I could use a little help...

[Metal.Drummer]

Hi Zenner's.
I have been trying to work on a commerce site for the retail store I work at for months now... I bounced from an older version of zen, to oscommerce, to something else, and back to zen... Well, everytime I come back to zen it seems more difficult for me to customize the look of it!

I've made websites before, but never a commerce site. I've searched the forums, read lots of posts, search engines, and the zen site for what I'm about to ask... I've become very frustrated with this and that's why months after starting I'm no further than I was when I started(if anything I've stepped backwards).

Can anybody give me a clue as to how to integrate my design into zencart or vise versa? I understand editing colors of stuff with .css stylesheets but that doesn't have anything to do with the actual look/graphics of the site. I cannot figure it out and I feel like a friggin' moron!

It's like writing the first sentence of an essay, once I get my first sentence done I can fly, but I stumble on the beginning forever!

I understand the overrides and all that jazz, I just can't seem to figure out how to actually get a design I make work on the page.

Any help is greatly appreciated...thanks in advance. And I apologize for being a stupid noob!

[gjh42]

You would definitely want to integrate your design into ZC and not vice versa.

To get graphics on a page, you can declare them in the stylesheet in the element that contains the desired space as

#desiredElementId/Class {
      background-image: url(../images/your_image_path.gif);
} 

and there are ways to fine-tune the position of the image with CSS, as you can affect the position of most anything that has a handle (class, ID, link anchor, etc.)

This is just a sample; your best bet is to study the CSS tutorials online such as at http://www.w3schools.com/ .

[Metal.Drummer]

Thanks for the response. How would you advise editing the css files? In just a text editor or use a program such as Adobe GoLive or Dreamweaver.

Or if there is any other specific programs dedicated to css styles that you would recommend, be sure to let me know.

Would even like main banner/your company logo be put into the style sheets?

Back when I used the older version of zencart, I actually had made something(although it was boring)... but I guess the recent changes in zen really threw me off.

[DrByte]

Perhaps this list might be helpful?
http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.p...ls#CSS_Editors

[Metal.Drummer]

Hey, one quick question about the css stuff... Is there a way to view your progress with css? I noticed all the editors and whatnot of css just tell you what it's doing and don't show it's actual impact on the site you're working on. I understand css is loaded in from the main file, but is there a way to view your progress while working on it?

I have a feeling my only bet is setting up a local virtual server with zencart on it, right?

[gjh42]

Fortunately, you're wrong! If you install Firefox and its Web Developer extension, you will see in the toolbar a "CSS" button. Click that and select "Edit CSS", and you will get a display of the stylesheets for the current page on the left and the page itself on the right. Any changes you make to the stylesheets will show up immediately on the page. It is only temporary; to make the changes permanent you have to save them and FTP the file to your server.

It is best to have a local server set up, but that is not really difficult. See this article in the wiki > Customisation > More Advanced for full instructions.