Don't understand. Where are the HTML files?

Not understanding Zen Cart at all.

Where the HTML file that I can edit? Such as the website TITLE, etc?

Wheres the layout markup?

There are only two configure files, so hardly evidence of bloat.

Zen Cart is multilingual, so language elements such as the content of the title tag go in language files, rather than being edited directly in the layout markup. You'll find it at the top of the includes/languages/meta_tags.php file for the language you're using.

The layout markup is in the includes/templates folder.

How can I integrate Zen Cart into my current website?

It sounds as though you're looking for a lightweight e-commerce plugin. Zen Cart isn't that. It's one of the most comprehensively featured application for building e-commerce sites and works best when it is the site.

However, it's not usual to run it alongside other best-of-breed applications such as WordPress. When that's done it's usually by styling both sites to look the same, and then having menu systems that cross back and forth between them, as well as deeper links between WordPress posts and Zen Cart products.

I see, do you know any free and open-sourced light plug-ins?

That would depend on how you built your site. I'd recommend asking the most appropriate community for the app or approach that you used.

I used a text editor to build my site.

I am fascinated at how this engineering issue of mine can be accomplished.
Can I embed Zen Cart PHP into my current site? Would that work?

Possibly. But would require a very high level of knowledge and skill in PHP and Zen Cart. Far easier would be to apply your design to Zen Cart's templating system as that was all the necessary hooks and processing (the difficult bits) are already in the right places.

Your absolutely right. But I've tried looking around and don't understand where to start. All I see is PHP files.

I guess what I'm looking for is converting my HTML/CSS website into a Zen Cart template. How would this be achieved?

In my experience, mostly by trial and error. You can't convert an HTML site design directly into a Zencart template. You need to learn the various parts of Zencart and apply similar styling to them, mostly using images and the stylesheet.

One way to start would be to 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.

(If you're using Firefox 4, you'll need to remap the editor shortcut, since Firefox has appropriated Ctrl-Shift-E for an internal function - I use Ctrl-Shift-Q.)

I'm kind of a newbie to zen cart myself and use to using a div style template instead of almost exclusively css based template. I'm learning a lot here about css.

Except for the home page you could also add your page content to the ez pages and add your images to the appropriate folders. The php that you used in your own site probably has to do with a lot of log in and access for users. This is all handled by the zen script so just the html part of it would be easily handled by the zen script. If there is a special php function that your site performs I'm sure you can get help here on the forum to learn how to integrate it into the zen. Lots of great help here.

You might be leading the OP astray Scott.

ScottDB:

I'm kind of a newbie to zen cart myself and use to using a div style template instead of almost exclusively css based template.
I don't understand the distinction you're making there. DIVs are just blocks to which styling (CSS) can be applied. Other types of blocks (Ps, H1s, and so on) can also have CSS applied to them. So a "div style template" and a "css based template" are really the same thing.

ScottDB:

... The php that you used in your own site probably has to do with a lot of log in and access for users. This is all handled by the zen script ...
He didn't mention using PHP. He said "I guess what I'm looking for is converting my HTML/CSS website into a Zen Cart template."

ScottDB:

... so just the html part of it would be easily handled by the zen script. ...
?

ScottDB:

... If there is a special php function that your site performs I'm sure you can get help here on the forum to learn how to integrate it into the zen. Lots of great help here.
That's true. :smile:

And my advice to the OP... dig in and try it. It took me many weeks of frustration to make my first ZC site, during which I asked a ton of questions here (including one much like yours.) My second site took just two weeks; the third, just two days.

You'll get it. Read the docs; read the Turtorials/FAQS; read this forum; enjoy!

Rob

Kolusion:

I guess what I'm looking for is converting my HTML/CSS website into a Zen Cart template. How would this be achieved?

It's actually not terribly difficult to duplicate the look of an existing site in a Zen Cart install. Here's an example that I did:

http://www.mamacreepy.com

That site belongs to a gal for whom I've been doing some site work. I didn't build it, and it isn't done with Zen Cart. It's a commercial cart. For grins, I wanted to see how close I could come to duplicating the look in a Zen Cart install, so I set it up in my Sandbox:

http://www.oozix.com/store2

Oh, and just for kicks, this is the same template with a radically different look:

http://www.oozix.com/store

As others have mentioned, Zen Cart is a complete site solution, not something you can just bolt on to existing pages.

If you need a small solution that you can add to an existing site, look at FoxyCart or E dash Junkie Google them for links.

Note that you should use the communities of these two products to ask further questions; this forum is for Zen Cart.

As someone who also hand-coded my original site and was looking to drop zen-cart into it - Just go entirely with zen-cart. You'll be re-styling the site manually but it's worth it in the end.

ZenCart is a monster to understand though. Learn how to use the "Developer's Tool Kit" located in the admin section
Admin -> Tools -> Developer's Tool Kit"