Need help customizing template

**SPH** · 1 Jun 2012, 04:50 AM

Looks like you changed the name of the template. Is it good practice to have a space in your template name?

includes/templates/Webstore Template/css/stylesheet.css

I test alot of templates and have never downloaded a two-name template with spaces. Example, gjh42 uses an underscore:

includes/templates/fr_template/css/stylesheet.css

Possibly something to look at before you get too far. I dunno.

**RodG** · 1 Jun 2012, 05:36 AM

Originally Posted by SPH

Looks like you changed the name of the template. Is it good practice to have a space in your template name?

I'm not sure who this response is for, but the answer is NO!. Template names should *never* contain a space character. In some cases it won't cause a problem, but there are many instances where the spaces *will* cause an issue (usually with symptoms that make it near impossible to diagnose the cause).

The standard/recommended practice it to replace spaces with underscores.

Cheers
Rod

**gjh42** · 1 Jun 2012, 05:41 AM

It seems to usually work to have spaces in your template folder name, since people get away with it, but sometimes the space will cause an error, perhaps from third-party code that is not as bulletproof as core ZC. However, it is never a good practice. Windows has spoiled people by allowing them to name directories anything at all and hiding the fact that the names have to be tweaked behind the scenes to function safely... perhaps an overreaction from the old DOS practice of limiting folder names to eight characters total.

The best web practice is to keep file and folder names to lowercase letters, numbers and - or _ characters. This will minimize the possibility of capitalization typos.

**Swingin' Sparrow** · 1 Jun 2012, 09:45 AM

Hi,
Well I just have the background of the page, blue with small stars (bg.gif), all the boxes, pictures and text are gone.
As for the source, it shows this

Code:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" dir="ltr" lang="en">
<head>
<title>Zen Cart!, The Art of E-commerce</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<meta name="keywords" content="Men Ladies Accessories Jewellery Pomade Home Books Magazines ecommerce, open source, shop, online shopping " />
<meta name="description" content="Zen Cart! :  - Men Ladies Accessories Jewellery Pomade Home Books Magazines ecommerce, open source, shop, online shopping" />
<meta http-equiv="imagetoolbar" content="no" />
<meta name="author" content="The Zen Cart&trade; Team and others" />
<meta name="generator" content="shopping cart program by Zen Cart&trade;, http://www.zen-cart.com eCommerce" />
 
<base href="http://shop.fastnloud.com/zencart/" />
<link rel="canonical" href="http://shop.fastnloud.com/zencart/" />
 
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="includes/templates/Webstore Template/css/stylesheet.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" media="print" href="includes/templates/Webstore Template/css/print_stylesheet.css" />
</head>
 
<body id="indexHomeBody">
 
<div id="mainWrapper">

I'm not sure I used the right wrap for the source code here.
Gonna put the setting back and check what the source is when everything is showing up...

**Swingin' Sparrow** · 1 Jun 2012, 09:58 AM

Ok, code is back the way it was and so is everything on my page, now the source code is showing all the code that was missing previously under that line

Code:

<div id="mainWrapper">

.
It is weird that if I remove a small part of the code, the whole thing is disappearing completely...
Do I need to put the complete source code here too so you can compare?

**Swingin' Sparrow** · 1 Jun 2012, 10:19 AM

Ok guys, I ve renamed the template and used an underscore... I didn't know about the no space thing. Sorry.

**gjh42** · 1 Jun 2012, 03:35 PM

If you accurately removed a complete block of PHP/HTML code, you would not have a problem. You have somehow corrupted the file you were working on and caused a PHP fatal error. You should have a myDebug file in the /cache/ folder in your site root. Post the latest one of those and it may tell us exactly where the error is.

If that does not help, you could post your tpl_header.php in PHP tags.

**gjh42** · 1 Jun 2012, 03:38 PM

What are you using to edit your files? Some editors can damage PHP files by adding extraneous characters invisibly.

**Swingin' Sparrow** · 1 Jun 2012, 03:46 PM

Originally Posted by gjh42

If you accurately removed a complete block of PHP/HTML code, you would not have a problem. You have somehow corrupted the file you were working on and caused a PHP fatal error. You should have a myDebug file in the /cache/ folder in your site root. Post the latest one of those and it may tell us exactly where the error is.

If that does not help, you could post your tpl_header.php in PHP tags.

ok I checked the myDebug files, and I found one that says [01-Jun-2012 01:38:08] PHP Parse error: syntax error, unexpected '}' in D:\Hosting\8066884\html\zencart\includes\templates\Webstore Template\common\tpl_header.php on

Does it mean I didn't delete the code properly when I did it?

**gjh42** · 1 Jun 2012, 04:07 PM

Technically, yes, though since this is a custom version of the file, there is apparently some extra PHP code that crosses boundaries of code blocks. Following the standard advice exactly would cause this error. We will need to see your copy of the file to find out where it is. The debug message will say exactly what line of the file has this error. Posting that verbatim is better than summarizing it if you don't know exactly what bits are relevant.

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