How flexible in Zencart?

[Wilkesy]

Hi all,

Im pretty familar with Zencart in terms of it being a shopping cart, but how far will Zencart stretch?

What ive been asked to do is create a website where:-

- users can sign up/create account
- users can hove their own profiles
- users can email each other
- have access to a forum
- have access to a shopping environment

I know that Zencart can do 3 of the 5 items here, is there any software or modules that will intergrate with Zencart to allow the user to create their own profiles??

I would very much like to use Zencart because of my familiarity with it, and also the great support thats available here too.

If anyone has any thoughts on this i would love to hear them.

Many thanks

Paul

[Kim]

A good forum software will allow the profiles and the private messages - skin the two programs to look the same (like we have for Zen-Cart.com)

[Wilkesy]

Hi Kim, thanks for your quick reply. Do you have any suggestions? Ive been looking at phpBB but didnt think this had the profile capability??

Thanks

Paul

[Kim]

Been a while since I used phpBB, but I think it had a user profile of some sort- I do not remember how extensive the information available was.

[samad64]

in phpBB you can have your own user profiles and its extendable using contributions found @ phpbb.com . It wouldn't be my first forum choice.. but its the only one that zencart has a built in bridge for so you kinda get stuck

[scottb]

phpBB has so many security holes I won't install for a client under any circumstance.

[Wilkesy]

hmmm must admit ive read alot of bad things about phpbb. Have to have a rethink about that 1.

Ive also been reading alot of threads from this forum and people have come up with some fantastic ideas.

From reading through here i could do everything i want to with Zencart, apart from the user profiles. Its easy for a user to make na account, this can also be modified with extra fields, the only thing would be alowing other users to view and even search for other users. thats where the problem occurs. Ive even thought of modifying the product_info pages to be used as user profiles but unfortunately im not that good at coding.

My ideal scenario would be to use 100% Zencart, but get the feeling im wishing for something that isnt possible.

If anyone has any ideas then please let me know.

Regards

Paul

[Kim]

Paul-

Not impossible, just hasn't been done yet. :)

[scottb]

Not impossible, just hasn't been done yet. :)

No, it is not impossible.

The closest I have at the moment is a Zen-Cart/Joomla/Simple Machines Forums that all get the login from one sign up page.

The sign-up is the Zen-Cart signup page. The necessary data to log into Joomla is captured and installed into the SMF user table - Username, Password, Email address.

Joomla and SMF are bridged and when you log into one you are logged into both. The complete profile info can be entered into SMF and accessed by Joomla.

It would not be a huge step to bridge all three together so when you login into one you are logged into all three. You would have to disable the Salt function in zen_encrypt_password so all the passwords are MD5.

You could eliminate Joomla and use the CMS functions of Zen-Cart and bridge it to SMF only or vBulletin or IBP.

You could seamlessly skin the programs the same.

A little bit of work but not that difficult if you have a basic knowledge of PHP/MySQL.

[Wilkesy]

You are right Kim, not impossible! But maybe beyond my skills.

Scottb - Ill be very honest and say that im not good enough at coding at the moment. Trying to integrate something like that is beyond me, i could manage the skinning of it, but tahts about it.

Ill have a good look into options and see what i can come up with. Thanks for your input into this

Paul