Is this a template or customization? Would like the same effect

Hey all,

My first thread and my first installation on Zen Cart. I have tried several; oscommerce, magento etc but they don't seem to have as many options in which you can edit parts of your site where Zen Cart can.

So far I'm very impressed by the functions available however the styling is a problem for me. I was looking through the sample sites that use Zen and came across this site:

http://www.desireanddelight.co.uk/

This is exactly what I am looking for as it has rounded edges on the titles, the search just under the header and the all important navigation buttons below the header logo. This feature is what I really want but I'm not to sure if this is already a template available or whether it is a certain template that has been heavily modified.

Could anyone offer some advice or solutions please as to how to get my template almost exactly like that one.

Thanks,

T.

That is customised template but not difficult to achieve...
look in free downloads section...and
http://(sorry, site offline)
You should be able to combine 2 or 3 free ones to
get desired effects into one...

Hi,

Thanks so much for your reply. I have had a look at the templates and there are a few that resemble the left and right columns, however, there are none that resemble the header part with the navigation buttons and search box. Looks like I'm gonna have to create it from scratch as I can't seem to find anything in the forum regarding a similar effect.

Thanks,

T.

The major parts of this are very easy to do.
Sideboxes will need two images (header & footer), once you decide how wide you want them. Put the footer and header as background-images in the stylesheet```
.leftBoxContainer, .rightBoxContainer {
padding-bottom: 20px;
background: url(../images/sidebox_footer.gif) bottom center no-repeat;
}

.leftBoxheading, .rightBoxHeading {
height: 20px;
background: url(../images/sidebox_header.gif) top center no-repeat;
}

.sideBoxContent {
border-left: 1px solid #112233; /adjust to taste/
border-right: 1px solid #112233; /adjust to taste/
background: none;
}

The categories-tabs menu buttons can be styled with two images (button left & center/right sides), using the sliding door method (google for the standard tutorial if you need it). You may want to add a <span> inside the <a> for the buttons, so the selectable area will go the full width of each button.

Moving the header navbar to below the cat-tabs menu is accomplished by moving its code block in 
/includes/templates/your_template/common/tpl_header.php.

Hey,

Thanks gjh42 for your reply. I have understood how to create backgrounds for the headers and footers of the sideboxes no probs, however, creating the navigation buttons and moving the search has gone way above my head, lol. Well, when I say that I don't mean it literately, I just mean that looking into the code of the tpl file and working out where to put it and how to style it is way past my expertise.

Its frustrating because I was hoping to avoid paying for a template design or have one made otherwise I would have purchased a commercial commerce package. Being open-source is fantastic don't get me wrong, its just that the designing of these open-source commerce scripts need a little work and for someone who is clueless about it, it defeats the purpose of free.

If anybody know of a template or designs one similar could you keep me posted here?

Thanks again,

T.

The layout change is a simple matter of moving clearly-marked blocks of code in the tpl_header.php template file.

The button functionality is built in; you only have to enable the categories-tabs menu in admin > Configuration > Layout Settings. The button image styling is also relatively simple, if you study the tutorial referenced above.

Being open-source is fantastic don't get me wrong, its just that the designing of these open-source commerce scripts need a little work and for someone who is clueless about it, it defeats the purpose of free.

Free is just 1 part, I think the beauty of open-source is that it's open. You can edit it however you want, you dont have to beg the developers to add things you really need.

Paying for a commercial template for open-source software has its own advantage. If you love working on the coding and designing, it's great. However, most business owners love working on their business instead ;)