All product listings - how can i get them to display >1 column per row?

**widget** · 29 Sep 2007, 09:06 AM

Hi folks.
I'm struggling here with something and I feel it should be simple, but i cant for the life of me figure it out.

When the normal listing of all the products in my catagories is displayed, they are listed with 1 product per row. So that's 1 column per row if you will. I want to change this, so that I can have 3 products per row / 3 columns per row.

This seems so simple to do for the New Products listing, or the Featured products listing etc, cos you just go to Confiuration -> maxumum values, and input how many columns per row you desire on each of the listing types. BUT, I can't find this option for the normal product listings when a user is just browsing through your products using the catagories menu.

Can anyone help? I'm hoping this can be sorted without a mod or hardcoding because I'm trying to keep my Zen installation as 'clean' as possible to make upgrades to new versions simple.

If it's a matter of changing my template files, that's ok... obviously the over-ride system will still make it nice and clean to upgrade. If this is the case, and anyone can help, please show me the code and which files in the template i need to override.

Thanks in advance, Widget :)

**kuroi** · 29 Sep 2007, 09:44 AM

I think that you're mixing up two things here. The summary listings for new products and featured products are displayed in a "columnar" format, with a random sample of the products in those groups on display at any time.

However if you click on the new products or featured products links at the bottom of the categories box (if you've turned that off you can see it in operation at (sorry, site offline)), then you will find that the full product listings for new, all and featured are all one product per row.

However, there is any easy solution to achieve what you would like. The Column Layout Grid for Product Listing mod is designed to do exactly what you want.

**widget** · 29 Sep 2007, 10:04 AM

Thanks for the fast reply! I had seem this "column layout grid for porudct listing" mod previously at a glance when looking for the answer to my problem. However, I thought that it was a little awkward to be using Mod's just to do something that I assumed would be configurable from the admin pages in the standard Zen Cart (at least I think it should be, but perhaps the creators of Zen code don't agree with me it seems!?).

Two final questions before I use this mod then... (if I may)...

If I apply this Mod, will it adversely affect me when i come to upgrade to a new Zencart version (eg v3.8) ? I'm very unfamiliar with Mod's so it all seems a little scary, haha.

If I dont like what it does, are they easily removed???

Thanks again, much appreciated!! :)

**kuroi** · 29 Sep 2007, 12:13 PM

Originally Posted by widget

If I apply this Mod, will it adversely affect me when i come to upgrade to a new Zencart version (eg v3.8) ?

I can't answer definitively as to how this might affect upgrades, but if there is any impact it is likely to be minimal, and the mod has been maintained through the past few updates of Zen Cart (though no update was needed for 1.3.7) by one of the Zen Cart Development Team, so I wouldn't have any worries about this.

Originally Posted by widget

If I dont like what it does, are they easily removed???

Some mods are easy to install, some rather difficult. It depends on how they are constructed and which bits of the software they are modifying. This one is at the very easy end of the scale.

To install you will override two files and add two configuration switches. To uninstall you can simply delete the over-ride files from your template folders. The two switches can stay in place and will have no effect, or you can delete them from your configuration table if you really want. No programming is required for installation or uninstallation.

**widget** · 30 Sep 2007, 08:01 AM

Once again, sincere thanks Kurio!! You're a master for sure! I'll take your advice and go for it. It would be nice if people who created the mods, also included a 'backout' or 'revert' for them too wouldn't it! Just incase of problems or perhaps you mod something and find you dont actually like the mod after you've put it on your site.

But since this mod is a simple one, as you say, it shouldn't be too difficult to remove. THANK YOU! Widget.