installing additional templates at localhost

[dancingbay]

I have XAMPP installed and have installed Zen Cart at localhost and it's working fine. I want to try a couple of free templates out, but cannot figure out how to install them. These are templates I found at http://(sorry, site offline)/.

I've only found one post on this forum (2010) and the person asking the question was told that they shouldn't work from localhost.

Well, I want to work from localhost right now because I don't want to trash my current site which is using WordPress and Cart66. I'm testing out some shopping carts to see if any will work better that what I currently have.

So, could someone please tell me how to add these templates to the latest install of Zen Cart at localhost. I've downloaded 4 of them (Alyssa Rounded, Apparel Boutique, Earthy Boutique, and Pink Boutique) and put them all in a folder called downloaded_templates. I've been writing html since 1995 and PHP/MySQL since 2001, so do know how to use FTP, set permissions, ect...

If it looks like Zen Cart will work for me, then I will install it on my site. I use HostGator and ZenCart is one of the shopping carts that can be installed from the control panel.

Thanks,
Alisa

[dbltoe]

Most of the templates should work fine if installed correctly. Some might have some glitches with the 1.5.# Series. localhost can work if correctly set in the configure files.
Each should come with readme or install file that tells you how to load that template.
It's not recommended to use auto-installers out of the cpanel to install Zen Cart. One should NEVER use an auto-installer to upgrade.

[picandnix]

Adding to that I'd recommend that you DO ALWAYS initially build in localhost so you can buildand test yo your hearts ccontent without effecting a live site.
Are you saying that you have kept the template folders inside your folder 'downloads'? If so then they actually need to be inside the 'includes' folder to work.
All off those templates you listed have very thorough and professional install guides within the folders.

[dancingbay]

Are you saying that you have kept the template folders inside your folder 'downloads'? If so then they actually need to be inside the 'includes' folder to work. All off those templates you listed have very thorough and professional install guides within the folders.

Actually the files are at xampp>htdocs>ZenCart>downloaded_templates which I plan to delete or move outside of the ZenCart folder when I get the templates installed. I just wanted them close so they wouldn't be too far to move and I could remember where they were . I'm 56 afterall and forget things. I'll go back and read better on the readme files, but mainly they were telling me where to put them on the live server and, though made since for a live install, didn't make a lot of since for a local install. I do use Filezilla and have for several years and several upgrades. I like it and am comfortable using it. I've sent them an email about this, but don't expect to hear back until Monday as most sane people don't work on the weekend if they don't have to.

As far as the choice of installing Zen Cart using cPanel / Fantastico as opposed to doing a manual install. I was planning on the manual install. I guess my point was that HostGator has Zen Cart on their list on Fantasctico which makes me thing that the settings at HostGator are set for an optimal install of ZenCart.

Thanks,
Alisa

[picandnix]

the folder structure is the same for local as it is for live, so basically copy and paste the include folder into the same level as your existing includes folder, then accept the box when it asks if you wish to merge the folder into the existing includes folder.
It'll literally take 30 seconds for the whole process.

[dancingbay]

I was able to merge 2 of the 4 templates. On the 2 with issues, I got this:

Destination contains a folder named:

• extra_datafile
• html_includes
• about_us
• index

Do you still want to merge this folder?

I clicked SKIP on each one and the NO at the end. Is that what I should have done?

Thanks,
Alisa

[dancingbay]

Guessing that I had at least 2 of the templates installed, I went on to try to change to the Alysa Rounded template.

I got an error on updating the sql. I tried browsing to it and also copy/pasting it into the box. On the second try (copy/paste into textbox), I got this error message: (WARNING: An Error occurred, please refresh the page and try again.)

I looed at the sql file, went into phpMyAdmin and found the inserted rows even though the my table was 'zen_configuration' and the sql in the file was just 'configuration'. Both records/rows were created in my db table. I'm assuming that the error message was from trying to insert the rows a second time.

The problem I'm having with it now is that the column on the left side that contains all the categories is not there. The wider column is centered in the white area instead of pushed over to the far right of the white area. Viewing source, the information is there:

<div id="navCatTabsWrapper">
    <div id="navCatTabs">
        <ul>
            <li><a class="category-top" href="http://localhost/ZenCart/index.php?main_page=index&amp;cPath=1">Hardware</a> </li>
            <li><a class="category-top" href="http://localhost/ZenCart/index.php?main_page=index&amp;cPath=2">Software</a> </li>
             ...
             <li><a class="category-top" href="http://localhost/ZenCart/index.php?main_page=index&amp;cPath=64">Mixed Product Types</a> </li>
        </ul>
    </div>
</div>

but is not showing up when I try to view the page.

Have I missed something in installing this template properly?

Thanks,
Alisa

[picandnix]

have you enabled the various side boxes for the template layout? admin-tools-layout.

the best place to get template specific support is in the respective thread, very very well supported.