Screens are the foundation of your mobile app. Every screen allows you to add blocks to them in order to build beautiful experiences that engage your customers. To make the most of the platform, including deep linking, you need to understand how to use screens and this guide will help.
Overview
From the moment you install Tapcart on your storefront, you will be provided a series of screens each with a default set of design blocks that aim to help get you going quickly. You'll see default screens include the most common ones including:
Home
Product Listing
Product Details
Collection List
Cart
Account
Custom Screens
There are a variety of other screens in the app however only those which have support for customizations are provided within your dashboard
Navigating to Screens in your App
In order to navigate to a given screen in your app you'll want to follow these steps:
Hover over App Studio from the dashboard header
Select Screens from the dropdown
You'll land on your homepage by default
Click Home from the white top bar and select any other screen from the drop down (when needed)
Editing Your App Screens
On the right hand side of any screen you visit will be a screen configurator. Here you will always find a variety of tools and settings for each screen that control aspects of how that screen looks, feels, and performs independent of the blocks on it. There will be more details covered about what you can do on each screen in the relevant articles which focus on how you build that.
The screen configurator offers 3 tabs
The Design tab provides you with configurations that affect the design look and feel of the given screen. This can include various functionality like support for multi-tab on our Homepage, your page background, and various other design related features.
The Settings tab will control settings which help your configure your screen within the context of your app. This can include things like determining whether the screen will be built with blocks or a webpage URL to archive screens you no longer need to have in your app.
The History tab provides you with a change log for every published change you've made to your screen. The change log can help you understand what a given customer might have seen in the app long after the screen's design has changed. It also enables you to re-publish a previous screen helpful for those merchants with evergreen designs that come and go amid seasonal content updates.
Tapcart is currently rolling out a completely redesigned version of its platform and as such there may be certain features or functionality that you might not have in your app yet. Please contact your account manager for more details on when you might get access.
How to add more screens to your App
While you're building your app, you might want to add new screens which you won't see out of the box. To add new screens, you can follow these steps:
Hover over App Studio from the dashboard header
Select Screens from the dropdown
Click on any page name (i.e. Home)
Find the section labeled Custom Screens
Click "+ Screen" from within the Custom Screens folder
Begin building your screen
Difference between Screens & Custom Screens
Every merchant is provided with a set of default screens that represent the key screens typical in every eCommerce merchant's storefront.
Tapcart provided screens: These are screens which you get out of the box
Custom Screens: These are merchant crafted screens which enable you to create or build unique experiences that are relevant to your customers and business. There is more about the specifics of these in the following article: Getting Started with Custom Screens
More Questions
Have more questions on how to set up and make the most out of all your screens? We're happy to help, please reach out to a Tapcart Team member through our LiveChat in your dashboard or you can email us at [email protected].