Home Page Generation

[lplatz]

I'm starting to work through the templates to get a better feel for this tool. I could use a hand to better understand how the index page is assembled. What function or .js is it that calls the templates and css files that assemble the index page? I'm sure there is a guide available located w/in this forum that I have yet to uncover. leads / links welcome. Thanks in advance!!

[Website Rob]

Everything starts from the main 'index.php' file located in your Zen Cart directory. Using that, one can see where various files are pulled from. Does require a fairly good knowledge of PHP though.

[lplatz]

I guess we'll see what level of .php skills I have. Where I'm lacking, it appears this forum will be a great place to learn. Any good step-by-steps been created w/in this site that specifically address the modification of the root index page? I see that the index file is very well commented.

[Kim]

What are you wanting to do specifically?

[lplatz]

I'm looking at completely removing the table elements from the tpl_main_page.php template to be replaced with 100% css. It's not imperative that I do this. I would just prefer working outside of a table layout.

[yellow1912]

Look at the files in includes/templates/common, you will find most tables there.

[lplatz]

Perhaps this question is more difficult to answer than simply providing a file reference. What file or function calls the stylesheet.css file? I looked w/in the index page, but did not find a reference. I'm average on reading .php, so perhaps I overlooked the reference.

I asked this question in a previous post and was replied to with a question as to why I wanted to this information. My request is part of my gaining a better overall understanding of the structure and function of this tool.

Thanks in advance

[infinium]

I'm new to zen trying to get a feel also. It looks like the style sheets are called from the html_header.php file.

/includes/templates/template_default/common/html_header.php

If you look, you'll see comments like:

• load all template-specific stylesheets, named like "style*.css", alphabetically
• load stylesheets on a per-page/per-language/per-product/per-manufacturer/per-category basis. Concept by Juxi Zoza.

Hope that helps. Scott

[Kim]

Please do not start a new thread to continue an existing topic. Thanks. Your threads have been merged together.

[gjh42]

The PHP code, when building the HTML output, does a set of lookups and decides which stylesheets to apply to the current page. There is no reason to tinker with this or try to understand the mechanics unless you are a skilled PHP coder. The order and logic of which stylesheets are called is useful to know, and described in forum posts and the wiki, and in /template_default/css/CSS_read_me.

The HTML calls the stylesheets using the <link rel="stylesheet" ... > tag in the head of the output.

After this, there is no need for elements to call a stylesheet; that is automatic by the structure of HTML.