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Tutorials/FAQs
Adapted from a contribution by: Networkdad
I've been watching the forums, and I'm seeing many folks make many modifications to their cart. This is great!
However, I'm also seeing users of Zen Cart talk about making changes to important files such as:
/includes/filenames.php
/includes/languages/english.php
/includes/languages/english/*.php
and many others.
Just a warning and note - you should not be modifying these files, if you want future upgrades to be simpler!
There is a file override system in place that works very well, and makes it so you do not have to modify the core files. ...
Problem:
Some of my pages are blank except for these characters: 
Symptoms:
- Page is *almost* blank, except for showing these characters: 
- Installing the debug logging utility reports something like this:
PHP Warning: ...
Question:
After taking the order in Zen Cart I want the Credit Card to be authorised but not charged to the customer until the goods have been shipped. I would anticipate the delay from order to shipping to be about a week. How do I go about this?
Answer:
This largely depends on your choice of payment gateway, as to whether this option is offered or not. Most true Merchant Gateways offer this, including ...
If your stylesheet is not loading properly (symptoms include a page that displays no coloring or expected layout etc), then your server's configuration of the Apache service is a little over-aggressive in its efforts to prevent you from doing things that might be questionable.
This will usually happen on first-time installs of Zen Cart to a webserver you haven't used Zen Cart on before, and especially on (but not limited to) Windows/IIS hosts.
If you have access to your server's errorlog data, you can confirm that this is the problem ...
(Windows servers "always" run PHP as a CGI app, so this FAQ may not apply to Windows hosts.)
While Zen Cart is "best" run on a server running PHP as an apache "module", some hosts only run PHP as a CGI application. There are generally more restrictions and limitations in functionality if this is how your PHP hosting is setup.
Things to Note ...
An Introduction to Product Types in Zen Cart™ v1.21. Introduction
A much requested feature in Zen Cart™ was the ability to have unique information layouts for different types of products.
...
For example a Music Video needs to have different information stored and displayed, compared to say a Garden Bench.
Downloads are not activated until payment has been received.
So, if your customer pays using the "offline credit card" module, you DO NOT have the payment ... all you have is the credit card number.
Using the offline credit card module, after you've processed the card manually in your credit card terminal and obtained an authorization number from the bank, then you need to ...
In order to use the USPS module, you need to have a USPS WebTools account, signed up to use their Rate Calculator API.
- If you have an account with USPS for using shipping assistance this is not the same as the WebTools user ID needed for the shopping cart.
- You must have ...
This suggests you have something wrong with any of:
- username
- password
- database name
- database host/server
- security settings on your database
When you created your database, did you grant the user access to the database?
Proper database-configuration ...
This message usually occurs when you have no available shipping modules for that customer's address.
A module is unavailable for one of two reasons:
- it's not installed ...
Question:
When I'm testing payments on my shop using PayPal Website Payments Standard, it takes me to a screen where I'm asked to login to my PayPal account. But, I don't want my customers to be asked to login. I want them to see clearly that they can pay via Credit Card instead of having ...
FIRST ... is the slowness *only* for the admin area? If you also see the *same* slowness in your storefront, this FAQ does not apply to your situation.
Slowness logging in to the Admin area
When you first log in to the Admin area, Zen Cart attempts to talk to the Zen Cart versioning server to see if updates are available. If it can't find the server ...
"MySQL server has gone away" means that when you clicked on something to ask Zen Cart to do something, it started processing the request, but when it went to retrieve data from the database, it found that the ...
You can. Firstly, if you don't already have it, create your high resolution logo at the size and resolution that you would like to print it. Then upload it to the admin/images folder.
If it's called something other than logo.gif, edit the following block in the admin/includes/languages/english.php file
// added defines for ...
Zen Cart has gateways built-in for:
- Authorize.net AIM (SIM also supported, but AIM is recommended for its security benefits)
- PayPal Website Payments Standard (IPN)
- PayPal Express Checkout
- ...
The logo used on Admin pages and on output from admin is admin/images/logo.gif
If you want to rename this, you should edit the following code from admin/languages/english.php
// added defines for header alt and text
define('HEADER_ALT_TEXT', 'Admin Powered by Zen Cart :: The Art of E-Commerce');
define('HEADER_LOGO_WIDTH', '200');
define('HEADER_LOGO_HEIGHT', '70'); ...
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