized in categories you have.

Template and Design:

XHTML output: The output of template and script generated content is designed to be XHTML
Super compressed output: This alone will save you a lot of bandwidth! This includes removal of extra white spaces, external css (cached), external javascript (cached), removal of useless line breaks and the like.
Inbuilt supports multiple template storage, and loading. Themes can be switched in front end using a small dropbox.
Template colors, logos, banners, flash, alignment editable in admin panel itself.
Inbuilt support for external CSS.
Inbuilt support for external JS (javascript)

Website Builders are free from template restrictions, so can be used with any template you have. You simply needs some tags and these tags will be replaced with content generated by the sc ript. Like:

[ CO ] will be replaced with main content,
[ PT ] is page title,
[ META ] is meta description,
[ SIDE ] is menu,
[ banner ] is top banners,
[ sales_message ] is a common sales message,
[ ADTOP ] is top ads,
[ ADBOT ] is bottom ads,
[ t_logo ] is for logo image,
[ FOOT ] is bottom footer (this is the only one needed and all others are optional).

[ FOOT ] is needed to track loading time of page, and automatically link to your terms, privacy, RSS, etc documents. Without these tags these links will not display.

Other tags are for CSS and if you are using your own design you probably will not need those. For more details see the CSS file inside TPL folder.

Processing and server load:

Proper care has been taken to optimize the database tables. INDEXES have been added to all tables for faster processing. Queries designed to work with these indexes.
Compressed xhtml output is sent to browser for lesser page load time. This saves you a lot of bandwidth as well.
Ajax are used to provide quick access to many tools and lists, avoiding a whole new page. This also hides many tools and makes them available only when needed. No point in loading everything and not using most of it...

Integration of payment processors:

Paypal.com is integgrated in all website builders. You can use it to collect payments for your products, or just collect donations.
Additionally, if your customers want to pay you offline, they can by sending you payments at your offline payment details and you can then load funds in their account using the admin panel.