Customizing help....

[ierick7]

I have been trying to customize the cart. I have complete different needs than most. Plus, being a web designer and expert level of css html, I want a total custom look. I am new to php.

I want to control everything via straight html divs and css for all pages including the homepage. I just want to use buttons to "Add to Cart", "Buy Now" then use the shopping cart as a gateway only.

Each ad on homepage will go to a specifically designed layout with the add to cart buttons. Buy Now buttons are floated over each add.

Any help on to get started with his? See image below as a sample.

[ierick7]

How do I add a buy now button to zen cart that will take someone directly to the cart to checkout?

[gjh42]

If you just want that content on your homepage, you can insert it into define_main_page.php in Tools > Define Pages Editor.

Are you saying you want the Add function to go straight to checkout without the opportunity to do other shopping? The default Add function will go to the shopping cart content page, with a prominent Checkout button. This could be customized with good PHP knowledge. Of course, the content and styling of the cart page can be customized however you want.

I think it will take more work to avoid the standard Zen Cart page output and use totally custom content on a page, than to strip down the ZC layout and use its built-in dynamic abilities. You can turn off the sidebars and some other elements in admin, and header elements can be reworked easily in /includes/templates/your_template/common/tpl_header.php.

If your ads for the homepage are the basic kind of "product" content you will have, you can set up a category with those products to display on the homepage, set to display only the product image and add button, and with absolute positioning spread the add button over the image. This will let you handle new products with Zen Cart's built-in admin tools.

[borisrio]

"If you just want that content on your homepage, you can insert it into define_main_page.php in Tools > Define Pages Editor."

I modified the define_main_page.php to add a big image to my main page, but below it's showing thumbnails of all products in my store. I would like to show only the big image on my main page - without the thumbnails underneath. Is that possible to do?

Thanks for helping

[gjh42]

That is an admin setting. Try Configuration > Index Listing and set the items for "main page" to 0.

[borisrio]

That works!!

Thanks Glenn

[borisrio]

May I ask you another unrelated question - regarding EZ-Pages HTML area?

[gjh42]

Ask away...

[borisrio]

I want to create several EZ-Pages with different YouTube videos, so I am adding the 'embed' code from YouTube into the HTML area of the EZ-Pages. I can see the preview of the videos working fine, but when I update the page, all that it shows is the word "Array". The video doesn't show up at all.
I tried even just adding a simple line of text in this HTML area instead of the video (just for testing) and still, all it shows is the "Array" word.
Any idea of what's going on?

Thanks!

[gjh42]

Maybe the HTML is similarly being active too soon and interacting with the edit or preview code instead of being saved as is to the database. I haven't used video at all so can't comment further - hopefully someone else can shed light on this.