Zen-cart Customization Questions?

[vsymons]

I am a recent "Zen-cart" user, or should I say developer. I have downloaded and gotten the application installed and "customized many of the different attributes of the application and I am extremely impressed thus far..

However - I am stuck and before I can show the customized application to end users I need to "fix a few things.. so here are my questions.

1. is there a way to change the overall width of the whole Zen-cart app ? I know about changing the width (from 750 to 950 but what I want to do is:

- I want the whole app to be about 20% wider and then I want to use zen-cart admin to expand the side boxes a bit and also leave alot more space in the middle... I cant seem to figure out how or where to do this??

2. How do I change the "color of the font" in catagoies textbox.. Mine is now gree and I hate green, and want to change to black.. Is this setable somewhere?
if so where?

3. EZpage.. I still have the "Congratulations message" at the top of EZpage and I dont want to have that appear/.. where do I chane that?

4. My "Company Logo I thought I replaced (top of first screen but this logo wraps around and repeats sitselft across the top of the page.. this is ugly - is there a way to not have it wrap around and repeat itself>

5. Cross selling ? Is there a way in zencart to "reference another product, when one is unavailable or as a user slects one product (say a cofffee pot, then then reference then to a "set of other products (like coffee beans etc.. and ask the customer if they need any of these "other recommended accessories" without the customer even requesting the product?

[kobra]

vsymons,
Welcome to the Zenned world...

The FAQ's and the wiki contain answers to all of your questions in detail as these are common customization issues.

1. is there a way to change the overall width of the whole Zen-cart app ? I know about changing the width (from 750 to 950 but what I want to do is:

- I want the whole app to be about 20% wider and then I want to use zen-cart admin to expand the side boxes a bit and also leave alot more space in the middle... I cant seem to figure out how or where to do this??

Stylesheet.css > find mainWrapper and set to static px width or fluid % width
Sideboxes - admin > config > layoutsettings > l & r box/column width and l & r column width then center will auto fill the remainder

2. How do I change the "color of the font" in catagoies textbox.. Mine is now gree and I hate green, and want to change to black.. Is this setable somewhere?
if so where?

stylesheet.css and depending on if the header, the listings and the class of the entry(link or not) find & set the appropriate class or tag

3. EZpage.. I still have the "Congratulations message" at the top of EZpage and I dont want to have that appear/.. where do I chane that?

Congrat...I do not think is an ezpage but this text string is in index.php

4. My "Company Logo I thought I replaced (top of first screen but this logo wraps around and repeats sitselft across the top of the page.. this is ugly - is there a way to not have it wrap around and repeat itself>

if a logo this is not set by default to repeat if a header backgroung then stylesheet.css and adjust the repeat statement

5. Cross selling ? Is there a way in zencart to "reference another product, when one is unavailable or as a user slects one product (say a cofffee pot, then then reference then to a "set of other products (like coffee beans etc.. and ask the customer if they need any of these "other recommended accessories" without the customer even requesting the product?

In the download area "other modules" find the cross-sell module and install it

[vsymons]

well thanks for your response.. I am the president of a reasonably large technology company who was planning to use Zen-cart for a whole series of customers that I thought the application would be perfect for...

However, I think I have concluded this is absurd.. There is no support, some respond, some dont, i worte the team in charge never to hear back from them..

There is truly TONS of potential.. in a "new customer set" that most of ZEN people have very little access to... BUT I have worn down but constant efforts
to reach people...

We did get the demo website built- but have several items I thought were reasonably small to fix... only to NEVER hear from anyone for a month...I even hired a couple consultants to work with but they clearly dont have the skill....

I am told by my lead engineers this is why we should never use open system software for "production use".. I was so sure I would prove them wrong.. but in the end the complete lack of organization has caused me to "give up on this" and move in another direction..

If you have any thoughts I would love to hear from them.... but pounding my head up a against a wall for months is only giving me a head ache... Too bad.. cause I think I have about 200 customers who would have used this "Product/Template"..

if you have ideas/meaningful thoughts [email protected]
or 469 360 4047

[Kim]

Open Source projects are traditionally taken care of on an open forum. I see you have made 16 posts in total and it appears you have gotten some sort of an answer to all of your inquiries.

Now - a couple of months after your last post you are complaining? I am not even sure exactly what you are wanting that you haven't gotten.

[barco57]

vsymons,
I dumbfounded. Of all of the open source software I've used, the Zen Cart community is the most reponsive I've found. I do believe that kobra was pretty quick with an answer there....back in October.... I have been only designing sites with zen-cart since May 2006 and it has enabled my wife to start a home business and it allowed me to start a side business of my own.....Designing carts for others.
In fact I'm so busy with others stuff I don't have time to redo my wifes site with all that I learned since May. Before I discovered Zen-cart I couldn't find my way around xhtml, php, or mysql......but if you look at all of my posts it appears I've learned a few things. So the simple request you made for things that are pretty basic to do in zen_cart should not have taken you a couple of consultants and some "engineers" to fix. My stepfather works for IBM on old mainframes around the world but I wouldn't hire him to code a zen-cart template.....Just goes to prove that a degree and years of experience as a "software Engineer" does not a web designer make. If your looking to do zen sites I would look for some people that are a little up to date as anyone versed in c++ should be able to work their way through a php file. xhtml and css really isn't that difficult, but most "engineers" aren't designers and you need to be able to be a bit of an artist with these things. So if you believe Zen Cart will do what you want than I suggest you put together a team that can manage it. Some people with the drive to learn and not want to pick up the phone to call customer support every time there is a problem should do quite nicely........Rant over

[Ryk]

So why do you want to use Open Source? Because you believe in the principles or you think you can get something for free? Well, you get the software for free and then you need to invest in the expertise, either by devoting your own precious time to it (as the vast majority of the forum members do), or by employing someone who does have the necessary skills.

There is a section in these forums called Commercial Help (i.e. where you go if you're willing to pay). This forum can only be READ by people who pay a fee to subscribe, ergo it is reasonably safe to assume that they might just know what they're talking about.

Also, as

the president of a reasonably large technology company

do you feel it your duty to personally answer every enquiry immediately - during your own free time? If not, then you have no right to expect that sort of service off the dev team.

I even hired a couple consultants to work with but they clearly dont have the skill....

so did you do your due diligence, or just go for the cheapest bid? I never cease to be amazed at the number of people who moan about the quality of work...for heaven's sake, this is probably THE most transparent industry on the planet in terms of checking what skills people have!!

As Kim says, your posts HAVE been answered - may be not to your satisfaction, but people have freely given their time trying to assist you. Thank goodness you are in the minority, or this community would not rank amongst the most helpful most of us have ever come across.

[vsymons]

Kim & Others,

I am not going to debate # of posts, my last post etc.... nor how these projects work. I decided to undertake this project myself as an investiagtion. If you are interested in calling me to discuss and perhaps restore some of my initial excitment - feel free... but debating what or how something works will only further my frustration..

I left several private messages for people because they seemed more appropriate... even tried to contact some to hire them but I never got ONE SINLGLE RESPONSE.. maybe I did something incorrectly but if I did it wrong then I would encourage everyone on this site to take this as an opportunity TO IMPROVE the process... that is how we all get better....and I wrote the post as a last attempt to see if ANYONE CARED about helping... NOT TOO have people defend the process..

After all you must admit just the way this website is designed has some very odd quirks.... for example the "menu at the top should have an option for the support forums and does not.. make it very difficult even to find this site...

my simple questions after designing and loading a wibsite were things like..
1. if I have a product I want to create a product brochue which is downloadable directly from the website - but not requigin and sign on process... that seems simple..

2. wanted to create option videos to view or download as well w/o going through the whole order process..

3. the whole EZ PAGES.. there is nothing easy about it... but I wanted to create a page for "our partners" which was simple text and some pictures/links....
(originally I created the partners just like thery were another product catagoy but with no products underneath..... this seemed to work but the html editor made it almost impossible to lay out they way I wanted..

4. keeping track of all the "add ons" I had installed.... is there a way to do this?

5. tabbed lite - a great contribution.. but when the authro says a new update would be available in a week or so, and then drops all efforts to finish the tabs on the side..... was disappointing and led me to begin my initial worry process..


as you can guess I thought these were pretty simple and guessed I could even figure them out... but I finally just got tired of trial and error...

so I would prefer solutions not opinions.... my experience and opinion is just as valid as yours... and debating "opinion and experiences leads us no where.... cause I cant change your experience/opinion nor can you change mine..

if you have some simple thoughts on solving problems above, or call me .... and I truly appreciate your thoughts... and if not I wish everyone the best