new to zen cart some questions

hi ,
i have just successfully installed zen cart and followed the security procedures ect , ect ,ect,
i have down loaded some ebooks, that give a brief outline of the zen cart features and how to use them .
i have been looking through the cart folders on my web host account, and i have to say it is quiet over whelming....
i would like to design i very slick, easy to use shopping cart and i have seen i few templates at template monster.com and wanted to ask if any body had any experience with pre built templates and if their are some pros and cons with them. also i have noticed the script language is php for zen cart. and i only have a basic knowledge of html....how long does it take roughly for the brightest crayon to pick this zen cart php stuff up in order to build some stores like the ones on monster templates .com

heres a link to the one i had in mind. if i can build it myself andlearn something i will. but if its easier to buy if this stuffs impossible to do for noob...

heres a link to the template am interested in ....

templatemonster.com/zencart-templates/30192.html

You won't find many (if any) here who will recommend any Template Monster template. They look great in the demo, but may not look the same when you install them, and they tend to modify base Zencart code, which can make mofifying them pretty much impossible.

At a glance, it doesn't seem like duplicating that template would be all that difficult, but, as you say, you have some work ahead of you figuring things out.

Personally, I think the 'figuring things out' part is most of the fun. Generally, the idea is to read the Tutorials/FAQ thoroughly and start with a Zencart test site and just try stuff, coming here to ask questions when you get stuck.

stevesh:

You won't find many (if any) here who will recommend any Template Monster template. They look great in the demo, but may not look the same when you install them, and they tend to modify base Zencart code, which can make mofifying them pretty much impossible.

At a glance, it doesn't seem like duplicating that template would be all that difficult, but, as you say, you have some work ahead of you figuring things out.

Personally, I think the 'figuring things out' part is most of the fun. Generally, the idea is to read the Tutorials/FAQ thoroughly and start with a Zencart test site and just try stuff, coming here to ask questions when you get stuck.

thanks mate for that insight, the templates on monster templates seem a little to good to be true and thats the whole point in choosing open source, is because i can learn to customise it myself.....am glad i have meet someone who can look at a template like that and say....peice of cake but ur right their is alot of work ahead.

am not sure how you felt when you first started using zen cart , but am never shy of anything involved with a computer, but this time i have to say i feel like am learning freanch , german, italian, and spanish all at once.

Have you seen the free templates for Zen Cart?

http://(sorry, site offline)/

Maybe something there that you can start with, and customize to your liking. :thumbsup:

If you currently only know basic HTML, and want to be building custom templates, your first task aside from downloading and playing with Zen Cart should be getting up to speed on advanced HTML, CSS and basic PHP. https://www.w3schools.com has good online tutorials on all of those, and there are plenty of other resources both online and print.

Zencart definitely has a learning curve, but most software does. I found Zencart a lot easier to figure out than, say. Joomla, but that had a lot to do with the quality of their respective support forums.

I don't own a copy of 'The Book' (ad above), but I've seen it, and it's a great way to get started, since it provides a step-by-step explanation of installing and configuring Zencart. Almost nothing about templating, though.

A lot of it depends, I think, on how you tend to learn stuff. I'm not a step-by-step guy. I like to jump around and figure things out as they come up, which is why I learned most of what I know by reading these forums and testing stuff out on test sites.

Also:

Install the Firefox browser and the Web Developer plugin for Firefox. You can use those to see where in the stylesheet you change the styling of the various page elements.

Ctrl-Shift-Y will allow you to hover over a section of the page and see the class and id names for that section in the box at the top. The statements in the stylesheet that begin with # are id's and the ones that begin with dots are classes.

Ctrl-Shift-E will open the CSS editor and allow you to edit the stylesheet and see the changes in real time without changing anything permanently. An essential tool.

Some prefer Firebug, which does much the same thing.

this is all very help full info guys thanks. i ve got an ebook by Goh Koon Hoek. its i brief outline of zencart am currently looking at the local server installation, some of the tools to use can be found in a bundle called XAMMP. is this a good idea to do . i am under the notion that if i install a copy of zen cart on my own computer it will be alot easier/quicker/better to implement and understand the techniques required to customise the zen cart store.
because i can bypass the upload phase to my web hosting preovider.
by installing on my own computer i can create a virtuall server on which to experiment.

is what you guys do ?

Nothing wrong with a local installation, though I've never done one.

The main downside is that, if you run into problems and need some help here, you can't show us the site if it isn't web-accessible. Too often, descriptions and/or screenshots aren't enough.

Other than that, I find having a local copy to make testing and development quicker and easier.

gjh42:

Other than that, I find having a local copy to make testing and development quicker and easier.

i am using zen cart 1.3.9d can i use any version of Xammp to create my local server ?

If you have a host in mind for your finished shop, the xampp version which best approximates their environment is probably best to use. Other than that, you probably want a recent version for testing & development of a 1.3.9x Zen Cart.

gjh42:

If you have a host in mind for your finished shop, the xampp version which best approximates their environment is probably best to use. Other than that, you probably want a recent version for testing & development of a 1.3.9x Zen Cart.

i use 5 quid hosting at the moment any idead what version of xammp would apply ?

No, you need to ask them (or look it up) what versions of PHP, MySQL, etc. they use, then compare with the available xampp versions.