Simple Template System

07 Aug 2006, 09:00

#1

New Zenner

Join Date:: Aug 2006
Posts:: 67
Plugin Contributions:: 0

Simple Template System

Hi,

I am really fascinated with the way ZenCart has been developed. In my opinion, ZenCart is definitely not an OsCommerce clone but a better implementation of an open source ecommerce cart. Oscommerce is good but it still is full of unaccounted bugs in the PHP code generation. For example, the pages generated by oscommerce have sometimes redundant <html> <body> tags and sometimes even tags generated after the closing </body></html> tags! I think that it will be hard for them to comply with the emerging xhtml (the future html) standards.

They do however have a nice contribution: STS (Simple Template System) that makes it possible for a 'layman' website designer to design and customize the front-end of the ecommerce cart using a WYSIWYG editor. Are the ZenCart Developers planning to implement a similar solution in the future?

Regards,

Hansi:thumbsup:

07 Aug 2006, 09:10

#2

merlinpa1969

Totally Zenned

Join Date:: Mar 2004
Posts:: 13,031
Plugin Contributions:: 4

Re: Simple Template System

hansi,

zen cart is kinda kool in that it is ALL divs now,

pick up the div and put it where you want it,

07 Aug 2006, 18:44

#3

fluffytigger

Zen Follower

Join Date:: Dec 2005
Location:: My Own Fluffy Place, Pangea
Posts:: 377
Plugin Contributions:: 0

Re: Simple Template System

The look to ZC isn't all that difficult to customize. THe long part is because of all the different stuffs that goes in the content section in the middle, but that's necessary though.

You could theoretically just open up ZC and WYSIWYG it in Dreamweaver. It just come out as PHP tags for the include files. The 1.3 template is pretty easy to customize once you get the hang of it.

08 Aug 2006, 08:27

#4

hansi

New Zenner

Join Date:: Aug 2006
Posts:: 67
Plugin Contributions:: 0

Re: Simple Template System

That's really great. I didn't know that it can be done in this simple way.

One question though: if I wanted to for example make the sidebox color change to a different color when a different product category is clicked (e.g. Dark Blue when the Book category is selected, Cyan when the CD category is selected), I assume that I need to do some custom PHP programming.

STS had an option called an index module where you can automate this process somehow by naming your files according to the product category (e.g. index_1.php.html for category 1 (e.g. books))). Each custom file can then have its own color settings and layout defined in a separate style sheet.

Regards,

Hansi

08 Aug 2006, 08:33

#5

drbyte

Sensei

Join Date:: Jan 2004
Posts:: 63,513
Plugin Contributions:: 177

Re: Simple Template System

You can do that using the stylesheets already.
There is documentation on the varying stylesheet options in the /docs/readme_css_system.html file in the Zen Cart ZIP file.