getting started

[dnab08]

Hi I am thinking about using Zen Cart as the ecommerce system on a site I am designed/developing. But before I get too deeply into it I was hoping someone could answer a few questions.

Firstly, can I just use Zen Cart to display the products within a site with complete control of how those products are displayed? I don't want to design or create the site with ZC, I want to place the cart transparently into a site. I don't want any of the side bars, just the ability to access the database and display the products in exactly way I want. EG - If I wanted to display a very basic list of products with just a name and an amount in a compact two column table. I don't want to be restricted to a predesigned package or set of graphics. I want to be able to fully control how and what is displayed. I understand that ZC and a third party like Paypal will want certain parameters and data, but assume all this be placed in hidden fields?

Secondly, can I have multiple contact details for one customer. I would theoretically need: Contact Details (address etc), Invoice Details (with another address), and Delivery Details (with yet another address).

Thirdly, and I know this probably obvious, but what is the general feeling about running the website on a shared host? How secure is the cart?

Thanks for any help/advice in advance.

[kobra]

Your first question is many in one but basically, No.

Zen Cart is designed to be your web/sales portal. You seem to only want a "buy now" and payment part. This is not how Zen Cart functions but it is open source and if you can write in php you can alter most any of the functions for display preferences.

[dnab08]

Thanks for your quick response.

Yes, I suppose, that is pretty much what I want, a buy now button and payment part is pretty much all I need. I am fairly competent with PHP, but I am sure the zen cart code is fairly large. Do you have any pointers as to what part I should be looking at for extracting and then editing so that I can do this?

Thanks again.

[afo]

Zen Cart is extremely flexible. I'm wondering why you want to reinvent the wheel.

[kobra]

To make this work you will have to code around the sessions control and probably more trouble than it is worth as you can find other simpler solutions for what you want