Making custom folders work - how?

I have my site working (offline) but I have just altered the original files rather than making a custom folder to place edited files in it and leaving the originals as they are.

the reason for this is that when I did it the "right" way no customisation would work on my site. But when I made the chanes on the original files, everything worked.

I understand that in order to upgrade in the future I should place my edited files in a custome folder. I am willing to do this as long as someone can easily tell me how to make the custom folders work. I gather there needs to be an "override" but after reading over the forums I still don't know how to do this.

Any instruction will be greatly appreciated.

the reason for this is that when I did it the "right" way no customisation would work on my site.If done completelt "the right way" it works, so there is something that you have overlooked, as you are "offline", we can not see to provide direct assistance. You will have to read carefully and follow each step:

http://www.zen-cart.com/wiki/index.php/Customisation_-_Templates

Good documentation can be found at the above link

In addition to Kobra's suggestion, check these articles in the Tutorials

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=142
[
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=143](https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=143)
[
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=36](https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=36)
[
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=230](https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=230)

I have to sympathize with vivaraqul. Sometimes the docs are a bit technical and really intended for advanced programmers. If you are an advanced programmer, it looks easy. But if you look at if from the average computer literate level, it's not.

Me being average literate level, I sometimes have a heck of a time with some of the instructions. (Don't get me wrong, I really do appreciate the time and effort people put into writing the docs/faq's/tutorials) I think it's great people go out of the way to help, especially in this forum.

Just my suggestions:

It would really be nice to have just one override directory with a matching directory structure for files that can be overwritten. (For simple folks like me)

or

A simple menu interface that would let you edit most of the basic items people need in setting up a site. Much like the define pages editor, but add on some of the simple things like "Sales Message Goes Here", headers/footers/etc.

I followed instructions from the link from Kobra, thank you very much, it is now working.

There is a glitch though. I managed to change the background on the header in the images folder that I copied into my custom template and that works fine. Except I am trying to add my logo and change the 'sales message ...' which needs to be done in includes/languages/english/classic/header.php but i have no idea how to do that in my template.

I tried copying the file and pasting it into different parts of my template but it didn't do it. I added my logo to my images folder where the background pic is but it still doesn't work since my file is a jpg not a gif as the quality of the gif is not as nice. I know that if on the header.php file I change .gif to .jpg it will work but I don't want to change the core file.

So how do I add the header.php to my template and also the english.php as I will need to change the weight from lbs to kg. Thank you!!

Ok, I got it. I think I just understood the overide system.... escept one thing.

I added a my_template folder to includes\languages\english\ and added the header .php to that. Made the changes and it worked. So I figured that my_template folders need to go before the actual file so it goes to the new template first. But then I had a thought. Will an upgrade wipe this folder since it is not the one in includes\templates?

Just when I think I got it worked out, a new doubt pops in. Sorry to be a pain.

Will an upgrade wipe this folder since it is not the one in includes\templates?

If your folder is named "my_template"(or any other name you choose) then an upgrade will not affect it or the contents.