HardLight Currency Converter - FREE Inline Currency Conversion For Your Website!

[Home] [Step by Step Guide] [Sign Up] [My Account] [FAQs] [About Us] [Terms of Use]

Getting started with the HardLight Currency Converter is easy! To add inline currency conversion to your website just follow this step by step guide...

Step 1: Get signed up and add your details...

		To begin using our currency conversion service you'll first need to read our Terms of Use. Once you have read and understood these terms you can register with this site. Click on the Sign Up link and enter your email address followed by a password. Re-enter your password so that it can be confirmed. Only one account per email address is allowed, so if your address is already in our database you'll be prompted to enter a different one. When you're done, click 'Next'...

		Before you can use our currency conversion service you'll need to add a few more details and take note of your User Number which you'll need later. Fill out the form provided, ensuring that you fill all required fields. IMPORTANT: You must enter the domain name of the site that will use the currency converter. This is used as a security measure to prevent abuse of our service. When the converter receives a request from a website it will check the supplied User Number against the refering domain and if they don't match up an error message will be displayed. Enter your full domain between the 'http://' and the first trailing slash. For example... For http://www.yourdomain.com/ enter www.yourdomain.com For http://hosting.somedomain.com/youraccount/ enter hosting.somedomain.com When you're done, click 'Update', and we're ready to add the code to your web pages...

Step 2: Add the code to your web page...

Adding the code to your web page is easy. Display the currency converter on your page using IFRAME tags. Here's some example code. To get started quickly and easily just copy this code direct to your page and modify the parameters as needed, remembering in particular to change the UserNumber to your own unique number provided when you sign up...

<IFRAME src="http://www.hardlightcurrency.com/currency_converter.asp?From=GBP&To=USD&Amount=9.95&PageColor=DDDDDD&TextFace=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica&TextColor=000000&TextSize=-2&DisColor=000000&AllowChoice=Yes&ShowFrom=Yes&UserNumber=XXX-CHANGE-THIS!!!-XXX" frameborder="0" width="300" height="100" scrolling="auto"></IFRAME>

The above code will produce this result...

The SRC property in the IFRAME tag contains the URL that calls the currency converter. This URL has a series of parameters attached that will control both the calculation and appearance of the currency converter. Some of the parameters are optional and some are required. Here's a list of the parameters and what they do...

Paramter	Example Values	Required/Optional	Explanation
From	GBP, USD, JPY etc.	Required	This is the currency to be converted from. It is denoted by the international standard three character code. We currently support 36 currencies - click here for a complete list.
To	GBP, USD, JPY etc.	Required	This is the currency to be converted to. It is denoted by the international standard three character code. If the parameter AllowChoice is set to 'Yes' the site visitor to change the currency converted to. We currently support 36 currencies - click here for a complete list.
Amount	9.95	Required	This is the amount to be converted. It must be a proper number consisting of only numeric characters and decimal points. For instance, 10.5 will produce a result while TEN.FIVE will produce an error.
PageColor	FFFFFF	Optional	Sets the background color of the currency conversion. Use a six character HTML color without the leading #, for instance FFFFFF or CCCCCC. Default value is FFFFFF (white).
TextFace	Verdana, Arial, Helvetica	Optional	Sets the font face of the currency conversion. Use standard web safe fonts such as Verdana, Arial or Times. Multiple fonts separated by commas may be used. Default value is Times.
TextColor	000000	Optional	Sets the text color of the currency conversion. Use a six character HTML color without the leading #, for instance FFFFFF or CCCCCC. Default value is 000000 (black).
TextSize	-1	Optional	Sets the font size of the currency conversion. Use standard HTML font sizes such as -1, +1 etc. Default value is -1.
DisColor	CCCCCC	Optional	Sets the text color of the currency conversion's disclaimer. Use a six character HTML color without the leading #, for instance FFFFFF or CCCCCC. Default value is 000000 (black). IMPORTANT: Displaying the disclaimer is mandatory. The text color cannot be set to the same color as the background.
AllowChoice	Yes or No	Optional	Allows the site visitor to choose the currency to be converted to using a simple drop-down menu. If set to 'No' the converted currency is fixed to the one defined with the To parameter. Default value is No.
ShowFrom	Yes or No	Optional	Selects whether the From currency is shown along with the To currency, for example 'GBP 9.95 = USD 18.30'. Default value is No.
UserNumber	123456-123	Required	This parameter identifies the User so that the referring domain can be verified. This field is mandatory and an error will occur if it is incorrect or omitted.

The IFRAME tag has additional properties such as width, height and scrolling. Set these as desired but remember that the width and height properties must be large enough to accommodate the currency converter results including the disclaimer. It should be noted that IFRAMEs aren't supported by all browsers, though most modern browsers have no problems with them. You can get more info on IFRAME tags here.

Step 3: Test the results...

Check the results on your website, and if you're happy, then that's it! Easy, wasn't it? If you have any problems email us at currency@hardlight.net and we'll try to help. Remember, you can update your details at any time by going to the My Account page. Good luck!