Maybe an odd question???

[jrp1]

I have a question for all, I am using virutemart on my site and honestly hate it. I can't wait to get away from it, I installed zen cart on my site, however I have some issues that I would like to ask you.

Is there a shopping cart out there that is html based? zen cart is php based, I don't know anything about php, but I do html and css. I'm trying to create my own website so it matches my shopping cart without paying someone to do it. With Virtuemart making your store look like your site is standard.

Is there any shopping cart out there that is html based, or a shopping cart that will except html as a home page and as the rest of the pages on my site?

Thanks,
Jon

[kuroi]

HTML is interpreted in your visitors' browsers. PHP runs on your server.

PHP does things that HTML simply can't do, like extract product information from your database and inserting it into HTML pages, or validating customers information before passing credit card transactions to payment gateways.

You don't have to use PHP to do these things, but if not you would need a different server side language and there are carts that use Ruby or PERL, but you'd probably find the learning curve for those even greater.

However, I'd recommend that you step back and examine your premise. Why does it matter that Zen Cart is written in PHP? There are an awful lot of people using it who know little or nothing about the programming language in which it's written, just like I don't need to know the details of how an internal combustion engine works to be able to fill my car with gas and drive it.

[schoolboy]

Kuroi makes good sense here. You should focus on getting your business going, and making sure the site functions the way you want it to. Don't worry too much about the programming. If your site is intended to earn you a living (or even make a contribution to it) then you need to extract yourself from the temptations of being a web designer and start being an entrepreneur...

There are a load of good, clean templates around (stay away from Alcozone and TemplateMonster), and you can install one of these and then use the CSS to style it up nicely.

As long as the store looks clean and fresh, customers are there primarily for the PRODUCTS, so just make sure you have good product images, accurate descriptions and attractive prices...

[jrp1]

HTML is interpreted in your visitors' browsers. PHP runs on your server.

PHP does things that HTML simply can't do, like extract product information from your database and inserting it into HTML pages, or validating customers information before passing credit card transactions to payment gateways.

You don't have to use PHP to do these things, but if not you would need a different server side language and there are carts that use Ruby or PERL, but you'd probably find the learning curve for those even greater.

However, I'd recommend that you step back and examine your premise. Why does it matter that Zen Cart is written in PHP? There are an awful lot of people using it who know little or nothing about the programming language in which it's written, just like I don't need to know the details of how an internal combustion engine works to be able to fill my car with gas and drive it.

Reason being is I would like to be able to style my website and shopping cart how I want it, I want them to be the same. I noticed that I can use an html template and have links to my shop categories from my html home page "html home page, not being part of the zen cart template" however, if I do so my home page and whatever else differs from the looks of my shopping cart/store.

I love designing and messing around with different codes to see how nice I can make it look, I spent a good 2 weeks of building a template how I wanted it and then was told I have to use a Zen Cart template, that was a smack in the face.

I currently have a website up and running and have nothing but time for this new site I want. My current site is ran on Joomla and Virtuemart, and I honestly hate both of them. Joomla is alright but in my opinion limits you compared to cpanels.

Kuroi makes good sense here. You should focus on getting your business going, and making sure the site functions the way you want it to. Don't worry too much about the programming. If your site is intended to earn you a living (or even make a contribution to it) then you need to extract yourself from the temptations of being a web designer and start being an entrepreneur...

There are a load of good, clean templates around (stay away from Alcozone and TemplateMonster), and you can install one of these and then use the CSS to style it up nicely.

As long as the store looks clean and fresh, customers are there primarily for the PRODUCTS, so just make sure you have good product images, accurate descriptions and attractive prices...

Why stay away from Alcozone and Templatemonster? I already purchased a zen cart template from Templatemonster.

I am not worried about rushing to get my store up, it is up and has been for 6 months. Running on Joomla and Virtuemart and I need to get away from both of them. Virtuemart is nothing but a hassle and I have been having problems with it since I started using it and I have lost business because of my shopping cart and giving people issues.

I'm needing to switch shopping carts, I already have another hosting plan with a personal friend of mine, so I have the ability to test out different things. Like I said I have a site up so I'm not worried about rushing to get this done.

What sites to you recommend getting a templates from?


Thanks for your opinions guys,
Jon

[misty]

Why stay away from Alcozone and Templatemonster? I already purchased a zen cart template from Templatemonster.

They do not work well with zencart.
Suggest you search previous zencart forum posts which give reviews.
FREE templates at
http://(sorry, site offline)/

[schoolboy]

Virtumart is (as you know) a rather rudimentary add-on to Joomla. Zencart is 100% eCommerce, and is not designed to be a "bolt-on" to an existing site.

Zencart is designed to be your WHOLE site. It would be extremely complicated to slice it up so that you can "just use the shopping cart". In fact, it would not be worth the effort.

TemplateMonster templates are designed to "look nice", thereby persuading innocent people to part with money. Once people have done this (part with money), the purveyors of these templates abandon them - and they end up coming here in tears, looking for help and advice.

Since these templates are generally crude hacks of the zencart core, people on the forum don't like giving advice on them. Firstly because we just don't have time to unpick a template before we offer advice, and secondly because we don't like to advocate "sticking-plaster" solutions.

You need to make 2 fundamental decisions:

1. If you use Zencart, then build your ENTIRE site using zencart.

2. If you use dubious commercial templates, you are likely to be (for most of the time) on your own, when it comes to support. You need to construct a proper template that follows the core principles of zencart.

[kuroi]

Zen Cart will give you most everything you need for e-commerce, but it won't give you the full range of functionality that a CMS such as Joomla provides.

At Kuroi we're not big fans of Joomla, but use Drupal when the CMS-requirement is industrial strength, WordPress when it's moderate and Zen Cart's EZ-Pages when it's lightweight. And when called for, we'll style a Drupal or WordPress template to look like the Zen Cart.

We generally start from the Zen Cart template as that's the one that needs to display the widest range of pages, so once that's right, we just need to apply the layout and styling to the other app's template or theme.

You don't need to get hung up about Zen Cart being driven by PHP. If you use a different package to construct your content, then that's going to have to have some programming language-based way of accessing your database and constructing your content anyway. Most Zen Cart design is done simply by changing images and CSS to the HTML generated by the cart.

Template Monster templates ... we have a policy of not working with them. Structurally they re-write the whole of the template layer, so they're completely different to standard templates. They also used to be very poorly constructed - they've improved in that area - though I've yet to see one for Zen Cart that passed the WWW org's validation test and they're really bloated. Although there's plenty of evidence of graphic design input into them, there's no real sign of consideration being given to SEO or conversion - so they look good, but I suspect underperform as e-commerce tools.