What to do?? OS Commerce & Zen Cart question

**bluealice** · 29 Jan 2007, 07:07 PM

Newbie here. Please help!

I've spent a few days playing in Zen Cart and finally getting a hang of it.

I opted for Zen Cart b/c i'm familiar with formatting layouts using CSS and html editors, but NOT php. Since I'll always be tweaking the site myself, I didn't want to get stuck with OS Commerce, since I don't know how to change layout/design in php. It just looked harder to me. I also know about security issue w/ OSC.

BUT...

My cousin is helping me and he's very proficient with the OS Commerce interface, not Zen Cart. He played around in Zen Cart and here's what he says:

"....i took a shot at changing the layout system and it appears to be just as tricky as os commerce. because the changes you can make from the admin to the layout are very limited, and don't change the header and stuff like that. so i have to go into the code to change it. so to me there is no real difference between the two, in terms of working with layout. in fact oscommerce would be simpler for me... but if you like zen cart then lets go with it!"

However, I'm still leaning towards Zen Cart.

*** Question:

Can he create the main page in OS Commerce, and then have me import it into Zen Cart? He's going to do some Flash stuff & advanced designing on the main page.

I'd *really* appreciate any and all insight you may have.

Thanks in advance,

Alice

**Merlinpa1969** · 29 Jan 2007, 07:22 PM

No,
Please have them take a look in the wiki for the template settings and how everything works,

Remember they are using code that is over 3 years old

**kuroi** · 29 Jan 2007, 07:27 PM

... and Zen Cart has moved a long way forward in those three years.

**bluealice** · 29 Jan 2007, 07:53 PM

... I think I recall seeing a thread about transferring databases from OS to Zen Cart...

So none even the OS php pages can be transplanted to Zen-cart to replace the ZC ones?

**Merlinpa1969** · 29 Jan 2007, 07:56 PM

No there is nothing from OSC that is transferable,

There is a thread in the FAQ about transfering OSC DB to ZC but its some work

**kuroi** · 29 Jan 2007, 08:05 PM

Now be fair Merlin. Zen Cart is very flexible and I'm sure it would be possible to transfer snippets of OSCommerce into it, just as you could ram the engine of a model T Ford into a model saloon if you really put your mind to it.

**Merlinpa1969** · 30 Jan 2007, 12:05 AM

Oh I know it can be done,
I did it,
I used to have a conversion script to go from OSC to ZC 1.1.4 and 1.2.0

**afo** · 30 Jan 2007, 05:33 AM

Creating a custom template in ZC is extremely easy. Your cousin is overcomplicating it. Anywhere you find a classic folder, you can create a folder for your own template. You can call the template whatever you like, but use the same name consistantly.

To create a very basic custom template (you can build from there), you need
includes\languages\YOUR_TEMPLATE\english.php
includes\templates\YOUR_TEMPLATE\template_info.php
includes\templates\YOUR_TEMPLATE\common\tpl_header.php
includes\templates\YOUR_TEMPLATE\images\logo.gif
includes\templates\YOUR_TEMPLATE\css\stylesheet.css

Those are the ONLY files I changed to create this ZC prototype.

I highly recommend you download the Firefox browser and get the webdeveloper add-on which will allow you to change the stylesheet and see the results on the fly. You'll have to copy your changes and save them locally, but it's a huge plus to see what happens immediately.