Can ZenCart be integrated into an existing site?

**RubiconCSL** · 6 Dec 2006, 12:18 AM

Please tell me it can :)

I don't want to use ZC for the whole site, just where I need to pop in some php code to display and sell products.

Can I just do this, or do I HAVE to re-create the whole site

Any help greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

**kobra** · 6 Dec 2006, 12:22 AM

I don't want to use ZC for the whole site, just where I need to pop in some php code to display and sell products.

Zen Cart is not modular and for many reasons(mostly related to sessions for security) this is much harder to do than it is to make Zen Cart look like your present site and then scrap the current site.

It becomes "Integrate your current site into Zen Cart"

**RubiconCSL** · 6 Dec 2006, 10:48 AM

Bums. I had a feeling you'd say that

Is there anything remotely like Zen-Cart that IS modular? I have done a basic system like this before, but it wasn't as feature rich as these great tools like ZC. I don't want to hae to make the huge development effort in doing it myself.

Anyone know of an optional software - even if I have to pay

?

Thanks chaps (and chapesses).

**johnd** · 6 Dec 2006, 03:52 PM

This one just confused me. Here is my plan.
I want to have a website: www.<some name>.com.
In the nav bar I was going to put a link named Store that will go to: www.<some name>.com/store -- with my Zencart in the /store.
Is this possible?
Thanks
John

**Kim** · 6 Dec 2006, 03:56 PM

This one just confused me. Here is my plan.
I want to have a website: www.<some name>.com.
In the nav bar I was going to put a link named Store that will go to: www.<some name>.com/store -- with my Zencart in the /store.
Is this possible?

Yes John, you can do that. None of the cart functionality will extend into the existing site though.

**johnd** · 7 Dec 2006, 02:45 AM

Thanks, Kim.
This has gotten me to start thinking about whether or not I really want to follow my original path.
I'm so glad I found the forums.
John D

**RubiconCSL** · 7 Dec 2006, 12:19 PM

Okay, if ZC cannot extend into the exiting site, the only option (I'm guessing) is to redevelop the whole site using ZC?

Surely, there must be thousands of sites out there already written that want to simply add a cart? Is there really no way other than writing your own?

**kobra** · 7 Dec 2006, 06:33 PM

Surely, there must be thousands of sites out there already written that want to simply add a cart? Is there really no way other than writing your own?

Never said that there were not other solutions....Just that Zen Cart is not by default modular.

One could "Custom Code" it to do what you want but as I said that would take many times more effort than making it look like your site. This making Zen Cart look like your site is not all that difficult.

In addition, as the pages are automatically assembled from many pieces of code you do not have 1,000's of pages to continually edit to make them current and if you have ever attempted to maintain a html site just a small change can mean editing many pages to keep it all functioning correctly and looking seamless.

Look at this complete site for instance. If you click Home at the top this takes you to Zen Cart , follow the the FAQ link and that is knowledge base or tree??, go to the wiki and I think that it is docuwiki, and right here is vBulletin.

Four apps and all essentially have the same look, but the pieces are not part of a buying experience, all that is handled in the cart side.

**johnd** · 16 Dec 2006, 01:11 AM

I'm going back to Kim's post on 12/6 and my reply on same date.
Well, I've decided to go with Zen Cart as my main age and get rid of my current index.html.
So I have www.mysite.com and www.mysite.com/store. Can I simply copy everything over from /store to the .com itself?
Thanks
John