Things every New Zenner needs to know

gjh42:

You would need to know more about the workings of Zen Cart (or any shopping cart) to fit its pieces into your template structure than to modify ZC to look like your template.

I don't really understand what you mean by this sentence. Are you saying that I cannot put zen cart into my website or that I just have a lot of learning to do about zen cart before I'll understand HOW to put it into my page? Do you also mean (by your last line) that I cannot make ZC look like my template or that I can? I am so sorry... I am very confused! I appreciate your help.

gjh42:

E-commerce is a different animal from personal websites, and the database-driven programming necessary to run a business site just doesn't fit into the image-structured individual page approach.

My current site (not the one with my art for sale, but my personal home page) is database driven and it's all image oriented. https://www.mirdonamy.com if you want to see. I do all my updates using ems mysql manager. The entire template was created by me in photoshop, then chopped up using image ready and put into includes using PHP... then I hooked up mysql coding to make it log and pull everything from my database (many different tables exist). So, I don't really follow what you are saying... would you mind clarifying for me?

Frames and Zen Cart don't mix well with each other. This would also be a problem if your "art for sale" site will be using frames as your other site does.

I'm sorry, I didn't get from your original post that you were experienced in PHP/mysql development. It sounds like you should have the skills to seamlessly connect a ZC shop with your current site (blogs are not a native feature of ZC); but it would be a major job to "inject" bits of ZC into/throughout your current site. It would be a relatively straightforward (though lengthy) job to build a new ZC template to match your current one. The layout of functional parts can be rearranged without going deep into the fundamental coding.

Actually, on studying your current site, it would not be difficult at all to achieve the same look with ZC. I have reworked my own site to have no top header, with all header/nav functions in the left sidebar and content on the right.
You would want to replace the blog and calendar frames in the sidebar with cart navigation boxes for the commercial side. There are some css tricks to get background images for dynamic content like boxes that change size based on content, but they won't be hard to get for one who has mastered databases ;)

Thank you from a new Zenner. I have been at it for a month and am finally getting the cart fixed up pretty well. I still am not clear on the override system, and I tried to install a language pak... and crashed the cart.

I figured out how to include a Download via the Attribute system. It was more luck than anything else, and I didn't write it down, so I had to go through the trial-and-error technique again, and finally I wrote down the steps, in great detail, for myself and my business partner.

Here is what I wrote, in case it helps you. Please feel free to use it if you want to:

Okay... I'm gonna write down what I'm doing this time... save this...
we may never figure it out again.

First: In Option Values, make a name for each file you want to download.

It will be associated with an Option Name.

The Option Name is in the first drop down box, Option Value in the
second.

If there is not a suitable Option Name, go to the Option Name manager and create one.

After you type in the Option Value name, on the far right end of the
row, click Insert.

Second: Go to Attribute Controller

Select a Product from the drop down box

When it gets to the next page...

Scroll halfway down the page and select the Option Name from the first dropdown box, and the related Option Value from the second drop down box.

Scroll down to the bottom of the page and insert the name of the File (or web page, or whatever) you want to download, or send them to, when payment is confirmed. The item must be in the ZenCart Download folder, or in a subfolder (use path to subfolder: /subfolder/pagename.php)

Change the number of days and number of download attempts if you want to, then click the Insert button... and cross your fingers.

When you get to the next page, scroll down halfway and look around, you should see the Product name and id, the Attribute name and details, and a Green Light that shows that the file has been found and all is well in the world.

That's it, you are now in business.

It seems to me that this proceedure is backwards than what one might think.

I felt the same when trying to set up the Sales Tax. In other modules, like the Free Shipping Option if I recall correctly, you specify the Zone that the option applies to by first selecting a Country (USA) and then a State.

But to set up the Tax Zones and define them, you have to start with a city or state and then select a country. Seems illogical Mr. Spock.

We want to offer several Free Bonus Downloads with each of our products, anywhere from 2 to 8 audio files that range from 15 to 30 minutes or so for each file. At that length, we break them up.

It seemed very intimidating to come up with a dozen or more download packages using the standard attribute system.

We use a great program called DownLoad Guard (https://www.dlguard.com) to protect and deliver our audio and video downloads. We can go through PayPal, or other payment processors, or give them for free by using a Thank You page.

So what I did was to put the url to the Thank You page for one of the free download packages in a simple .txt page and upload it to the Download folder. Then I set a media type as .txt. I didn't see any instructions that said I could do this... but it worked. It wasn't pretty, and you have to copy and paste the url to get to the Thank You page, but it worked.

Then I got to thinking, if a .txt page works... why not an html page?

So I went back to my CuteSite Builder program (formerly Trellix - neither is available for sale anymore, unfortunately) and created an html page with the url and some nice looking type, and exported it as html to my hard drive and began thinking about how to upload it to the Download folder.

Obviously I don't know what I am doing. I know virtually nothing about html - CuteSite Builder takes care of it for me. To tell you how bad it is, a while back I read the book Web Pages for Dummies, and only understood 2 things in the whole book. I am way short of being up to Dummy level. :-(

Then I had another idea: Create a sub-folder inside the Download folder and publish my page to it. It worked!

The only glitch I had after that was in the correct form for the path, in the box where you put the name of the item to download. I had not start with a / - as in: /subfolder/pagename.htm

Now all I need to do to create more Free Bonus Audio Download packages is to go to DownLoad Guard and create a new item and type in the numbers of the files I want to include, save it, then go crete a Thank You page in CSB and insert the code from DLG that will be used to access the audio downloads.

Oops... did that make sense? Trust me... it is a lot simpler than setting up all of those items as Attributes.

Now if I can just figure out how to crete an attribute to give people the choice of CDs or mp3's on disc, at a different price, I will be so happy.

The biggest problem I have had, by far, is not understanding what the instructions mean. They are usually like a foreign language to me.

My first post on the forum, just a few days ago, was about an instructin dealing with the override system - and how to set up a different template. The instruciton talked about the "default path."

I found the - page? - that they referred to - about template_info.php or something like that, and there wasn't any path anywhere on the page. So I posted a question about it.

The answer acknowledged that it would be difficult to understand this for somebody who is not into it.

Duh! Forgive me, but if I understood this, I wouldn't need the forum in the first place. I have seen quite a few posts from other people who are just as confused as I am, and the answers often don't seem to even attempt to answer their question.

In answer to my second post, someone replied and asked if I had turned off my EZ pages.

I replied, how do I know? How do I turn them off? They finally told me, and sure enough, it solved the problem.

Again, it is one of those really confusing inconsistencies. When I set up Categories and Products, I just name the one I want to be at the top of the list 0. But if you use 0 for the position of an EZ page... guess what:

That turns it off.

It would also be great - and save newbies a lot of time - if there was an explanation - or disclaimer - or apology - or something on that first page in the Help seciton where you can read the most common questions and how to do all kinds of stuff - that nobody is going to answer any question that you submit there.

I submitted some questions. I saw questions that other people had submitted. No answers in sight.

Aside from being incredibly rude, imho, in inviting a brand new visitor to ask you questions and then just ignoring them completely, it wasted a lot of my time, when I kept struggling along on my own never realize that this forum was here. I found the forum by accident. And I signed up that same night, which is quite a compliment because this is the first forum I have ever joined or posted to.

There are some great people associated with the ZenCart, and some great resources, but they are incredibly hard to find.

I am a writer by trade (in case you haven't guessed by now) so if there is anything I can do to help you with your project of preparing good comprehensive and comprehensible information for new Zenners, just let me know and I'll be happy to help as much as I can. I'm kind of old and (thanks the the polio I had many years ago) I don't have much stamina so I am limited in how much I can do, but I'll sure do what I can.

Thanks.

ed

It would also be great - and save newbies a lot of time - if there was an explanation - or disclaimer - or apology - or something on that first page in the Help seciton where you can read the most common questions and how to do all kinds of stuff - that nobody is going to answer any question that you submit there.
Good place to start is
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php

I went there and actually looked around the glossary/index/ask a q sections for the first time, and didn't see a place where unanswered questions are displayed. Maybe you need to ask a question to see that?

If questions there really do tend to languish, maybe the "ask" function should be removed...

clydejones:

Where? I looked and didn't see anything but one or two lines about adding a new category or subcategory and I must admit I didn't find them very useful.

I've got to admit that I can't find what I was looking at last time, and I'm the first to moan about the search functionality on this forum - I've still not been able to figure out how to successfully search for a phrase - but to be quite frank, this part of Zen Cart is not rocket-science...if someone has the ability to actually login to admin, then it shouldn't be that difficult to work out (even from those few lines) how to add a product.

Can I just emphasise that the F in FAQ stands for frequently, so I could easily argue that when there is no information on a topic it's because it is not a **frequently **asked question, and it's not asked because it's so intuitive that hardly anyone else has needed to ask it over the past few years! :laugh:

However, there is now a step-by-step at How do I add a category, subcategory or product? which, looking at the date on that, may well have been added as a result of this thread.

Ryk:

I've got to admit that I can't find what I was looking at last time, and I'm the first to moan about the search functionality on this forum - I've still not been able to figure out how to successfully search for a phrase - but to be quite frank, this part of Zen Cart is not rocket-science...if someone has the ability to actually login to admin, then it shouldn't be that difficult to work out (even from those few lines) how to add a product.

Can I just emphasise that the F in FAQ stands for frequently, so I could easily argue that when there is no information on a topic it's because it is not a **frequently **asked question, and it's not asked because it's so intuitive that hardly anyone else has needed to ask it over the past few years! :laugh:

However, there is now a step-by-step at How do I add a category, subcategory or product? which, looking at the date on that, may well have been added as a result of this thread.

Ryk,

I'd have to agree with you on this point. It is fairly easy to figure out.

You're right, I haven't seen that particular question being asked.

I added the the step by step in the tutorial/FAQ section.

Hi Ed,

Avlis said...> The answer acknowledged that it would be difficult to understand this for somebody who is not into it.

Duh! Forgive me, but if I understood this, I wouldn't need the forum in the first place....

That's not quite right. Let me use myself as an example. I started using computers in 1985 and have been a geek ever since. I've done database design, user interface design, some programming, etc., etc. I long ago climbed the learning curve of HTML (I was on the internet before there was a world wide web). I also started up the CSS learning curve years ago, and was even present (very marginally, as an observer) during the birth throws of XML.

With all of that you'd think something like Zen Cart would be like breathing to me. Alas no, and for a very simple reason. It's someone else's code (lots of someones, which makes it even harder to get into). It's also someone else's way of using CSS, and their way of laying out pages, and file structures, and their way of designing the interface we users have to grasp in order to use the product.

In other words, despite my experience, I still faced a fairly long learning curve when I started with Zen Cart, and this forum has been a very important source of information for me throughout the process. I first started to set up a store, working a couple of hours a day most days back in late October last year. That first store wasn't ready for prime time until about 2 months ago. By contrast, my second store has taken only about 4 weeks to do. So it does get easier.

By the sounds of it, your learning curve will be steeper, in part because you've leaned on tools which have hidden the hard parts from you. (I was always the sort who lifted the hood and got my hands dirty, so I got a lot of the gory details figured out long ago.)

But whatever length your learning curve turns out to be, I can attest that you can count on an awful lot of support right here in the forum. And I can also attest that the effort is worth it. Zen Cart is an amazing product, and it's just getting better.

Hang in there. Express your frustrations from time to time -- we've all felt them. Ask specific questions in appropriate parts of the forum. And, oh yes, have as much fun as you can -- in between bouts of throwing things at the wall, that is.

Rob

P.S. Do you have THE BOOK?

gjh42:

I went there and actually looked around the glossary/index/ask a q sections for the first time, and didn't see a place where unanswered questions are displayed. Maybe you need to ask a question to see that?

If questions there really do tend to languish, maybe the "ask" function should be removed...
Oops, now I am doing what I have been complaining about.

After I asked a couple of questions and didn't get any response, I used the Comment option. I think it was on one of the tutorials about the override system, trying to understand how the folder is supposed to be named.

I clicked on the Comment button, and somebody had already asked the same question. It wasn't answered. So I asked it again.

I can't find that post now, so maybe I am still confused. I usually am. But I did find a post with 2 "comments" in the form of questions, unanswered:

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=36&op=comment

Yes, I would say remove the option to ask a question and refer people to this forum. I still have a hard time tracking down a link to the forum. It is not on the home page, or at least I can't find it. Why not have it on every page?

Also, someone suggested the new book. I'd love that... if I could read it. Unfortunately, after more than 6 days of overusing my eyes, they don't work right anymore. For some reason that my optomotirst and I don't understand, I do much better reading from a computer screen than from a printed page. I cannot even read a whole printed page anymore without my eyes hurting a great deal.

In fact, that was one of the questions I submitted: Is there a version of the book available that I can read on the computer screen? If so, I'd be interested.

However, I read somewhere - in this forum I think - that the book is a collection of all the things that have been posted here on the forum. If that's the case, I am not sure it would help all that much more than the forum.

What I need - remember, Web Pages for Dummies was way too advanced for me - are very simple, very specific step-by-step instructions. With consistent terminology. I was lookin at posts again last night about the override system and one post used at least 3 different names for the "custom" or "your-template-name" or "your-custom-folder" folder.

And please explain what initials and abbreviations mean when you use them.

If you are not a photogrpaher and you ask me a question and I tell you to open up a couple of stops, you won't know what I mean. If I say to process the film (does anybody use film anymore?) so you increase the gamma curve, you won't know what I mean. Compensate for reciprosity failure, etc.

If I were healthier, I'd love to work with somebody to produce a book for the ZenCart that gives that step-by-step proceedure for all of the wonderful features. It really is a fabulous program, and there are a lot of very nice and helpful people on the forum. So thanks for that, and if I have offended anybody, I wasn't trying to... just seems to come naturally to me. :-( I really want to help, so thanks.

Better and better

ed

Actually, the new book is exactly that step-by-step instruction set for everything you need to do to set up your store, with all the stock functional permutations. Definitely much more than a compilation of FAQs. It doesn't get into the customizing areas - that would have doubled the size of the book at least, and still left gaping holes. It's really too bad your eyes won't let you use it effectively.

Why not have it on every page?

As has been explained before , to try to get people to read the Tutorial/FAQs before coming to the forum and asking for the umpteenth time "How do I remove the Sales Message Text goes here!" - and it worked!

Is there a version of the book available that I can read on the computer screen?
No, and again, this is fully explained elsewhere.

However, I read somewhere - in this forum I think - that the book is a collection of all the things that have been posted here on the forum. If that's the case, I am not sure it would help all that much more than the forum.

Yes - you did read that...but it was a question itself by someone who hadn't read it. Reviews are available on the publisher's site (and you can see my own here). One thing to consider, bearing in mind your difficulties, is that this book is a manual, and as such, you would most often just be needing to read a small amount at once to achieve your objectives.

one post used at least 3 different names for the "custom" or "your-template-name" or "your-custom-folder" folder. This will always be a problem in a forum environment, but I can assure you that the book is consistent!

Thank you for the information. That makes it a little hard to find answers about the 2 CheckOut payment module. One of the acronyms most people use when asking about it is 2CO.

With this 4 letter rule I will never be able to actually search for, or find, the discussions/solutions for installing the 2CO Module.

The person who wrote the 2CO module has not updated the README.txt for installing the new version, which I have been unsuccessful at doing.

2CO*

That also works on a search for those little stubby guys ... :cool:

Thanks. I don't always think to try the wildcards because a lot of search engines will not allow special characters. I'll give it a shot.

Ajeh:

2CO*

That also works on a search for those little stubby guys ... :cool:

Great Idea!!! I am a newbie and have only read the first two lines of your post and want one!!!!

Thanks

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?category=16

hello to all....This is my very first reply, due to I can't find out how to post a question. I am very new to ZenCart and totally confused. We have a website that we had to change the host for due to the shopping cart. So we ended up with ZenCart and this has caused me more stress and headaches that I care to mention. This is not user friendly at all for new people.
There are freak times that I am able to view what my store looks like but the next time I try to work on it, I can't find or remember where to go for that. I did manage to get rid of some of the sideboxes the last time I worked on this, but like I said, I can't find where to view my store at now.
I also want to get rid of the welcome message, but where is the incudes/languages/english/indes.php file that they tell you to open????

totally lost and confused in Albany Oregon.........Donna