add zen cart functionality to an existing site

[shanghai]

Hi.....
I have an existing catalog site I built using Rapidweaver. I've installed zen cart 1.3.7 on my server. I bought the book (building an online store the zen way). Now, after skimming the book, and beginning to personalize the administration function, I'm beginning to wonder if I've fundamentally misunderstood what I can do with zen cart.
What I would LIKE to do is to retain my existing site, but on the product detail page, have a 'buy' button that would take the customer to a page with the look and feel of the rest of my site, but with shopping cart functionality provided by zen cart.
It now appears to me, from skimming the zen cart manual, that I can only customize the standard zen cart template to create an entire site that resembles the site I have already built, rather than integrating the cart functionality with my existing site.
Am I hopelessly confused about this?
I'm sure I've seen other sites based on what are definitely Rapidweaver templates, that have the zen cart functionality within the Rapidweaver template.
Thanks for any input.

[Kim]

Zen Cart is NOT designed to be a drop in buy now module and if you didn't buy the e-Start Your Web Store With Zen Cart, you bought the wrong book and it is no wonder you are confused.

[shanghai]

Thanks for the helpful feedback, Kim.

[gjh42]

Just for curiosity, what characteristics make a site look like it was built with Rapidweaver?

[Kim]

realmacsoftware.com/rapidweaver/

[rich_li_ny]

Zen Cart is NOT designed to be a drop in buy now module ....

I agree that it wasn't designed to be a 'drop in module' but it would seem you can adn an exiting site ie; my-example.com and install Zen Cart in my-example.com/store
and use it as such.

I have an existing website and am very happy with the way it look so I'm not really looking to learn the place down and rebuild it from scratch but would like to use ZXen cart on my existing site. Just link to the page from may main page (click here to visit our store). Maybe I am misunderstanding the meaning of the term drop in here.

Anyway. I have a simlar issue as I am trying to keep some of the look on the zencart page that I have on the rest of my site. Ive replaced the Logo gif wit the logo from my main page. Which looks ok.. I just need to edit the colors and change the fonts and it shohjudl be pretty well integrated.

But, The rest of my site is in HTML and I have no clue how to edit PHP pages in an easy way. (Or anyway at all to be honest. LOL). Is there a way I can easily edit the Zen Cart Page? For HTML some people use Dreamweaver or a similar open source program so they can edit pages and see the changes before they publish them. Is anything like that available so that small changes can be simply made top the Zencart page?

Any help is appreciated,

Rich

[Kim]

Start with the customizing section of the FAQs - https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php

While you can have the html section and the php sections, you risk losing customers if they let their session time out because their shopping cart contents will be lost. Very annoying to go read an article to come back to an empty cart and have to start over again ... if you keep them in Zen Cart with your information and articles then that won't happen :)

[rich_li_ny]

Start with the customizing section of the FAQs - https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php

While you can have the html section and the php sections, you risk losing customers if they let their session time out because their shopping cart contents will be lost. Very annoying to go read an article to come back to an empty cart and have to start over again ... if you keep them in Zen Cart with your information and articles then that won't happen :)

Thanks for the Reply Kim!

I shouldn't have a problem with sessions. My main page is setup for sales and to tell people about my company. If after reading about us an making a decision to make a purchase they just go to the cart and click on an Item to buy.

There will be no links outside the Zencart area back to the site for anything but the main page. So basically once a customer Leaves Zen Cart and returns to the main site (if they choose), Its no big deal if they lose there Zen Cart session. If I ever have to put any documents on the site pertaining to items listed in Zencart then I will definitely keep that documentation in the Zen cart area.

All in all it works perfect and I just have to add my own items to the Zencart area now and customize the look so it doesn't look too much different then my main site template.

Once I get the Zencart area looking the way I want it.. I might consider rebuilding the entire site. But it's a little more comfortable for me taking this one step at a time then thinking that big.

Thanks for you reply,
Rich

[gjh42]

A link to your site would let us give you specific suggestions on the best approach to matching the look...

[rich_li_ny]

Oops .. here's the Link.

http://www.omegadigitalvoice.com/zencart

I've changed the "Home" Link on Zen cart to point back to my main site. The Zen Cart area will be very simple with a few documents and a selection of a couple different things that can be ordered.

What I would like to do is this:

Place this image on the top of the page: http://www.omegadigitalvoice.com/images/1.jpg

On the lower left corner of the of the Image I want to place the 'Home' and 'Log In' links. The two existing Green bars are not needed and any other green color I would like to change to a color that matches my site.

Oh I would also like to eliminate the category/link list that is between the Green Bars where it's presently says "Sales Message Goes Here" as it's not needed.

Thanks for your help