Perhaps a dumb list of questions, but.....

First off let me say that I think it is awesome that such a program exists that does not cost monthly fees or a mass payment up front. I have several such programs, and do contribute regularly for their generosity. THANK YOU!!

now for the questions:

1. Maybe I am missing it, but I cannot seem to find any way to see how this program actually works without either a) buying the book or b) uploading to my site. Is there a way to see how it works without either of these two options?

2. The specific issue we are running into is that we have outgrown our present shopping cart system in two ways; we need more dropdown options, and we need to find a shopping cart that will allow customers to choose items that have two price tiers from the same dropdown. If you need an example, you can go to www.baltimorestreetmods.com/05stanggraph.htm and look at the list of products. For each product with our present system, we essentially have to create two sections for each product, because our metallic films cost more than the standard colors. This makes for long pages, and we would like to alleviate that issue. **Will Zen-Cart support this feature? I cannot find any data as to the programs specific capabilities.

Thank you in advance for taking the time to answer my questions.

baltimorestreetmods:

1. Maybe I am missing it, but I cannot seem to find any way to see how this program actually works without either a) buying the book or b) uploading to my site. Is there a way to see how it works without either of these two options?

If you want to see how it operates check out some of the live shops listed in the Showcase. Or check out one of the online demos.

baltimorestreetmods:

2. The specific issue we are running into is that we have outgrown our present shopping cart system in two ways; we need more dropdown options, and we need to find a shopping cart that will allow customers to choose items that have two price tiers from the same dropdown.

An upcharge can be added to as many of the colors or materials as needed and you won't have to repeat the options.

Kim:

If you want to see how it operates check out some of the live shops listed in the Showcase. Or check out one of the online demos.

Would you be so kind as to point me to the online demos??

An upcharge can be added to as many of the colors or materials as needed and you won't have to repeat the options.

Outstanding - that was the biggest concern.. Tankfuly, as this will be a first for me, I do have another site I can upload to for test runs beforeI risk crashing my primary site.

Kim:

If you want to see how it operates check out some of the live shops listed in the Showcase. Or check out one of the online demos.

An upcharge can be added to as many of the colors or materials as needed and you won't have to repeat the options.

Would you be so kind as to point me to the online demos? I have not encountered them - maybe because I was transferred from paypal.

Check your PM's for a demo site

To get an idea of what folks have done with ZenCart, take a peek at the showcase.

To see what different templates from the download section look like in action, check out this site.

Lots of folks install ZC on their local drive and develop sites that way (check the FAQ/tutorials and search the forum for more info).

I think you'll find ZC will do what you want and then some. :D

I have the program running on my test site, but I cannot seem to find any shopping cart programming data. Can anyone help? I just want to see how it will work with respect to my specific needs, which I cannot see anyone else doing on the showcase sites. Most are just using a buy it now.

We can help if you tell us what your specific needs are :) ... but we can't read minds.

gjh42:

We can help if you tell us what your specific needs are :) ... but we can't read minds.

I cannot even see where to set up specific shopping cart html......... most of this seems to be geared more toward building a site, which I already have. I just need to integrate a shopping cart system that will allow me to have more than 4 choice options, with one of those options having a price upgrade option ( Ie "choose color" - gloss black, gloss silver, silver metallic (+$60.00) )

http://www.zen-cart.net/demo/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=92
Above url shows example of what zencart can do...
including something very similar to what you have requested..
You can try demo of zencart, as an admin, at
http://www.opensourcecms.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=300

If you are looking for a bit more specific, we can look at the precut stripes for 05 Ford Mustang....... 1) Colors. WE carry 19 different colors, 15 of which are the same price, and 4 that are a different price. We are looking to get these into one dropdown menu, with an attached upcharge for those 4 colors. 2) hood type - there are about a dozen hoods on the market for this vehicle. 3) spoiler type - again, about a dozen different spoilers for this car. 4) optional pieces - any other body modifications that the customer might feel we need to know to make the appropriate kit. This would be a text box they can type in. 5) hood scoop - there are several hood scoops on the market that fit this vehicle. 6) transfer tape - do you want this kit transfer taped for installation? (yes/no)

The reason we are looking to set up something more than the current paypal shopping cart system is that 1) they do not allow for items of two different prices to be listed in one dropdown, making our pages twice as long and 2) we can only list up to four options.

In a previous post, I was told this was an option, and on the sample page I can see it is set up for this.

What I cannot see is how my system needs to be configured so that I can use zen-cart on my current system and how to write the shooping cart html to accomodate these selections.

misty:

http://www.zen-cart.net/demo/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=92

Yes, cool !!!! That is what we wan to do. Where within the program do I go to start setting this up, and can I move this html into my current site, or do I hae to rewrite the site within zen-cart to make it work?

baltimorestreetmods:

Yes, cool !!!! That is what we wan to do. Where within the program do I go to start setting this up, and can I move this html into my current site, or do I hae to rewrite the site within zen-cart to make it work?

So am I just going to be completely lost without the book? How were people doing it before the book?

I have been programming my own site for three years now, and have been banging my head against this all day - install seemed easy enough, but now for hours I have gotten nowhere.....

can I move this html into my current site, or do I hae to rewrite the site within zen-cart to make it work?
ZenCart is written in php NOT html...integrating into your existing
site will take longer that just transferring products into zencart,
which has all options to configure as your requests,
as shown in my original post...forum members here will help you
on your way, and there is a wealth of info already available
using SEARCH Button, tutorials/ FAQ and wikki..(links at top of page here)
Have used
zencart for 3 years now..long before book was written/published..
Patience is required though...

I cannot even see where to set up specific shopping cart html......... most of this seems to be geared more toward building a site, which I already have. I just need to integrate a shopping cart system

Where within the program do I go to start setting this up, and can I move this html into my current site, or do I hae to rewrite the site within zen-cart to make it work?
Agree with misty - on several points - This is a php <serverside> application and there is no html page to code per se' - aditionally, Zen Cart is not modular and the pieces that you want can not be moved inside a html layout.

You must make Zen Cart look like your site and in your case I suggest that you concentrate on the functionality first to see if you can get what you want and not worry about what it looks like....will it do what you need first?

In the end your current site will get scrapped

kobra:

Agree with misty - on several points - This is a php <serverside> application and there is no html page to code per se' - aditionally, Zen Cart is not modular and the pieces that you want can not be moved inside a html layout.

You must make Zen Cart look like your site and in your case I suggest that you concentrate on the functionality first to see if you can get what you want and not worry about what it looks like....will it do what you need first?

In the end your current site will get scrapped

Yes, I came to this realization...... right now I am just trying to get to the zencart admin page, for which I just keep getting a blank page. I can get into my servers phpmyadmin page (which is similar) but i cannot access any zencart related pages other then the readme files. I have also noticed that my server (yahoo.com) will not let me upload the .htaccess files from either the admin file or the admin/includes/ file. It keeps spitting them back as invalid file extensions.

misty:

ZenCart is written in php NOT html...integrating into your existing
site will take longer that just transferring products into zencart,
which has all options to configure as your requests,
as shown in my original post...forum members here will help you
on your way, and there is a wealth of info already available
using SEARCH Button, tutorials/ FAQ and wikki..(links at top of page here)
Have used
zencart for 3 years now..long before book was written/published..
Patience is required though...

ya know, I am so brain numb right now, but i finaly get this - I am thinking in html, and trying to set up php.

My current problem is simple to explain, but seems difficult to resolve - I cannot access my admin page, I keep getting a blank page.

I have also noticed that my server (yahoo.com) will not let me upload the .htaccess files from either the admin file or the admin/includes/ file. It keeps spitting them back as invalid file extensions.
You can try renaiming them locally to htaccess.txt and FTP'in them up and change them there to .htaccess

If a win server I do not think that they are useful though

soooooo......... don't ask me what i did differently, but i removed all files, reloaded and re-ran the setup...... I"M IN!!!!:smartass:

now i just have to figure out what the heck to do now. :no: :D

nowI can see that I can indeed do what I need to do with this, it's just gonna make a mess out of eBay, but I will cross that bridge when I get to it.

Safe to assume I should wait for hte book, then start? Looks like I need to set up a product list first, am I deciphering this correctly?

How do I start the product inventory?

You guys have been awesome through this - in the end, i still don't know what I finally did right.