Starting out with Zen Cart, seek advice on config

I installed Zen Cart on my Host Gator account using the "Quick Install" on my CPanel. The config options are kind of intimidating. O yes, I know I must persevere and be patient. But many items are not clear as to what they are and the setting values are not explained as to what they will cause to happen. It is king of obvious that not everything needs to be edited. But what can I get away with?
Is there a source of documentation that will help me with this?

I installed Zen Cart on my Host Gator account using the "Quick Install" on my CPanel.
Before you go any further, installing zencart this way is going to cause you pain/time and heartache further down the road to creating your online zencart..
Scrap that install, download zencart files yourself, and install
manually.

sofasurfer:

Is there a source of documentation that will help me with this?

There is no single source of instruction about styling or configuring Zencart. You have the Tutorials/FAQ (link above) and this forum.

The best advice I can offer is to install Zencart in a subdirectory of your domain.and consider it a test site you'll use to learn how everything works. Then, when you know more, install Zencart again for your live site.

You'll need these tools:

An FTP program - many here use Filezilla'

A good text editor. I use Notepad ++.

Then 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.

(If you're using Firefox 4, you'll need to remap the keybord shortcut for the editor - FF has taken over Ctrl-Shift-E for something else.)

Some prefer Firebug, which does much the same thing.

I understand what both of you are saying. I should forget about installing through my Host Gator Cpanel. I understand this because I have installed packages (I use Linux) on my system with the command line and with the package manager. Sometimes it does make a difference in getting a package to work well.

Using my Cpanel installation of Zen Cart, I have finally gotten 1 product listed on my site and so now I can understand things quite a bit better and feel as though I could start making some progress.

Please tell me, in this case, what problems (in general) would I expect from Cpanel installation vs manual installation. Is Cpanel installation strictly a no-no or is it just a matter that I would be able to do more through a manual installation.

I previously had started to attempt a manual installation. I got PHP5 installed. I have a text editor. I have Apache. And I have MySql on my Cpanel. But as I read along in the 400 Zen Cart book that I found online, I was intimidated when it talked about setting up a test site on my computer before I publish my site. And, requiring me to have Apache installed sound a lot like I would be expected to use my pc as a server.

My gosh!! I read an introduction to Zen online that stated the Zen was designed for use by anyone with the most basic pc skills. Well, I am pretty darned good on my pc and this stuff blows me away in the first couple paragraphs.

I'm sorry to ramble on and sound like a complete inept. Could you please continue this conversation and try to clarify the differences and maybe help me get my head right?

Thanks.

IMO, you should ignore the part about setting up Zencart on your local computer. You're going to set your store up on a remotely hosted server eventually anyway, and starting out that way has advantages, like being able to test payment modules.

Your host will have all the required software installed (PHP, Apache, MySQL, etc.) unless you've purchased an unmanaged dedicated server.

Also IMO, there isn't usually any real disadvantage to using auto-installers (depending on your host) but they often don't install the latest Zencart version, and, again, you're going to want to install and configure manually eventually, so ...

Don't let the Zencart learning curve intimidate you. It's a pretty powerful piece of software, so you'll need to spend a little time learning its ins and outs. At some point you'll become 'Zenned' and all will be clear :laugh: .

Installing Apache on your home pc is as simple as downloading and installing XAMPP or another package which bundles Apache, PHP and MySQL. It pretty much does everything for you (don't worry about the Mercury Mail setup, you can get along without it for most stuff). A viable alternative is installing in a subfolder on your live server - there are pros and cons to both. You would never use your pc as a live server, only a local server so you can run PHP apps at home for testing.

Oh, it is really valuable to install the demo products when you do your test ZC setup - they have tons of useful info to teach you how various functions work. The installation process doesn't stress this nearly enough.

Thank you all for your advice. I am going to continue with my Cpanel installation. I am making progress and I need to get this thing up and running. I have wasted a month trying to learn the best way to get a site running. After I get set up and get more knowledge and confidence I may decide to learn more technical stuff.

As stevesh said, an auto-installed Zen Cart can be just as good as a manual installation, although I understand they may force you to install in a subfolder instead of the root, and may not give you an option to install the demo products.

It is when you upgrade that you really need to do it manually; auto-updaters will not take care of any customized template files that may need to be merged, and if you had a non-overrideable core file modified for something, that will be wiped out whether the file has a version update or not.