fantastico should I reinstall? newbie question <:-(

[lifesblackblood]

I've been trying to set up a new shop with zencart and have very little prior knowledge. I'm a little confused and want to get a better handle on how the whole process works.

First off: this is a newly opened site (shared, hostgator), the goal is an online shop. I read the zencart FAQ which suggested a manual installation. I thought I was using cPanel/Fantastico to download Zencart, but now realize it was actually performing an installation.

So maybe when I worked through the process from my computer it was installing zencart again? Not sure, because the process seemed to come off without a hitch. There were a few things that didn't match up but I attributed that to the Mac OS I am using, or some upgrade/change that isn't in the FAQ yet.

I worked through the installation tutorial, read and reread the FAQs and Basic Checklist from the Wiki, and got a test page to load on my site without a problem. I was able to add an item to the shop catalog. It seems to be linked up fine with my business paypal account. I'm able to work with the databases in PHPMyAdmin, that's all good.

I worked through all the steps on the zencart installation page to ensure the site is secure (changing name of admin folder, privileges for various files, etc.). For some reason there was a database called zencart_ and one called zc_ database. I backed up and deleted the zc_ because it appeared to be an empty copy.

After reading further on the forums here, I'm hearing that Fantastico will mess with the database and cause problems with the site. I have a large database I'm trying to convert to csv, so the names of tables matter a lot. Maybe the reason I am so confused is because of this fantastico installation?

Or. Would it be better at this point to erase the whole thing and reinstall manually? Is there a way I can just upload a clean database without the zen_ table names and whatever else fantastico added? I hate to have to repeat the whole process of setting up the zencart account, linking to paypal, etc. all over again.

thanks in advance if anyone has a useful recommendation

[discoverytdi]

Never use installers like fastico trust me been there they causes more problems than you can shake a stick at , plus if you install it the right way (as Dr Byte calls it ) that is manually you'll get a feel for the program that will reward you a thousand fold .

[lifesblackblood]

Thanks for the advice to reinstall. I deleted everything and started over from scratch. It was pretty straightforward. Everything appeared to go well, got the "Congratulations, You're Finished" page, but I have a new problem.

After renaming the admin folder per the instructions, I opened it to change permissions for the config.php file. The (former admin) folder is completely empty. Tried re-loading, logging out, etc. but still no files. I don't think the name is the problem; it was a simple word with no special characters.

The shop is installed in the public_html directory on my site. Everything that is there seems to be duplicated in a folder called www. I assume the server does this somehow. In the "www" copy of the shop, I checked the admin folder (also with the new name) has all the files you would expect to see. So what gives? Can I just make a copy all those files and put them into the public_html where they should be? Or is there something more serious that I've done wrong?

[lifesblackblood]

Nevermind. This morning all the files seem to be back where they're supposed to be. Maybe after renaming the admin directory, it takes time for the system to recognize what is there? Weird, but I'm not complaining since my default page is up and running. Next step will be learning how to edit the template, so I expect to be back with more questions. But the mud is a teeny bit clearer...

[afo]

You might want to check out the free templates available for Zen Cart. If one is close to the look you want, you can use it as a starting point. They're also good learning tools to setting up your own custom template.

You can see the free templates in action at http://www.zencarttemplates.info/

[JRichardson]

Never use installers like fastico trust me been there they causes more problems than you can shake a stick at , plus if you install it the right way (as Dr Byte calls it ) that is manually you'll get a feel for the program that will reward you a thousand fold .

Just wondering, how do you install manually? Do you download Zencart to your domain folder (public_html) and run the install? Do I have to install? Can I not simply FTP copy my installation that I have been working on on my Mac along with restoring my current database into my site area?

Thanks,

Jeff

[discoverytdi]

If you have been building your site either with something like Xammp or in a different directory and you want to move it read this article http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?...that-directory

[JRichardson]

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a try!