New template help zencart newbie

Hello everyone,

I am brand new to zencart and am going to download a template today. My question is, how do I add my product pictures and prices etc, to appear in the template? Do I just add the products in the admin area and it wil show up in the template? Will it be easier to edit the template with Dreamweaver etc? Do you think I can change the main image that comes with the template?

Template in question: http://www.zencart-template.com/beauty-16-zen-cart-template-p-890.html

Thanks for any help at all, i know these must be really dum questions, thanks again,

Samantha.

Your questions aren't dumb. They're the same questions we all had at the beginning.

I'm going to suggest that you don't buy that template, at least not right now. You should first install Zencart and get acquainted with how it works, how you add products and images, how the shipping and payment options operate, etc.

Then, after you have an idea about how to set up and use Zencart, you can worry about your site's appearance.

The Tutorials/FAQ link above is a good place to start, and you may want to buy the book (advertisement above).

Dreamweaver will not be all that useful when styling Zecart.

Generally, those of us with some experience on the forum, advise against the use of 3rd-party commercial templates.

This is because many of these templates are heavily customized, and use code and other settings that depart from core zencart behaviour.

Later - when you want to add more functionality to your store, you may find that many of the add-on modules will not work "out of the box" with your template, because of this "altered behaviour".

There are countless tearful stories on the forum of people who paid good money for a "zencart template", and who now have problems that are not easy to resolve.

The basic rule is this:

If you are prepared to pay for a commercial template, then be prepared to also pay for future advice and help...

This template you are interested in seems to keep most of the core zencart functionality - with some heavy customizations in the header.

I personally don't like it at all because more than half the screen is occupied with branding and function buttons... Customers will get annoyed and frustrated having to keep scrolling on every screen refresh just to see some products - which is why they are there in the first place! You will have a nice looking site - but no customers!

Dreamweaver... ?

Technically it is possible to "edit" templates in Dreamweaver - but you need superior PHP, MySQL and raw HTML knowledge to do this properly - it is not for novices...

Oh thanks very much, I have downloaded ZenCart and am familiar with the majority of the functions in the admin area. I even uploaded a "free" template. If I add products to the admin area of my cart, will it show up on the site??? Also, how would I change the images that come with the template, such as the headers, fonts and backgrounds?

Thanks so much for your help,

Samantha :)

"more than half the screen"?
On a common 1024x768 monitor, the header takes up the entire screen, and you have to scroll to see the second row of nav links!
Definitely not user-friendly...

Yes, adding products in admin will automatically display them in the storefront.

Template images will need to be uploaded, and some admin settings and stylesheet edits will be needed.

... I would add that the "Beauty 890" template is extremely easy to create from scratch... so do as Steve suggests... Download and experiment with a standard install. Get to know how ZC works...

In 2 months' time, you will build your own "Beauty 890" template!

LOOK HERE for an example of what can be done using a standard install, with some of the free add-ons.

And THIS ONE uses exactly the same template as the one above!

... and modshops.co.uk/venom/ also uses the same template...

The point I am making is that a STANDARD INSTALL is always best, and that by working with your CSS and a few standard settings in the Admin Panel (and of course different graphics), you can get an enormous variety of styles and appearances...

Oh My Gosh you guys are the absolute best, answered all of my questions and then some, thanks so very much very very helpful :)

Samantha

OnlyOneMe:

Oh thanks very much, I have downloaded ZenCart and am familiar with the majority of the functions in the admin area. I even uploaded a "free" template. If I add products to the admin area of my cart, will it show up on the site??? Also, how would I change the images that come with the template, such as the headers, fonts and backgrounds?

The site you have is functional in practically every way, so yes... add some "test" products and see them appear in your store-front.

Basic zencart is relatively easy to customize - you need change a handful of graphics to get a "unique" look. There is lots of help on this in the tutorials/faq section.

The "branding" images are mostly located in the images folder of the template in question... so, using your FTP manager, take a look in:

/includes/templates/YOUR-TEMPLATE/images

and see what's there... FTP them to your hard drive and open them up in an image editor. If you create images of the same size (length and breadth) with your own logo and colours, save them as the same name and REPLACE (overwrite) the ones in that folder, you will have your own branding and box header colour scheme(s).

Thanks very much, I'm horrible with html, would you know of a program I could purchase that would help me easily design and manipulate a downloaded template? And thus easily able to upload to my ftp?

Thanks, Samantha

Hi everyone,

I'm horrible with html, would anyone know of a program I could purchase or download that would help me easily design and manipulate a downloaded template? And thus easily able to upload to my ftp?

New template in question: 5shadestemplates.com/zen-cart-template-26887.html

Would I be able to change the background image???

Thanks a lot for your help everyone, Samantha

There are no reliable WYSIWYG programs to edit templates for a dynamic system like Zen Cart. The best way to start is to install Firefox and its Web Developer and Firebug extensions. They have excellent tools for finding what to change and testing changes in real time. You can then edit your real files and make the changes permanent.

OnlyOneMe:

Thanks very much, I'm horrible with html, would you know of a program I could purchase that would help me easily design and manipulate a downloaded template? And thus easily able to upload to my ftp?

Thanks, Samantha

Glen is right... CMS sites (such as Zencart) do not use "flat" html. The web-pages you see on a zencart site are created "on the fly"...

The elements within any given page are ASSEMBLED, according to what the person viewing the site has requested. By clicking on a link, the PHP code gets to work, digging out all the "bits" that are relevant to the link that was just clicked and it "cobbles together" all these bits into a page that is ultimately framed into html, and then sent down the wires to the visitor's browser, where it displays itself.

When the visitor clicks another link, the page they were just on - EVAPORATES FOREVER! It is not stored anywhere. It no longer exists. If you want to view that page again, you click the previous link and (apart from browser caching) the PHP code sets about re-building the entire page again from scratch.

Some pages can comprise SEVERAL HUNDRED elements !!!

And all these are fetched, assembled and delivered in a few nano-seconds.

So... you cannot "edit" pages in zencart (or any CMS site) - because the "pages" simply do not exist!

... you have to learn how to edit and construct various ELEMENTS that can make up a page, and this is what templating is all about.

For the most part, the style and layout of your site is governed by:-

1. Settings and switches in the database (via the admin panel - such as display right column? yes/no)

2. The main branding images you create for the template

3. The stylesheets (probably the most influential design component)

There are a few things (design-wise) that will require "tweaks" and "adjustments" to the php code, and to be fair, this is probably the most challenging for a novice.

There will come a time when you have to start doing such "tweaks" and it can be daunting at first, but as Glenn says, you should start off by working with the CSS.

The firefox browser has many useful add-ons and there are some good tools you can use to help you do off-line edits to many components (such as the CSS), that will display the result in real-time (and offline, so there's no danger of wreaking havoc on a live page).

You should look at Chris Pederick's web developer (chrispederick.com) and off the mozilla firefox add-ons site, things like Firebug and Colorzilla).

You should also use a PLAIN TEXT EDITOR to edit all code and CSS files.

Rule 1. Strenuously AVOID using programs with "Microsoft" in the title to do any editing on anything!

Templates on site you have listed are by Template Monster which do not work well with zencart...
Search forums for previous threads regarding problems using their designs...
Most templates for zencart use php, a css stylsheet and very little html

if you want to change the appearance of your store then you would need to modify the css you can do this in a programme such a Con Text which you can download free of charge. Free ftp programmes that you can also download are Firezilla or Core ftp.
Any products you add to your site using your new template and any you have already added using the basic template will show in your store. Rather than downloading a template the one that comes with Zen can be changed to make some fantastic looking sites and it is so much more satisfying to make your own from scratch rather than trying to modifying a purchased one or a downloaded one, either way good luck

Thanks very much everyone for your help :smile: