Tutorials of all kinds

Hey, my host, siteground, has a lot of tutorials for zen car, they seem to be a really good host too, but Im not trying to sell them on that. Just this has helped me out a lot.
https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/zencart/index.htm

hope that helps some people!

the paypal one needs a little work but over all not to bad
https://www.demodemo.com has a really good set of tutorials for zen cart as well..
really good for the web host to display

someone, Hint, should stick a thread of all of the tutorials, links to them all, that would be a big help!:smartass:

I am working on something like that now. Will be a little longer since we cannot edit threads and need to get it right the first time.

Edit: Thanks for pointing out these two sites.

Sermonzone:

Edit: Thanks for pointing out these two sites.

Ha...thats funny:lol:

With the near certainty of seeming dense ... what exactly is funny? :blush:

Bruce I think he was referring to you saying the part about "cannot edit threads" ... and then right below it "Edit:..."

Uh guys- instead of sending folks off-site to who-knows-where with who-knows-what-kind-of-advice, wouldn't it be better to add your own tutorials to the WIKI?

Ladysaat - I knew the answer would mean I had a severe case of 'dense.' Made me laugh when I saw it.

Kim - Not trying to send people away. Just collecting material for a project on this site and glad to have access to all the resources I can.

This is clearly in the "Telling Noah about the flood" category, ..but.., one of the real problems is when new users burst out with an 'emergency post about something that has absolutely never been addressed anywhere in the forum and they should know because they looked!' New users rarely know how to ask the right questions and even more rarely recognize the right answer when they stumble on it.

So, I have been talking with Dr. B about me writing some material in an attempt to address that. Not sure it will be effective and not sure of the best location - FAQ, Wiki, forum. My primary interest in tutorials at other sites is that sometimes other people explain things from a different perspective and it becomes clearer. (Like my post about editing that I didn't get until someone explained it to me.)

Personally, I cannot imagine using ZenCart and not being contact with the developers. This is the best place to be. My goal is to help make it better, not send people away.

Bruce-

Since you didn't start the thread, I wasn't aware that you were collecting the information.

Bruce,

Here are a few more ... Just CSS tutorials.

W3Schools

EchoEcho

MaxDesign

Westciv

While not a tutorial, here's a great place to lookat just to see what can be done with CSS styling.

Zen Garden

hehehe I thought you'd laugh Bruce.

Hey just a thought but from a totally non-coder person... Could you please include info about basic HTML too? I know, I know we use CSS mainly. BUT honest to goodness I don't know what the heck I'm looking at in the stylesheets. It's all freakin' greek shorthand to me KWIM??? Just so newbs can go, look at CSS codes (the EMPTY fields of them, NOT an actual coded style sheet), look at HTML codes, and a place where definitions of stuff is super super KISS??? Like what the heck is MySQL, what is the skeleton structure of Zencart (that way we know the basic bones, we're not so lost) and exactly where do we put all our /custom_override/ folders? Like do an expanded skeleton tree of zencart and in a highlighted color put where override folders might go? I am just coming up with stuff that i know I don't understand and I've had a few others around me here not know either. Eventually we will know! Let me know if you want help getting info on the stuff I brought up earlier. I'd be glad to help, instead of just asking you for a box load o'answers and twiddling my thumbs :wink2: :wink2:

I would like to say, as a newbie, it is really hard to know what to ask, what to look for, and what everything is. I also post on a computer forum for overclocking, and on there site, they have this great thing, its a pdf for newbie’s that can be downloaded, it takes you through all the steps and defines all the basics and helps you understand them. It was the best thing i have ever seen on a forum. It can't be bad to have a site that shows all the tutorials that other sites have, i know a lot of the tutorials have pics, the help a newbie w/ no code experience a ton of help, something about reading it and seeing it that takes it to a new level of understanding. Anything that would address all the basics, like changing a file's properties to 444, that was so easy to do, but took me a long time to understand what and how to do it. Also when you search it pulls up a lot of old posts that are in the archives, but the links on the posts don't work, so a newbie sticky would be a great thing.

Godspeed and Ladysaat -

I have discussed with Dr. Byte producing a document similar to what you have described. The more I scratch out notes for it, the more daunting it becomes.

Here is one of the main problems, most New Zenners do not read the FAQ's or the Wiki. So, what will make them read whatever document gets written?

For now this is a rhetorical question. I want to consult with the Devs and then start a thread on this specifically with a poll on questions and topics to address.

I do not have time to "write a book" on Zen Cart. However, something like, 'Top 10 questions asked by Zen newbies," is possible. But do you see how that is so much like the 'Frequently Asked Questions'? I only answer questions in a few areas, mostly about templates and overrides. My most common answer is 'read this link in the FAQ.'

Anyway, the project is still in the talking stages at this point.

Yeah, thats true, people will always ask when the info is there, but it would be easy to say, you should just download the pdf and read through that, I will say the hardest thing for me was getting the meanings of things, once you understand the meanings, then its easy to find the answers if you don't know what you are looking for, thats when its hard to find what you need. kind of a dog chasing its tail thing but I'm sure if we make a post about the hard things to understand as a newbie, then we could help a lot of people out and save a lot of time for everyone. I will add my newbie questions to it, but I have to say, I am still a newbie:P

One more thing, I will say it makes me happy to see all the people on here that try to help out, and as soon as i make some money w/ my shop, I hope I do, I will donate to the zen cart team, it is such an amazing thing to have something like this for free, thank you zen cart team!:thumbsup:

I totally understand where you're coming from about the whole "FAQ" thing. To be honest I did read alot of that and alot of stuff on the Wiki, and not being a coder or a webguru, not much of it made any sense! Now more of it is starting to make sense. I think when you understand the structure of something really well it's hard to realize just how complicated it can look to another. Like just how simple things really have to be broken down. Not like this is a perpetual state of being. I have already learned so much in two weeks it's not funny. But just installing zencart to my root directory, when I had no idea what either of those terms meant, was daunting at first. LOL! I think the sheer size of this forum too can be hard. I have to say this forum has been the nicest one I've ever been on, people here are really patient and really do educate you. I was rather amazed by it! Sometimes I don't think people realize just what they are getting for FREE and just how much all of this (support included) could really cost. Many many thanks. Hopefully someday I can donate more than five bucks a month. They deserve more.

(I really hope my posts aren't coming across as complaining! I really am not, just trying to show what newbs see at first KWIM)

ladysaat:

(I really hope my posts aren't coming across as complaining! I really am not, just trying to show what newbs see at first KWIM)
Not to worry. Everyone moves through many learning stages ... in every new venture in life. There are folks at many different levels around here. People helping people makes a great community.