Easiest Way To Do This?

[NineDesign]

ZenCart v1.3.9h
No upgrades
No addons


My question is kind of odd, maybe not necessarily complicated. However, I'm new to Zen Cart and creating templates in general, so some help on the best way to do this would be much appreciated.

I've designed a site for a client, I'm just getting into coding my PSD into HTML/CSS. I'll be using Zen Cart as the shopping cart application for the online store for my client. The thing is, my client is only going to have one product. What I'd like to be able to do, is have a "Buy" or "Add To Cart" button on the product page. The product page isn't based around Zen Cart, it's a large page that has a description, big photo slider, and some other tid bits.

An example of what the site is going to be like is the Lytro camera site.. Sorry, I would show the design, but the product is an invention and I can't speak about it yada yada yada.

You'll notice on the Lytro website that the shopping cart and purchasing aren't accessed until you actually click the "Buy" button.

Basically what I'd like to do is have the user only really enter the Zen Cart area when they click "Buy." Then it would take them directly to the shopping cart/checkout.

So, can anyone help me with this? What's your idea for the best way to do this? Help is much appreciated! Thanks in advance!

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[gjh42]

If you don't have vast amounts of CMS content/structure, it will be easiest to put everything into Zen Cart and style it to look however you want. It doesn't have to look like a store.

Put your HTML content into define_main_page.php in Zen Cart. You could also put the info into the product description and set it so that product opens on the Zen Cart homepage.
This lets all of Zen Cart's site/store management functions operate seamlessly.

[NineDesign]

Thanks, that's not a bad idea, but there are multiple pages on the site, and the only real functionality I'm looking for is a "Buy" button, that takes a user to the checkout. I'm also concerned that for the one product my client is offering, that the Zen Cart admin might be a bit overwhelming.

Then on my side I wonder if it's worth creating a template, when I could use Google Checkout much easier. Thoughts?

[stevesh]

I'd agree with Glenn, but take a look at post #11 here:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84257

[gjh42]

If you use the Zen Cart checkout function, your client will have to have and use the Zen Cart admin. (You can use admin profiles to hide non-order-management stuff for him.)

Multiple pages are easily handled in Zen Cart, as long as you don't mean hundreds of dynamic content pages with hierarchies. You can link between define pages, ez-pages and product pages easily.

If you don't want to actually manage product orders and customers in your site, just use a Paypal or Google checkout button on your HTML pages.

[RescoCCC]

I'd agree with Glenn, but take a look at post #11 here:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84257

Beautiful.

[NineDesign]

Thanks guys! That's brilliant!

That's exactly what I was looking for. This is going to make it much easier to meet my deadline, and get everything done.

I'm so new to coding templates that learning what I would need to for this site I'm working on would take up a whole lot of time. But I'm fairly confident that I can make this work.

Thanks again, you guys are awesome!