paid theme question

[zinger]

Hello Zenners,

Considering switching over to Zen-Cart from Os Commerce and would like a little bit of info regarding the sizing of the product images.

There is a theme that i am looking towards purchasing but the only downside i see is that it makes all the product images 401px*211px which is great for a mobile phone store but not so great for what i am wanting to sell!

How easy would it be to customize this? I asked the support staff if they had instructions on how to do this before i buy the theme but no cigar, they said it was a "Major modification" and beyond their support sphere. ;/

Other than the product images being bigger than normal, there is a scroller that flicks through some images that are the same size, Not sure if this is a module or just a script included as a bonus.

Anyway, cheers in advance.

[stevesh]

In a stock Zencart installation, you can specify the size of product images in admin. The folks at Template Monster do all sort of wacky things with core files in their templates, so it's hard to say if you'll be able to change that without un-doing their coding.

The general feeling here is that you should stay away from most bulk 'purchased' templates for Zencart.

[zinger]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, i understand where you are coming from with all the extra coding they put in to keep it theirs. So there is an option to select the product image sizing but there is no guarantee Template Monster have played by the rules in allowing Zen Cart to control it.

If this is the case, are there CSS files that can be easily edited in order to change the appearance and size? or are we talking about big modifications here and shouldn't really think about doing that?

Cheers.

[stevesh]

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly, i understand where you are coming from with all the extra coding they put in to keep it theirs. So there is an option to select the product image sizing but there is no guarantee Template Monster have played by the rules in allowing Zen Cart to control it.

Correct.

If this is the case, are there CSS files that can be easily edited in order to change the appearance and size? or are we talking about big modifications here and shouldn't really think about doing that?

If the image size is hard-coded, it's unlikely you'll be able to override it in the stylesheet.

I wouldn't think of buying a TM template, so ...

It really isn't that difficult to roll your own template, and the attractiveness of TM templates are mainly about the images they use anyway. Also, your site won't look just like every other site who's owner bought that particular template.

[zinger]

It really isn't that difficult to roll your own template, and the attractiveness of TM templates are mainly about the images they use anyway. Also, your site won't look just like every other site who's owner bought that particular template.

Is there a skinning guide or anything you know of? Im not too bad at Photoshop perhaps i could give it a go myself.

Or should i just have a look at what files do what and work my way through there?

[afo]

There are free templates available for Zen Cart. You can see them in action at http://(sorry, site offline)/. Use the pulldown menu to change templates and see how they look on a live site. Pick one close to the look you are going for and customize away.

This list is a bit outdated, but it'll give you an idea where to start to create a very basic custom template (you can build from there):

• includes/languages/YOUR_TEMPLATE/english.php
• includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE/index.php
• includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE/meta_tags.php
• includes/languages/english/YOUR_TEMPLATE/header.php (to change the logo and header text)
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/template_info.php
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/common/tpl_header.php <- may not be necessary
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/common/tpl_footer.php <- may not be necessary
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/images/logo.gif (or .jpg or .png)
• includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/css/stylesheet.css

Anywhere you see a /classic/ folder, you can create a folder for your custom template. You can copy the necessary files from either the /classic/ folder, the /template_default/ folder or the parent folder.

Edit includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/template_info.php to give your template identifying information so you'll recognize it in the admin under tools->template selection.

Note: if you've changed the height of the logo in header.php, you may need to change it in your stylesheet as well:

#logoWrapper{
background-image: url(../images/header_bg.jpg);
background-repeat: repeat-x;
background-color: #ffffff;
height:75px; <-adjust this line if necessary
}

There's also lots of info in the Tutorials/FAQ and Wiki.