Help needed on getting started

[ajhb]

Hi,

I'm struggling to get started on building a customised site using Zen Cart. I've bought "e-start your store with Zen Cart", and a number of tutorials from the Lulu bookstore, and to be honest am now overwhelmed with information. I'd like to design a store with a similar look-and-feel to www.cowgirlcookieco.com/ but am unsure of how to start. Is this site built solely with customised templates/CSS, does it use EZ pages, is it a seperate site that just links in to Zen Cart??? I've got some coding experience (albeit out-of-date) and would be happy to learn more but just can't work out where to start.

Any pushes in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks,
Adam.

[canopy]

Hi Adam,

If you are more interested in the design of the store, I shall assume you already have the necessary HTML/CSS knowledge (some PHP is useful) and a programmer's editor in hand.

After that, the first thing you need to do is to understand how the Template Override System in Zen Cart works.

Next, get some free templates from the Template Packages section of the downloads area. Study how the templates are implemented and play around with them.

For more advanced templating stuff (e.g. page-specific stylesheets, dynamic Javascripts), do a search in the Tutorials/FAQs section to see if someone has already covered that.

As for tools to speed things up, you might want to consider using the FireBug and Web Developer Toolbar extensions for FireFox which will greatly help in debugging your stylesheets/Javascripts.

Lastly, do take note that Zen Cart is very feature-rich and that means you will really need to spend some time to familiarize yourself with how things work/look. Patience and perseverance is key.

[ajhb]

Thanks for the quick reply, much appreciated.

Yes, have HTML and CSS experience, and can understand what's going on with simple PHP stuff so you're right, I'm more interested in the design.

I've been playing around with the template overide system, so I'll take a look at some of the other free templates as you suggest. Should I be looking at EZ pages too, or is that something I won't need if I'm not adding Zencart to an existing site (I'm building from scratch).

Cheers,
Adam.

[swguy]

Should I be looking at EZ pages too, or is that something I won't need if I'm not adding Zencart to an existing site?

To start with, focus on getting your catalog in place. Then when you want to add extra content (an "about us" page for example) you can look at EZ pages.

Buying the manual (scroll to the top of the page and look on the right hand side) is also an excellent investment in learning about how the system works.

Good luck,
swguy