Designing a Product with a Buyers Template Question

[ZAZKAT]

If I produce my product so that the buyer has the opportunity to change the template...

Is there a way to keep the design steady but allow the buyer to edit the Text Only?  I can see how easy it is to mess the design up if a person is to highlight the wrong portion of the design.  Since sales are dependent on the ease of changing things up, what can you suggest based on experience?  There are a few different tabs, so I don't know which does what:

"Make objects permanent and always visible"

"Make this a template object"

"Allow editing on product page"

[KeegansCreation]

All of those options should be selected. They let the customer change the text on the product page. The one you want to switch to "no" is "show customize button". You see it after you click "sell" and get taken to the product page. It's near the bottom.

[ZAZKAT]

To clarify:  All Toggles should be selected or green but make sure NO to show customize button?  I understand the second part but I do not understand the first.  Is that just so the font can be changed when personalized by the buyer?  
This is so confusing and help section is not helping.

[KeegansCreation]

When you have those toggles set to green (in the design tool) and also choose NO to "show customize button" (on the publishing page after you hit "Sell") then the customer can only make changes on the product page. They can't access the design tool. All they can do is change what the text says. Unfortunately there is no way to allow them to change the font but also not allow them to rearrange the design elements.

[Angela]

Sometimes what I have done when I have a design with a long list of images that make up the background design is select them all and create a group. Then I choose the "Make object(s) permanent and always visible" option for that group. That would allow the customer to transfer the background to similar items and resize the background as a group, but the images are all locked in place. 

[Fiorenzo]

You can define by yourself which images and text you want to turn into templates so they can be a) edited/changed by the customer within the personalize form, and b) addressed by you externally through API functionality (basically you can change template content of your products through your own website).

"make this a template object"

This turns the selected text or image into a template object. When you do this, you have several fields/options:

Product page label field: edit here the text that will be displayed as the field label in the personalize form. You can enter pretty long texts, so you can give customers a brief description or hints, e.g. "CAPTION - Enter your photo caption".

URL parameter name: This one is VERY important. Enter here a unique reference code for your template field. This is the code with lets you address your template fields through external API links, AND can also be used to sort the template fields within the personalize form, which is done alphabetically. So, if you have as an example a name, address, a city, and a message field that can be edited, you may want to give the name field the URL code text01, then text02 to the address field, text03 to the city field and finally text04 to the message field, so they appear in this specific order.

Allow editing on product page: This specifies if the template field can be edited within the personalize form or not. Usually you have this one enabled, but in some cases you want to disable it, e.g. when you have some images or text that you want to be able to address & set via API links but wannot that the customer can change them in the form.

IMPORTANT FOR IMAGES - Inner fit/fill mode: When you use template images, this option is extremely important to set correctly, depending on your needs / how the user's image has to replace your placeholder. When using template images, first choose an adequate placeholder image at the correct size and make it a template. Then select the FILL mode, if you want the user's image to fill completely the area of your placeholder - in this case, the exceeding parts of the user's image will be cropped. For user images that have to fit within your placeholder area in its whole without anything being cut, e.g. logos, select the FIT modus. The NONE modus is pretty obsolete IMO, this one displays the user's image at its "original" size and ratio which can be pretty random. Never used it.

"Make objects permanent and always visible" is not a template option, this applies to any object and defines if the object can be deleted or not.

Hope this helped.

[ZAZKAT]

thank you for the reply.  However, I am not at this stage as of yet and find that this is not my language of knowledge that you are sharing.  I have to take this one step at a time.  It's like hearing a new language.  I spoke to a customer service rep today and now I am really confused.

[Fiorenzo]

You're welcome and no problem, you may find it useful when you're a bit more advanced. We all had to learn pretty a lot at the beginning, also depending on to what extent you use Zazzle's potential and features as a designer. With time, through try and error, and with the help of the community, your knowledge will grow. Zazzle isn't that easy to master, compared to other PODs, and it takes more time to make it right, but no one else gives you that huge amount of functionality, assortment, and tools that Zazzle offers.

[CreativeLeahG]

You can LOCK your image elements (and other elements you do not want changed) so that no one, not even Zazzle's 3rd party Designer can change the way this template field operates.

Clicking to the left of the field you want to lock produces this padlock image. It is then locked in place. The field can still act as a template as you want it to for the customer BUT it cannot be removed, moved or changed in 'customize' mode.

[Maz]

Zazzle also has a “Help” section.  The link to it is at the bottom of every page.

[JansCabin]

Thank you for this topic and the explanations about the URL and Product page Fields. 👍