Can I add Links for some additional navigation?

Hi, I don't even know what I'm trying to do is called, so please bear with me while I try to explain. I would like something like tabs across the top of my zen cart where I can put links to my blog, forum, facebook, etc. and the customer can just click on the tab and then they are taken to my blog, forum, etc. I am not looking to integrate or bridge my blog and forum with zen cart, i just want graphics with embedded links that are obvious to the customer so they can click on them and be taken to my blog, etc. I also want to have similiar tabs on my blog and forum so if the customer wants to visit my cart/shop, they can just click on the tab and they are taken there - but i guess i'll have to post in the wordpress forum for help on the return to zen cart :) I searched this forum for directions on what I am trying to do, but i think the word "tab" is not the right word for what I'm talking about because I didn't find anything. See at the top of this website there are the following boxes: "Home, Forum, Plugins, FAQs, Blogs, Wiki, Showcase, Services?" That is what I want to add to my zen cart. I think this site probably has everything integratated, but I don't need that. However, if that is the only way to get those tabs, then integration it is I guess. Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

The easiest way would be to use EZ pages. Create your EZ pages, using the External Link URL box for the paths to your various pages and setting the pages to display in the header. Remamber, you have to specify a sort order for each before they will appear.

After they're displaying, you can use the stylesheet to make them look the way you want.

As Steve says, using EZPages is the simplest option, because EZPages can be configured to become internal or external hyperlinks, as well as being "pages" of information. (They cannot be BOTH, however).

EZpage "menus" are configurable for the HEADER area, the FOOTER area, and you can also invoke the EZPages sidebox if you want to. Different EZpages menu options can be selected for each of these three "display" areas, so you can choose which EZPages links display in whatever menu area you enable.

Now, as you want links in a HEADER area, much will depend on the TEMPLATE you are using. Customised templates may be built to "position" the EZPages header menu right at the TOP of the screen... others may display this under the LOGO BANNER.

In THIS SITE, we have tweaked the header code to put the EZPages header menu right at the TOP.

Thank you Steve and Schoolboy and I apologize for the late reply. I've been busy setting up my Zen Cart and doing the easy things that I can handle first and I didn't think this would be as easy as it was, so I put it off for as long as I could. I have just added all my links and they did show up under my banner, which is where I wanted them to. They are on a bar though, but I see that, Steve, you are saying I need to go into my stylesheet to fix the graphics. I'm assuming that I will have to upload my custom graphics and then just insert something in the stylesheet to tell Zen Cart to use my custom graphics instead of the bar? I think I can figure it out, if not I will be back :) Thank you for both of your help, it was unbelievably easy to do :)

See? I'm back already LOL Is there a way to use these EZ-Pages to create a menu that is exactly the same as the category menu, but instead of categories, it is a list of the products by theme? I have a category called "themes" on my category menu and then about 15 sub-categories to that category and it would be so much more organized and nicely laid out if i could take all the themes off the category menu and give it its own menu. but if were to remove the theme category and all sub-categories, then the paths would no longer exist, would they? i also wouldn't be able to put my products in one category and then link it to one of the sub-categories under "themes," would I, if i were to move the themes off to their own menu?

Really good thread!

You can create a "menu" using the ezpages sidebox location for virtually any link(s) you like - using the Internal Link Field in an EZpage "edit" screen.

Remember... if you use the EZpages sidebox location for this function/feature, you will not be able to use a "second" EZPages sidebox location.

This is how you do it.

1. In your browser window, go to your website and frill down to a "page" you want as a link in the menu. This can be any level... a category, a sub-category, a product... in fact any internal link.

2. When you are on the page you want as a link, look at the browser's ADDRESS BAR (where you see the URL of the page you are viewing. If it is a sub-category, you will see something like: www . yourwebsite . com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=407_34

3. Put your mouse cursor into the address bar, and drag it across the URL so that you copy THIS BIT >>> index.php?main_page=index&cPath=407_34

4. That is the INTERNAL LINK URL you will paste into one of your EZPages, on its Edit screen (scroll past the HTML input block, and you will see the field in which you "paste" that URL.

5. Remember to NAME the EZPage, and give it a SORT ORDER in the sidebox controller, and click the YES radio button to activate the menu item for the sidebox location.

6. You can also change the header title of the EZPages sidebox - but this is done by editing the language PHP file that contains the text "Important Links". To find this file and the header text, use the Developers Toolkit under the TOOLS menu in your admin panel. Remember, you need to edit a LANGUAGE FILE DEFINE - so make sure you select the correct file to edit. If you edit the CORE language file, remember also to save the edited copy to your templates OVER-RIDE folder in the appropriate language folder.

Hi schoolboy and thank you for typing all those directions out - it is very much appreciated. I have one more question though: On my main category menu now I have my products divided up by what they are (we're a scrapbooking supply company, so: papers, embellishments, alphas, etc.) then within all those, like a sore thumb, I have one category that I have labelled "themes," and then within that theme category I have several sub-categories such as christmas, easter, floral, birthday, etc. If i were able to get the whole theme category and its sub-categories off my Category sidebox and onto its own sidebox, i wouldn't want the themes and its sub-categories to appear on the main Category sidebox anymore. if i remove the theme category (and its sub-categories) so it no longer appears on the main Category sidebox, then there is no link to go to, to get the internal links. how do i get the theme category (and all its sub-categories) off the main Category menu, but still get Zen Cart to sort my products into themes so that I can put the urls to each theme on a whole separate sidebox? on the main category box I was doing it by copying a product that was, for example, christmas'y, to the the sub-category of christmas in the themes category and linking. i think this is where I'm stuck: getting the themes off the main category sidebox, but keeping the filter aspect of products into sub-categories like how they are on the main category sidebox. if i were to take the links that are currently assigned to each theme and i then deleted the theme from the main category, would the links still be valid? or is there a way to tell zen cart to have a category but not to show it in the main category box, but to show it only in my new sidebox (the Important Links sidebox)?

And just to make it even more difficult, is it possible to create a sidebox with all my links for themes in a different sidebox than the "important links" sidebox? or am i stuck with using this sidebox only? i followed your advice on how to get my tabs at the top of the screen (and it worked like a charm, thank you very much :) ) and i also set it so that those links would appear in the sidebox and they appeared in that "important links" sidebox. i'd like to keep them there and put my themes in a whole new sidebox menu. Am I asking for more than is possible to accompish? LOL

PS. I have purchased the Zen Cart manual, so if this is addressed in the manual and you have it too, to save on typing again, a page number would be just as helpful :)

how do i get the theme category (and all its sub-categories) off the main Category menu, but still get Zen Cart to sort my products into themes so that I can put the urls to each theme on a whole separate sidebox? You can use Categories Dressing in Plugins to separate sets of categories into different "groups", which you can style to look like they are separate sideboxes. The download page mentions a couple of posts in the mod's support thread with example screenshots of its features including this one.

stevesh:

After they're displaying, you can use the stylesheet to make them look the way you want.

Hi Stevesh, if possible could you instruct me on exactly how to use the stylesheet to make the images for my links in the header look the way I want please? I was a little too confident and I looked at my stylesheet and I don't see where to do this. I was able to use the EZPages in the admin area and get a bar under my banner with text of the links (see first image below). Right now I have text in a blue bar under my banner, "Home, blog, facebook, community, twitter." The links all work and if, for example, i click on the "twitter" text, it does take me to our twitter page. I would like to use 2 images for each text though: using twitter as the example again, i would like to use an image of a dark blue bird as the regular state and then a lighter blue bird for the hover state. can you tell me how to go about this pretty please with a cherry on top? LOL (Sorry for being silly. It's one of those days where if I took everything seriously my whole zen cart would be in the trash bin right now! LOL)

While I'm posting screenshots, I might as well show you what I'm talking about with the themes in the Categories menu. A screenshot is below and I'm trying to get all those red texted sub-categories onto their own menu so that zen cart will still apply a filter and sort them into those sub-categories. gjh42, thank you for the suggestion of the Category Dressing plugin and it would have probably done what I'm trying to do, but unfortunately it is only good for version 1.38 and I'm using version 1.51. Here is the screenshot of how my main category sidebox looks now and all that red text I would like to get off onto it's own menu:

Thank you for all the help given so far :)

Categories Dressing is good for any version of Zen Cart from v1.3.8 up, so don't let that stop you from trying it. The support thread has discussions and solutions for just about any setup you can imagine (although people are always coming up with new ones:).

gjh42:

Categories Dressing is good for any version of Zen Cart from v1.3.8 up, so don't let that stop you from trying it. The support thread has discussions and solutions for just about any setup you can imagine (although people are always coming up with new ones:).
Hi Glenn, i just came across another of your plugins: EzPages Improved Menu, which seems like it would also solve my problem of getting images in place of the text I have inserted through EZPages in my header. But, again, it says it's only good for version 1.38 of Zen Cart and I'm using 1.51. Is it okay to use this plugin too or is it not suitable for my version?

Yes, that is still usable too. The "ZC version" listed is what was true when the mod was last updated. If a mod needs no changes to be compatible with a new ZC version, uploading a new zip just to say so is a waste of resources. It would be nice if mod authors could add comments on version compatibility without going through the whole submission process, but that probably gets too complicated for the forum moderators to oversee.