Is this more than I can handle?

[keyon]

Hi,
I'd like to get Zen cart set up and running within a couple weeks. I'm definitely not a programer, but I've worked in html and CSS for the last five years. I've looked a little bit at PHP scripts...but very little.

Is this something I should attempt to tackle on my own? My web host (Bluehost) has installed the Zen cart folders in my website directory, but I'm not really sure where to go from here. Just got my 300-page Zen cart book. But it mostly talks about installing the cart on my local machine (which I don't want to do).

Am I taking on more than I should? I want to focus most of my time marketing my website, not trying to fix it.

thanks

[afo]

I don't know about getting the cart up and running in a couple of weeks. If you don't go too far into customization, you can probably come close, but customization is what makes your site YOUR SITE.

I suggest not putting too much pressure on yourself and take the time to learn how Zen Cart works.

You can always download a free template from the downloads section of this site to save yourself some time with customization. You can see them "in action" at http://(sorry, site offline)/.

To create a very basic custom template (you can build from there), you need:

• includes/languages/YOUR_TEMPLATE/english.php
• includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE/index.php
• includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE/header.php (to change the logo)
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/template_info.php
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/common/tpl_header.php
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/common/tpl_footer.php
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/images/logo.gif
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/css/stylesheet.css

Anywhere you see a /classic/ folder, you can create a folder for your custom template. You can copy the necessary files from either the /classic/ folder, the /template_default/ folder or the parent folder.

Edit includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/template_info.php to give your template identifying information so you'll recognize it in the admin under tools->template selection.

[TShooters]

That part of the book is only a small part. The book is mostly about setting up
the functions of Zen Cart that you want to implement, what all the settings in
admin are for and how they work. It will save you tons of time in getting your store up and running.