Customizing Template

[Tavalus]

Ok. So I've read the FAQ on how to customize my template, and while they're very informative I think they take alot of assumptions in what the person doing this actually knows. I created all the folders, my custom template name, the css folder, copied the css files, the template info file. So I do all that, I go to Admin, yay my template shows up. I choose it, I reset the layout boxes thing. I go to my page and there's nothing there, some generic Zencart page.

Somewhere in one of the FAQ it says to copy stylesheet.css because "this is the file you will be editing". What exactly am I supposed to be editing? From the template I have I have a file called style.css and a folder called images with all the images needed. Am I supposed to be copying my style.css folder and pasting it over the stylesheet.css file? I don't get how copying the old Zen cart files is going to make a custom template direct to my style sheet and images without me having to go through and edit every link. If I'm missing something that makes this drasticlly more simple please let me know because for the life of me I can't get this to work and all I want to do is upload this css template that I have. Any help would be greatly appreciated, or even a link to "Idiots guide to zen cart" or something like that

[gjh42]

A generic CSS template will not apply to Zen Cart. You need to modify you ZC stylesheet.css to get the appearance of your template layout. You can use the images and some of the information from the template style.css to do this. Put the image files in /includes/templates/your_template/images/.

[kobra]

Am I supposed to be copying my style.css folder and pasting it over the stylesheet.css file? I don't get how copying the old Zen cart files is going to make a custom template direct to my style sheet and images without me having to go through and edit every link. If I'm missing something that makes this drasticlly more simple please let me know because for the life of me I can't get this to work and all I want to do is upload this css template that I have.

Ditto wht Glen stated.

Zen Cart is not modular and you can not use your current site, files, stylesheet, links in your current pages or for that matter ANY of your current pages.

Zen Cart is designed to become your main site and you style within it's structure to attain the look/feel you are seeking.

There are basically 5 areas:
header
left column
center column
right column
footer

It is really not that difficult(I learned to do it??), once you work with it instead of against it.

[Kim]

You may want to download a template or two to get a better idea of how the changes are made that affect the look of Zen Cart. You can see most of them in action here: http://(sorry, site offline)/137/index.php

[gjh42]

You can think of a stylesheet as a dictionary. It translates the HTML tags that the page presents.
Using a French-English dictionary(your old style.css) to read a page written in French(your old page) will work. Using it to read a page written in German(your new Zen Cart page) will be useless.

[Tavalus]

Ok. This is starting to make a little more sense, I think. So I kinda just have to go into the current stylesheet.css and pick it apart with bits from my style.css to put in there to get it to look like what I'm looking for instead of trying to find a way to get my current site to load right? Shoot, it's almost like redesigning the site again. Well hepefully it'll be worth it in the end =)

Thanks very much for quick and informative replies

[kobra]

So I kinda just have to go into the current stylesheet.css and pick it apart with bits from my style.css to put in there to get it to look like what I'm looking for instead of trying to find a way to get my current site to load right?

Yes, but depemds upon the tags you have as these probably are not tags defined in Zen Cart. But colors and the like - correct!

And you might just use Zen Cart as is for now to make your determination if it is going to fit your needs before investing your time in creating your template only to find out that this is not what you want

[Tavalus]

Is there a way without alot of grief to adapt tags to fit zencart tags? Like I see one that's in mine is #HeaderPan which I think controls the header (it's be easier if this was all standardized or something!)

[gjh42]

Get the Firefox Web Developer extension. It has tools (like Information> Display Element Information) which will show you the tags used on various parts of the Zen Cart page.
You can then find where to add your color/image/font/margin/etc. properties from your old template.