Introduction to the forum and a few general questions

[Athens Collectibles]

Hello everyone,

This is just to introduce myself and ask a few general questions.

I have a live online store (URL in signature block) hosted with Create, a UK ecommerce platform. There's nothing wrong with Create. On the contrary, their system is allowing a lot of flexibility to set up a store, they have a very good support team and a very helpful forum.

As good as their system might be, there are a couple of things that are not supported properly for my needs, mainly the use of Greek characters in product listings. As I have a lot of items to list in Greek, I thought of creating a new store specifically for this purpose and have the store front in Greek as well. I don't care about the Administration side, I actually prefer to do the administration in English.

Having read numerous reviews on the web, I selected Zen Cart and another open source package as candidates. As the other package was newly released and had very good reviews, I installed it a few days ago and attempted to customise it.

I must state from the beginning that I am not a programmer. I did study computer programming 40 years ago, but these were the days of COBOL, RPG, Fortran and the likes for those old enough to remember. I am computer literate though and always try to find solutions myself before asking for help. I see it as a challenge and don't mind spending time in trying.

I won't publish which package I refer to, but was very disappointed to visit their support forum and find out that members there don't help each other. They just participate in the discussions to promote their professional services and expect everyone to be ASP programmers and use tools costing thousands like Visual Studio.

To make a long story short, I decided to look for an alternative before spending endless hours in vain. My obvious choice was Zen Cart and here I am, ready to install it in the next couple of days and start doing some work, difficult but enjoyable. I was glad to have a look at the forums and see the level of enthusiasm and support provided between members.

I wonder if very few questions could be answered by someone in advance:

1. Is the user manual sold good and comprehensive. I would like to buy it if it covers more than the basic things. Ideally, is there a place to see its contents?

2. Are the various language packs and other modules compatible with the latest 1.3.9b version?

That's all for the beginning. I hope that I will be welcome in the community and promise to contribute myself as much as I can.

Thanks for listening and have a nice day or night, depending on your location.

[mprough]

1. Is the user manual sold good and comprehensive. I would like to buy it if it covers more than the basic things. Ideally, is there a place to see its contents?

Yes, and the tutorials section as well https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php

Recommend the hard copy, as it is easiest to navigate.

2. Are the various language packs and other modules compatible with the latest 1.3.9b version?

Some, yes and some no. These are a work in progress, but you can get a pretty fair grip on it here (http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=152679).

~Melanie

[Athens Collectibles]

Thank you for the quick response Melanie.

May I ask a (dumb?) question. I have checked the "Show your signature" box, but the signature block doesn't show, although it does when previewing the post.

[mprough]

I see it

~Melanie

[Athens Collectibles]

I thought it would be a dumb question! Found it now in my profile preferences and can see all signatures. Sorry for the trouble and thank you again

[schoolboy]

To install ZC is relatively quick & easy.

So, why not install the latest version, then apply the Greek Language pack that is relevant for 1.3.8 ?

What you could do (before you install the Greek Language Pack), is compare the relevant Greek language files with their English language files (in the 1.3.9b version).

The language packs are (for the most part) a group of PHP files that consist of DEFINE STATEMENTS, and there is hardly any functional code in these files.

So, what you will be looking for (mainly) is ADDITIONAL define statements that exist in the English 1.3.9 files that may not be present in the Greek 1.3.8 files.

I have done this sort of comparison a few times, and while there are programs such as WINMERGE to compare files, the most practical way of comparing language files is to PRINT them out and go through them line-by-line...

... yes, it could take up a couple of hours, but there will be very little code issues to concern you. As I said, most of the contents of the languuage files is DEFINE statements.

[Athens Collectibles]

To install ZC is relatively quick & easy.

So, why not install the latest version, then apply the Greek Language pack that is relevant for 1.3.8 ?

Yes, something like this is what I had in mind to do. It's pretty late now in Greece and I will start doing some work tomorrow after uninstalling the other package first.

The responses to my initial post give me confidence that this is a live community with members helping each other. That's a good sign. Thank you all and, as said, I'll do my best to help as much as I can.