chnages to home page design

All those templates look to me to be the same thing as the basic zencart but with different colors. I don't see a single template that is what I want.

I don't know what you mean that they By J site doesn't have anything. Did you scroll down on the page to where the links to the categories are?

http://www.woollycat.net
http://www.woollycat.net/roguishness.htm

kobra:

Just some divider scrolls & vertical bars - - very 1990-ish html

And I didn't ask you for your opinion of how the site looks. My mother happens to be quite happy with it.

And I didn't ask you for your opinion of how the site looks. My mother happens to be quite happy with it.

don't tell me that I'm just glossied by graphics.
This began with a site with good graphics

Are you here to just trash ZenCart or get assisatance?

Yes, it began with a site with graphics.

I was looking at the nice layout, a splash screen with 4 category images across the bottom of the page. Clean and simple. That is what I need.

I do NOT want an institutional DVD website which is what I am seeing. None of the templates I see are set up as a simple layout that I can see.

Everything seems to require that you know how to code using CSS which I Do not, nor do I have the energy, patience or time to learn.

My mother is happy with her site, she just wants to add a shopping cart to it.

I do not have a site at all, therefore need to build one from the ground up. I was told that zencart would do what I want ti to but to this point all it has done is make me pull my hair out.

Forget I even mentioned the 2nd site that already exists. It is MY site that I need to make work, so I can give her an honest opinion as to whether or not this can be made to work in a fashion that will make her happy.

Everything seems to require that you know how to code using CSS which I Do not, nor do I have the energy, patience or time to learn.

paying someone to build a site is out of the question
Every business endeavour requires that one either learn the ropes or hires someone who does to be successful.

You don't seem to be open to either idea

Not open to learn nor hire another

Maybe if one has unlimited resources, hiring someone is an option. BELIEVE ME if I could hire someone, I would. However, I do not have bottomless pockets.

I have asked for help in learning CSS. UNFORTUNATELY the online resources DO NOT help me (I have looked), and I do not know anyone who can help me.

Just delete my entire thread, because obviously I will not be able to find what I need here.

Apologies to the original poster for hijacking their thread.

Hi satyrslynx, thank you very much for your kind words. As kobra said, I have used a template to make sure I have the basic layout right, then amended the site to fit my design. I also did not have a clue of php and css, but if you use the Firefox CSS tool, you can change quite a few things. Just be patient, Rome wasn't built in a day and with enough effort, you will get it right. Just keep trying, it took me 3 months!

You said at the beginning that you had spent three days trying to figure the cart out. That is no time at all for someone with no background in dynamic websites. You are being unrealistically impatient; it will take a lot more time. There are simpler carts that you can learn quicker, but the ability to customize as you want will be more limited as well (not to mention functional features).

You now have a single column layout. The stock heading background graphics (green bars) are probably putting you off; the easiest way to get rid of them so they don't distract you is to find /includes/templates/classic/images/tile_back.gif and change its name to tile_back_hold.gif or the like. This will leave soft blue flat color bars. To remove the gate/sky image in the header, delete /images/header_bg.jpg as you will have no possible use for it.