Things every New Zenner needs to know

DrByte:

Rob905:

I get an SQL error.Um ... what error ? Details might point out what exactly is wrong.

jund:

Please provide site URL.

It's very hard to give you specific help when you don't answer the questions asked so that there's something to go on.

It sounds like your host's easy-install isn't doing you any favors -- esp if it's leaving you with SQL errors after installation.
There's no point throwing in the towel and saying the thing doesn't work when you haven't figured out what's wrong. If everyone who ever used the software had the very same problem, then throwing hands up would make logical sense. But, asking how to get into the admin, being given an answer, and then saying it brings up an error** but not sharing the error message** ... is ... well ... futile.

If you've already given up, then I wish you the best of success in whatever other route you take. Just remember to try to help the folks trying to help you as you go along.

Well I'm back.
After a frusterating day at work listing to people complain about the price drop of the iPhone I decided to take frusteration out on this project. :-)
Low and behold I now have a working cart, was able to get into the admin and no more SQL errors.

My next question is now, how do I stop the cart from showing OUT OF STOCK all the time. I don't carry many products in stock due to the size of the catalog so I just want people to be able to see the product, description and price and decide if they want to order it or not. I tried to turn of the option to show the quantity box but then got an error that I had done when I saved the item.

Thanks for the encouragement.

Rob905:

My next question is now, how do I stop the cart from showing OUT OF STOCK all the time. I don't carry many products in stock due to the size of the catalog so I just want people to be able to see the product, description and price and decide if they want to order it or not. I tried to turn of the option to show the quantity box but then got an error that I had done when I saved the item.

Thanks for the encouragement.There are settings to control out-of-stock behaviour in Admin->Configuration->Stock. You can choose to show an out-of-stock image instead of add-to-cart. You can choose to allow checkout even when out of stock. You can have products disabled automatically if they go out of stock. And so on.

DrByte:

There are settings to control out-of-stock behaviour in Admin->Configuration->Stock. You can choose to show an out-of-stock image instead of add-to-cart. You can choose to allow checkout even when out of stock. You can have products disabled automatically if they go out of stock. And so on.

I thought I had them all set correctly yet when I look at the items I've added, it still has the words "out of stock" under each small image.
Can you possibly look at https://www.robertensing.com/zencart and look at the "New Products".

Thanks

I didn't view all the 39 pages so I hope it is still ok to add my post as the OP invited us to do?

I see a lot of people answer questions with "you can find the file you need to edit in the developers toolkit in your admin"
What I don't understand about this answer is if you don't know what file you are looking for in the first place how can you search for it?

So it would be nice if there was an alphabetical list of all the files needed for editing and where they are located.

peggy:

I didn't view all the 39 pages so I hope it is still ok to add my post as the OP invited us to do?

I see a lot of people answer questions with "you can find the file you need to edit in the developers toolkit in your admin"
What I don't understand about this answer is if you don't know what file you are looking for in the first place how can you search for it?

So it would be nice if there was an alphabetical list of all the files needed for editing and where they are located.

This might get you started

Note: *.php means any of the files in the listed directory

Rob905:

I thought I had them all set correctly yet when I look at the items I've added, it still has the words "out of stock" under each small image.
Can you possibly look at https://www.robertensing.com/zencart and look at the "New Products".

Thanks

To manage the display of items on the New Products listing, go to Admin->Configuration->New Listing.
If you change Display Product Quantity to 0, then the quantity-indicator will no longer show.

clydejones:

This might get you started

Note: *.php means any of the files in the listed directory
Thanks for that but I have played with all those files already.
I am talking about any other file and every other file that is not in that list.

How can you search for a file in the developers toolkit when you don't know what the name of that file is in the first place?

Maybe I am not explaining myself very well:(

DrByte:

To manage the display of items on the New Products listing, go to Admin->Configuration->New Listing.
If you change Display Product Quantity to 0, then the quantity-indicator will no longer show.

Perfect, that's exactly what the doctor ordered. :-)

Thanks. I'm glad I decided to give it another go.

Robert E

I'm now well on my way I think and would like to know two immediate things:

1. Since my cart is not part of the site root, how can I pass this to a visitor so they end up in the correct directory and can see the cart?

2. With over 3000 items that WILL be in the cart, is there a way that I can have the cart display let's say items for less than $19.95 based on the items that are already in the cart? (Without manually adding such items to a group) IOW, can I define a group called "Items for less that $19.95 and then have that group pull those items from the cart so that each time when I add an item with a price of $19.95 or less it will automatically show in that group? I looked through the sample data that I installed and could not find such an example.

Thanks folks.

Robert E

Rob905:

I'm now well on my way I think and would like to know two immediate things:

1. Since my cart is not part of the site root, how can I pass this to a visitor so they end up in the correct directory and can see the
   cart?I'm not sure I understand you fully. Why not just give them the URL or a clickable link to the URL where your site is located?

Rob905:

2. With over 3000 items that WILL be in the cart, is there a way that I can have the cart display let's say items for less than $19.95 based on the items that are already in the cart? (Without manually adding such items to a group) IOW, can I define a group called "Items for less that $19.95 and then have that group pull those items from the cart so that each time when I add an item with a price of $19.95 or less it will automatically show in that group? I looked through the sample data that I installed and could not find such an example.that's not a built-in feature.
   I haven't seen anyone ask about it on quite awhile, but I recall there being something about shop-by-price available as a contribution in the downloads area some time ago.

DrByte:

I'm not sure I understand you fully. Why not just give them the URL or a clickable link to the URL where your site is located?

I would like customers to be able to go to https://www.robertensing.com and have them get to my cart automatically. Looks cleaner and I don't have to update the lettering on my truck :smile:

DrByte:

that's not a built-in feature.
I haven't seen anyone ask about it on quite awhile, but I recall there being something about shop-by-price available as a contribution in the downloads area some time ago.

No problem, thought it would have been nice to have.

Have a great day.
Robert E

peggy:

Thanks for that but I have played with all those files already.
I am talking about any other file and every other file that is not in that list.

How can you search for a file in the developers toolkit when you don't know what the name of that file is in the first place?

Maybe I am not explaining myself very well:(

If all you have is a phrase such as "congratulations" or Sales Message" that you wish to edit, but don't know which file it is in, you enter that phrase in the developers tool kit and it will find all the files where that phrase appears. Generally, it is only in one file.

clydejones:

If all you have is a phrase such as "congratulations" or Sales Message" that you wish to edit, but don't know which file it is in, you enter that phrase in the developers tool kit and it will find all the files where that phrase appears. Generally, it is only in one file.

Thanks again for your response. I tried what you suggested but I am having no luck.
I managed to change a banner to an image of my choice but the sidebox I used has the word "sponsor" in the banner box header. I wanted to locate the file so I could delete that word.
I searched for "sponsors" in the developers toolkit and got "0" results.
I have the web developers addon in firefox but all that showns me are classes and id's but not which file I need to find to edit?

I am trying really hard to find the answer to this so i can figure out how to do stuff without asking too many questions but I find that locating the appropriate files is BY FAR the most frustrating aspect of zencart.
Don't get me wrong, I love it's potential and I am very grateful a cart like this exists but when you are doing your level best to work things out and you keep go round and round in circles, it's soul destroying and very time consuming.
I don't want anyone to do it for me, i want to learn how to do it myself I just find that there is something fundamental missing. Unless I am just totally out of control and just missing the obvious...Which is a distinct possibility!!

Here is the 'altered' URL to my site to see what I am referring to if you are able to offer me anymore suggestions.

h ttp://storerevolution.com/cart

peggy:

Thanks again for your response. I tried what you suggested but I am having no luck.
I managed to change a banner to an image of my choice but the sidebox I used has the word "sponsor" in the banner box header. I wanted to locate the file so I could delete that word.
I searched for "sponsors" in the developers toolkit and got "0" results.

When I search for "sponsor", I see the following results:```
/home/myname[B]/includes/languages/english.php[/B]

Line #411 : define('BOX_HEADING_BANNER_BOX','Sponsors');

Line #412 : define('TEXT_BANNER_BOX','Please Visit Our Sponsors ...');

Line #419 : define('BOX_HEADING_BANNER_BOX_ALL','Sponsors');

Line #420 : define('TEXT_BANNER_BOX_ALL','Please Visit Our Sponsors ...');

If you're searching for specific words, I usually find it best to use the "bottom" or "last" search box on the dev toolkit page, named "Look up **in all files**", and then choose "**All files - Catalog**" from the pulldown beside it.

[QUOTE=DrByte;429921]I'm not sure I understand you fully. Why not just give them the URL or a clickable link to the URL where your site is located?[QUOTE]

Is there no other way to direct people to my site using https://www.robertensing.com?
Do I need to move the cart to the root folder maybe?
If I end up doing that, do I have to go through the setup again?

Thanks
Robert

DrByte:

When I search for "sponsor", I see the following results:```
/home/myname[B]/includes/languages/english.php[/B]

Line #411 : define('BOX_HEADING_BANNER_BOX','Sponsors');

Line #412 : define('TEXT_BANNER_BOX','Please Visit Our Sponsors ...');

Line #419 : define('BOX_HEADING_BANNER_BOX_ALL','Sponsors');

Line #420 : define('TEXT_BANNER_BOX_ALL','Please Visit Our Sponsors ...');

> 
> If you're searching for specific words, I usually find it best to use the "bottom" or "last" search box on the dev toolkit page, named "Look up **in all files**", and then choose "**All files - Catalog**" from the pulldown beside it.
Ok well I did find it after you suggested searching the bottom box. 
I have no idea why it didn't work for me the first time but thank you for helping me.

Rob905:

1. Since my cart is not part of the site root, how can I pass this to a visitor so they end up in the correct directory and can see the cart?

DrByte:

I'm not sure I understand you fully. Why not just give them the URL or a clickable link to the URL where your site is located?

Rob905:

I would like customers to be able to go to https://www.robertensing.com and have them get to my cart automatically. Looks cleaner and I don't have to update the lettering on my truck :smile:

Looks like you've already got a redirect happening.

Rob905:

Is there no other way to direct people to my site using https://www.robertensing.com?
Do I need to move the cart to the root folder maybe?You can do that if you like.

Rob905:

If I end up doing that, do I have to go through the setup again?
No, just move the files, and edit a couple settings. The process is outlined in this FAQ:
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=122

DrByte:

Looks like you've already got a redirect happening.
Yes, the ISP put in a forwarding for me so I could start using the cart, but now I can't find how they did it to turn it off. :cool:

DrByte:

No, just move the files, and edit a couple settings. The process is outlined in this FAQ:
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=122
I looked at that and printed the instructions but I don't have the two configure_php files they refer to in step 4, did I mess something up during the install?

Thanks again for your help so far.
Robert E

Rob905:

Yes, the ISP put in a forwarding for me so I could start using the cart, but now I can't find how they did it to turn it off.It's worth asking them what they did. It might have been done by the hosting control panel or .htaccess file changes.

Rob905:

I looked at that and printed the instructions but I don't have the two configure_php files they refer to in step 4, did I mess something up during the install?Those files will be on the server. You'll have to download them with your FTP program. In fact, you should get in the habit of doing that regularly to make backups of your files anyway. (Gotta also make database backups, but that's a separate topic or two)

DrByte:

It's worth asking them what they did. It might have been done by the hosting control panel or .htaccess file changes.

Those files will be on the server. You'll have to download them with your FTP program. In fact, you should get in the habit of doing that regularly to make backups of your files anyway. (Gotta also make database backups, but that's a separate topic or two)

Thank you. I will look into that.

Robert E