Things every New Zenner needs to know

As a new user, I am just providing you a look at what I have sent my server who recommended you. I have not yet received a response from them. Here is the letter.

Since upgrading (my account), I have downloaded the ZENCART program, worked with you to get that installed, and have been trying to learn the ZENCART program.

I am extremely satisfied with the help I have received from you.

I am extremely dissatisfied with ZENCART. The program is awesome but the support is absolutely terrible. It is a free program without an ounce of sensible documentation. Volumes of help information are available on the FAQ page, forum and WIKI, but the organization of that info is so convoluted, contrived, and ambiguous that I spend (literally) hours and hours trying to hunt for specific answers. The help forum is non-responsive. I can certainly appreciate the work of the four developers, but they lack the administrative infra-structure to field the high volume of questions they receive. This shortcoming only underscores the inadequacy of the design of the program.

I need to re-evaluate my choice of eCommerce providers now before I spend months trying to get ZENCART working. I am going to miss the whole selling season if I cannot get up and running soon. And that is going to effect my continuance with (Server name) as an (upgraded) customer -- because if I cannot get my eCommerce site up by December, then I cannot justify the added expense of having an upgraded site. (I need to get my site up well before December!)

I am hopeful you have some suggestions on other eCommerce solutions I might try.

Truly, ZENCART is a wonderful product but it has miserable support and poorly organized documentation. And they have the audacity to advertise it as "easy". It is a program for programmers -- not businessmen.

Tks,
J

Clearly you're frustrated.
You're also somewhat impatient, as I commented in another post you "gave up on".
You've had a rather insistent and edgy tone since you first joined us all of 4 days ago
My immediate gut reaction to most of your posts is ... "I think I'll move on to another topic -- this guy's too wound up and if I say something wrong he'll chop my head off".
Your approach isn't making any friends for you.

Jake:

The help forum is non-responsive.
...
Truly, ZENCART is a wonderful product but it has miserable supportGeez ... Such a nice slap in the face to the folks who have been so kind as to give you some assistance in the preceding posts.
ie: jund, TShooters, kuroi, ClydeJones

Jake:

I am extremely dissatisfied with ZENCART. The program is awesome but the support is absolutely terrible. It is a free programyes, it's a free program.
I'm sure you could get highly-detailed specific coaching for your unique business requirements if you were to engage someone and pay for their time. If you've already offered to do that, I must have missed it in your posts. Don't ask me - I'm not interested. I'm busy running a store. There's a Commercial Help Wanted area where you can post a note and folks who do that sort of thing will respond with quotes and proposals.

Or try to find another ecommerce system that has anywhere close to the features and diversity of Zen Cart ... and purchase the program and a support contract. I couldn't find one.

I hope you'll not get frustrated and give up, Jake. As I said before, it's not
going to happen magically with the snap of a finger. Most of the volunteers
who try to help out on the forum might not look in this thread for a call for
help, as it was originally a thread to gather info. The forum has lots of
sections for problems with different aspects of the cart, ie: Setting Up Categories and Products

There is a contributed add-on called Easy Populate that might help you
get all your products uploaded in a tab delimited file, #11 on the right in Recently Added Files, latest version. http://www.modhole.com/modhole/index.php?module=documents&JAS_DocumentManager_op=viewDocument&JAS_Document_id=2

Have never used it, but the support thread is here if you have questions:

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34970

Hope this helps!

TShooters:

I hope you'll not get frustrated and give up, Jake.Me, I'm in the "rather hope he does give up" camp.

One of the strengths of Zen Cart is the vibrancy of this support forum. I've dealt with many professional and paid-for support services that don't come close to this forum populated by unpaid volunteers.

However to be effective the forum relies on an ethos of mutual support. A member who accepts lots of help only to describe that help to a third party as "miserable" and "absolutely terrible" really doesn't get this. Their presence certainly doesn't benefit the community, and risks undermining it.

I'm guessing that Chuck and I won't be the only people who can think of better ways of spending our free time than by responding to any future posts from Jake.

Another newbie question here...How can I remove the zen cart logo completely?

Start with the tutorials/FAQs link at the top of the page - customizing the look of your Zen Cart.

Thanks for your response KIM....but I have been there and can't find the process to delete the logo....only found where you could change the logo out.Pardon my newness

dragoncelt:

Thanks for your response KIM....but I have been there and can't find the process to delete the logo....only found where you could change the logo out.Pardon my newness

Did you see this?

dragoncelt:

Thanks for your response KIM....but I have been there and can't find the process to delete the logo....only found where you could change the logo out.Pardon my newness

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=126

EDIT: um, ya, what Clyde said :)

I would like to preface my contribution to this thread with the following:

• I am a multiply certified web server admin and developer.
• I am interested in contributing to projects such as Zen Cart. I am especially interested in documentation projects.
• I am blunt and do not mince words. It tends to lead to misunderstanding.
• I am all about Open Source and supporting the projects and community.

Things Every New Zenner Needs to Know (could this be a wiki unto itself?)

1. How to install and secure Zen Cart

2. What add ons are available, how to install them, and what they do. Include pros and cons and some reviews/ratings?

3. The template system/How to make the store look like I want it to. (This could be a sub-wiki unto itself). I would highly recommend a thorough dissection of a template directory, file structure, files, etc. with a couple levels of drill down depending on how deep the user might want to go. More information is better than less.

4. Recommended Periodic Maintenance. Every three-thousand hits, change the oil...

5. A pretty thorough documentation on the admin section.

6. A crash course on the admin section.

7. A how to get up and running fast when you don't care what the site looks like, you just want to, got to, have to have a site -NOW-! Tutorial.

I really do recommend the inclusion of the image/graphics information suggested early in this thread. That has to be one of the most inclusive, least insulting, comprehensive, and not overly technical explanations I have read, ever. Kudos Ryk! :clap: Some tutorials on how to do this in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc. could be really cool addition to this.

The most common question I see in the forums regarding site customization goes something like this:

How do I get Object_A to change/go away/move/act differently?

If there is a definitive reference, we might not have to answer these same questions over and over and over again as most new users seem to not be willing to search through tens of thousands of threads to find their answer. The documentation is actually pretty sparse and there seems to be a little of the figure out the CSS file yourself attitude here and there.

Now, all that being said, I really am interested in contributing to this project. I might even be able to host a wiki or similar to this end at least through development if not full time.

pheniks:

I would like to preface my contribution to this thread with the following:

• I am a multiply certified web server admin and developer.

• I am interested in contributing to projects such as Zen Cart. I am especially interested in documentation projects.

• I am blunt and do not mince words. It tends to lead to misunderstanding.

• I am all about Open Source and supporting the projects and community.

Things Every New Zenner Needs to Know (could this be a wiki unto itself?)

1. How to install and secure Zen Cart

2. What add ons are available, how to install them, and what they do. Include pros and cons and some reviews/ratings?

3. The template system/How to make the store look like I want it to. (This could be a sub-wiki unto itself). I would highly recommend a thorough dissection of a template directory, file structure, files, etc. with a couple levels of drill down depending on how deep the user might want to go. More information is better than less.

4. Recommended Periodic Maintenance. Every three-thousand hits, change the oil...

5. A pretty thorough documentation on the admin section.

6. A crash course on the admin section.

7. A how to get up and running fast when you don't care what the site looks like, you just want to, got to, have to have a site -NOW-! Tutorial.

I really do recommend the inclusion of the image/graphics information suggested early in this thread. That has to be one of the most inclusive, least insulting, comprehensive, and not overly technical explanations I have read, ever. Kudos Ryk! :clap: Some tutorials on how to do this in Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, etc. could be really cool addition to this.

The most common question I see in the forums regarding site customization goes something like this:

How do I get Object_A to change/go away/move/act differently?

If there is a definitive reference, we might not have to answer these same questions over and over and over again as most new users seem to not be willing to search through tens of thousands of threads to find their answer. The documentation is actually pretty sparse and there seems to be a little of the figure out the CSS file yourself attitude here and there.

Now, all that being said, I really am interested in contributing to this project. I might even be able to host a wiki or similar to this end at least through development if not full time.

Most, if not all of these topics can be found in the wiki and/or Tutorials/FAQ sections.

5 and 6 can be found in the "eStart your web store with Zen Cart" book check the link at the top right of the page.

How do I get Object_A to change/go away/move/act differently?

If there is a definitive reference, we might not have to answer these same questions over and over and over again as most new users seem to not be willing to search through tens of thousands of threads to find their answer. The documentation is actually pretty sparse and there seems to be a little of the figure out the CSS file yourself attitude here and there.

Answers to a lot of the most common questions can be found here: www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?category=16
or here: www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Top_10_questions

Well, I may stand corrected.

I will investigate further.

I will also point out that the only way that I have found the WIKI is by a search on Google or by the previous post.

Here I go a digging...

Thank you, clydejones.

pheniks:

I will also point out that the only way that I have found the WIKI is by a search on Google or by the previous post.

There is a link to the wiki in the menu bar on the forum and again just above the Installing Zen Cart section and at the bottom of each page on the main Zen Cart site.

Regards,
Christian.

I will now continue my digging and stand back a bit amazed at my week long attack of cranial rectinitus...

Thank you all...

Thank you all again for your patience, grace, and attentiveness.

I really realized how much of a week I have been having when I realized that today is Friday... not Wednesday.

I am still interested in donating time and skill to Zen Cart.

Ummm...just curious, pheniks...

How did you get to the forum without going thru the FAQs/Tuts?

Search Engine...

There really are not words for the week I have had... Not polite ones anyway.

The company I work for is in the middle of several projects (rework of website being one) right now as well as spooling up for our biggest renaissance festival of the year.

Ok, jeeze..... where to begin?

This is the question. Is there no conceptual, introductory explanation of ZenCart? I've been looking and can't find anything. Sure there's a horde of information bits... but has anyone attempted to cover the basic conceptual introduction in a manner that limns out the terrain?

I see in the Faq Section the entry "What Every New Zen Cart User Needs to Know". And yet underneath this is the bewildering cavaeat "Please read 'Template Customization/Building Overrides' before starting this section". The comical nature of this ... well, it should be addressed.

One wants to know some basic facts, presented in a reasonable pedagogical format. I dunno... clearly, unless I'm missing something, nobody understands what I'm talking about here. If I figure this thing out, perhaps I can contribute.

As I spent a week going nuts trying to find what you are looking for, I would look to the replies to me.

The really good stuff is in the wiki. Which incedentally is linked to in the forum header.

And when it is said to only put files in your template that you are overriding. They really mean it. It really does work.

Cheers Spannungsbogen!

Rethink everything, get Zenned.

clydejones:

Bruce,

To get you started, here are two of of the most common questions I've seen.

How do I change the "sales message goes here" text.

How do I change/turn off "Welcome Guest" message.

I also see lots of questions on modifing the tpl_product_info_display.php

Let me know if you would like some help with the project.

As a very new Zen Cart user and going through these forums, I seem to get the impression that the only way to modify anything in the cart is by doing so in the raw code. That is fine, Dreamweaver will help with that.
What I haven't been able to find yet is an easy way to start adding items to the cart and to get an idea what it's going to take to add 3000+ items and what it will look like.
Can anyone help me with this?

Thanks
Robert