Compatibility:

WebSite X5 Evo and Pro

Sometimes a website get pretty large, especially if you need to convey much information. Other times, you may have created the website for friends or clients who would like to update at least parts of the project on their own. Whether it is to reduce the project size and therefore to improve its loading speed, or to give third parties access to it, knowing how to manage a website consisting of multiple project can be very helpful. 


Let's assume you have to divide an online store website into two projects, so your client can access the e-commerce section and update it on his or her own. That's what you need to do:


#tip - Before proceeding, you should create a backup copy of the original project: go to Step 5 and use the "Export the project" option to generate an.IWZIP file.


Duplicating the original project

Let's assume you've got a complex and pretty large project, including a section where your business is presented and an e-commerce. If you want to divide the original project into two "smaller" projects, which are easier to manage, you need to:

  • Start WebSite X5, go to the Edit an existing Project window, select the original project and click on Duplicate to create a copy. 
  • A message is displayed asking you whether you want to duplicate the project to get a new Website. Click on "NO": in this way, the duplicated project will be an exact copy of the original one. Both projects will be still identified with the same ID and use the same database: they will in fact share the same database tables data will be stored in (for more information, please see: How to make a copy of your project).
  • Give each project a proper name, so it is easier for you to identify them. In our example, they will be simply "Project A" and "Project B".

Setting up the projects

Start working on Project A: this will be the more "static" section of your website, the one the company and the business are presented, and therefore it is the project you will be keeping for applying the occasional changes to the graphic style and contents your client doesn't want to make on his or her own. 


Open Project A and then move on deleting the ecommerce section:

  • Go to Step 1 - Website Settings > Shopping Cart and remove from the Product section all the products you had added.
  • Go to Step 3 - Sitemap Creation: having deleted the products, you will notice that the Special Pages related to the e-commerce are no longer visible in the dedicated section. However, you will need to manually remove those you manually added in the menu. For instance, if you had created a "Products" page to display the offers with using the Product Catalog Object, you will have to remove it.
  • Now, add a New Level and rename it, for instance, in "Shop". You will need it to connect Project A to Project B, so users can move from one website section to the other.


Now move on to Project B, the one including the e-commerce section only, whose IWZIP file you will be giving to your client, so they can import it in their own WebSite X5 copy and update their online store. 

  • Go to Step 3 - Sitemap Creation, and this time remove the pages which aren't related to the e-commerce.
  • Now select the Home Page and click on Rename: it will be your new "Shop" page.
  • Open the Home Page on Step 4 - Page Creation and recreate the "Products" page you had created on the original project, keeping the same structure and Objects. If you want to, before removing the "Products" page you can set up your Home Page by copying and pasting the contents, so you don't have to recreate them from scratch. 
  • Once the page is ready, go back to Step 3 - Sitemap Creation, add a New Level and rename it in "Home". You will need it to connect Project B to Project A.


Exporting the projects

When splitting a project into two parts, the new projects need to be exported with a procedure which is very similar to the one you need to follow when creating a multilanguage website (see: How to publish projects for a multi-language website?). 


In our example, Project A will be the main section of the website: you will then need to export it in the server main folder, so it will be available at the URL www.yourwebsite.com. Project B, on the other hand, needs to be published in a server subfolder, so it will be available at the URL www.yourwebsite.com/shop. You need to proceed in this way:

  • Open Project A and go to Step 5 - Export > Upload the Website to Internet.
  • Choose the wished provider from the Web Space List.
  • If you want to use your WebSite X5 Hosting:
    • just for the first time, click on Activate to activate it;
    • once it is active, click on Start to publish the website.
  • If you use another Provider:
    • report the website URL, for instance www.yourwebsite.com;
    • click on Parameters and, on the Server Settings, report all the necessary parameters to connect to the server;
    • click on Start to export the website.


Now start Project B:

  • Open Project B and go to Step 5 - Export > Upload the Website to Internet.
  • Choose the same provider you selected for Project A.
  • Define the Destination folder. Click on  to display your Server folders.
  • Click on  to create a new folder and rename it in shop. 
  • Double-click the folder you just created to open it, then confirm by selecting Ok.
  • Now you can proceed with the project export.

Connecting the projects 

With this last step, you need to connect the two projects, so visitors can easily switch from a section to the other. It's really simple, that's what you need to do:

  • Open Project A and go to Step 3 - Sitemap Creation.
  • Select the level called "Shop" and click on Properties.
  • On the Level Properties window, add a Link to be executed on item click.
  • On the Link window, select the File or URL action and add the URL to access the online shop, namely www.yourwebsite.com/shop.
  • Click Ok to confirm and export the website.
  • Follow the same steps on Project B, adding a link to the main website (www.yourwebsite.com) on the "Home" level, then export the website.


#tip - Your client can access the control panel to manage and process orders by adding /admin to the Project B URL, in our example www.yourwebsite.com/shop/admin.