Really Need Help with using my own template look

Hello I am new and just downloaded Zen Cart 1.3.8 to my server. Everything seemed to install correctly and now I'm ready to customize, but this is very confusing to me.

I have a small amount of knowledge on CSS and php and have been using all the resources i can find to get better at understanding how things are laid out here in zen cart but its still very confusing.

My thing is I would like to design my look in either say photoshop or even Dreamweaver but how do I get my template to lay across the page as if it were just like any new website going up on the web.

I'm unsure as to where to place my content as I have been doing little test runs and uploading but don't see any images come up on the page when it loads, etc.

If someone could point me to a well laid out resource that can assist I would really appreciate it overall I would like to create something like http://www.victoriasecret.com

just the idea of having the site look something like this. I can design a site to look this way with the links and all but I don't know how to implement it into the zen cart structure.

Please any assistance/knowledge would be helpful .

Thanks everyone.

Start by looking at the free templates available for downloading and you can preview many of these at http://(sorry, site offline)/

PS & DW are great for an html site - - But ZenCart is php and as such is laid out in pieces. At the most basic level it is:
header
left
center
right
footer

Additionally, as it relies heavily on information contained in the database, for the most part there is a split between the files that extract the information and the files that display this information.

The display/layout files for pieces and pages is mostly in files the are prefixed with tpl_...and these "core" files are found in /includes/templates/template_default

Never, never, edit the core file as there exists a system that associates changed files with a template ...review the tutorials on this system and you can search for other subjects to read up on.

Overide system
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=230
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=143
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=36

Templates
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=346
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=232
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=142

Hi thank you for the quick reply.
So if I designed say the front page look a nice photo put together in photoshop and then say created top bottom borders a certain height and width and etc, I could save these as jpgs and replace them in place of what is currently sitting on my default page.

I just tried changing the logo and I'm understanding slowly how this is working.

I will look into the resources you provided.

I guess what makes it a bit confusing is I'm used to seeing coding like css/php.actionscript with clear comments above each section to let you know whats happening. Its here and there here but I guess it just reading them over and testing till you see something happen.

Would you have any other advice as far as getting your look set up.
I've seen some really nice ones in the live shop reviews.

Would you have any other advice as far as getting your look set up.
As this is fully dependant upon "your look" it is difficult to have a one fits all guide....
Just concentrate on each piece, for my taste - avoid nested tables in favor of divs

Would you or anyone happen to know if it is possible that when a user logs into my site instead of the links that are on the left side showing. For example my default custom page has

Hardware
Software
etc
etc
etc

Is there a way to not have that show when the page initially comes up.

And secondly I noticed that those same links show on the top of my page going horizontally across so what i wanted to do was only have the horizontal ones showing when the page loads and when someone clicks on a link then the page that comes up would have the navigation on the top horizontally as well as the left side vertically.

Thanks for any assistance.
I think Im starting to get this :clap:

This can be accomplished by adding tests to sidebox and header files to display or not - in this case based on the value of a variable named $this_is_home_page (can be true or false).

if ($this_is_home_page) {
//do something if true
} else {
//something else if false
}

This can be applied in many different ways, and has been discussed many times, so search the forum for keys like "disable sidebox", and check the tutorials.

There is also a CSS method using the stylesheet, but that does not stop the processing of the box, so can waste time.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=121318