Zen Cart Problems - trying to set up my template

I just got a new website and zen cart installed. My website is http://attireforall.com . As you can see, it is as basic as it gets. I am about to explode from reading every wiki, tutorial , and post on this forum! I can't figure this stuff out whatsoever. I need to make an online store for a business I am going to start ( clothing, sunglasses, name brand products) and right now it is nowhere near that. I tried to create a website with dreamweaver, but I couldn't figure out how to transport my pages over and when I tried to just paste the HTML from dreamweaver over to the "define pages editor" section, the whole thing I created ended up in the main body of the webpage. I can't even explain my frustration right now! What do I need to do from here? I see a bunch of people talking about overriding , creating a new directory, saving the includes/template_default/ ..... and I do not know what the heck to even start with or how to get there! Please help me to make this website professional and attractive to customers! Thanks

You might start by looking through the free templates in Downloads (live demos at (sorry, site offline)) to see if any of them look like what you want. If you can't tweak any of them into your perfect site, read the FAQ on creating a custom template and follow it step by step. Also look at the stickies at the top of this subforum on first and second steps.

You won't edit a Zen Cart page in Dreamweaver, as it takes dozens of PHP files working together to generate the HTML output for each particular page.

Thanks for the help. I looked at a custom template tutorial and it says this in it:

Open includes/templates/ and create a new folder. You can call it anything you like, though it is best not to make it too long and to use underscores instead of spaces. We will call it /CUSTOM here, so everywhere we write /CUSTOM from now on, you should replace it with your own folder name.

Create an empty folder inside your new template directory and call it images so you should have includes/templates/CUSTOM/images/.

Next, copy the includes/templates/template_default/css directory and place the folder and its files in your new includes/templates/CUSTOM/ folder.

You can also create the following empty folders inside your new template directory:

/common/sideboxes/templates
Then you copy the file called includes/templates/template_default/template_info.php, and put it inside includes/templates/CUSTOM/. Next, open includes/templates/CUSTOM/template_info.php in your text editor. Change the information below between each set of single quotes to suit your new template. Remember to keep the single quotes. Your template name does not need to be identical to your folder name, and you can use spaces to make it read well, but it is best to make them similar. Leave the space between the quotes for the template screenshot field empty for now, since you don’t have one yet.

this is one of those parts i do not understand. how and where do you open " includes/templates " and the same question for making new folders/directories??

this is one of those parts i do not understand. how and where do you open " includes/templates " and the same question for making new folders/directories??

Do you have a good FTP program?

You could start to being in constant connection with your site root by using a ftp software. You could navigate your root and start to understand the place for every items.

The main location of the editable files are in "/yoursite.com/includes/templates/classic" or "yoursite.com/includes/templates/template_default" depending what template are you using. Try to edit some images then upload them to have some experiences.
Its wise to creat a folder to your own template, simply creat a folder then copy the "classic" content to your new template folder, then edit the files. Dont forget to select it in admin to be the default template.

If you are familiar with css editing you could use the deamweaver to edit it, or simply use the firefox browser and install the "Firebug" tool, its very simple to change the css and see it changed in your website.
With this tool you could make your own css style, and when finished dont forget to copy the code modifyed to the original css in your site root, this tool only modifies in the browser, you have to copy that code to your css file.

If you have any trouble, just see the zen cart site, and im sure that you will find it usefull.

Best luck.

Diogo Paiva

the problem is i do not know how to create these folders or where i would do so. i bought my site and hosting through https://www.siteground.com and have a cpanel and such. when i go to https://www.attireforall.com/admin and look through that, i do not see any option to view, edit, or create folders with includes/templates or anything of the likes..

You don't use the Zen Cart admin to view or create files/folders - use your cPanel file manager for that.

To edit files, do not use the file manager; use your FTP program to copy the file to your pc, edit it there and FTP it back to the server.

ok i figured out how to get to the file manager. i am assuming the file i am looking for is under the folder public_html which branches out to a lot more folders and files. what specific file/folder should i be lookiing for to edit my pages? index?

The paths usually given here such as /includes/templates/your_template/css/stylesheet.css are what you would look for under /public_html/. Almost everything you will want to edit is somewhere under the /includes/ folder.

Ok well two more questions. With making a custom template, i understand you create new files to "override" or something, but how does the zen cart know to use those templates instead of the default ones? am i supposed to delete the old? also, i downloaded a few templates and am slightly confused. the template i downloaded was in a .rar format. i took it into WinRAR and discovered an HTML code under something named index.html . so do i just copy & paste this code into a new file? how will this make my whole website like the template? seems like it would jsut have an effect on the front page?

The wiki has detailed and highly technical explanations of how the override system works, but the thing you need to know is that Zen Cart always checks for the existence of an override file where one could be used, and uses it if it exists. If there is none, the default copy is used. NEVER delete the original default versions of files you are overriding.

I don't know about using winRAR, but you should not need to paste some code into a new file. A well-built template will have a readme file that will give complete instructions for installing the template. The files should already be organized into the proper folder structure so that you only need to copy the whole /includes/ folder with your FTP program into the root of your Zen Cart (/public_html/). The folders will drop in beside the existing ones without disturbing anything.

some FAQs on the template/override system:
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=232
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=36
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=230

Thanks for the help. one more thing.. i downloaded the apple zen template from this website. In the read-me it says to copy the /includes folder onto the website and then it will be displayed in the template choices on the admin . However i do not understand where the read-me is saying to copy the /includes folder to. When going to file manager on the c panel and going to public_html , there is already a folder titled includes. also, how do i "copy" without having to do everything manually (i.e. creating a new folder for every folder and uploading each file separately)? and where should i put this includes folder seeing that i can not put it directly in the public_html because there is already a folder named this. thanks and let me know!

Put the template /includes/ folder directly in the server /public_html/ folder, in the same place as the existing /includes/ folder. The new files & folders will not interfere with the existing ones but will slip into their proper places in the folder structure.

If you have Filezilla, you can select the template /includes/ folder on your pc and get all of its contents at once. Just upload that to /public_html/ on your server.

alright so i got the apple zen template up as you can see here : http://attireforall.com . I have another one I got my hands on as well, titled 10095 from templatemonster.com . When I open this folder though, it is different then apple zen was. The first folder is titled 10095. opening this, there is three more folders : fonts , psd , and zent .. along with a jpeg image of the main page template. opening fonts i get several different files titled as various fonts. opening psd i get six files following this pattern : 01.psd , 02.psd, 03.psd .. and so on. Opening the file "zent" i see two more folders : images and includes as well as an index php script. Opening images i get several different images used in the template (mainly products used as examples). Opening includes, i get the folders "languages" and "templates". I also get a file titled "general" and it is a jscript file. Opening languages: i get the folder english, which then contains the folder images, which contains one icon. opening templates, i get the folder tm005, which contains three more folders -> buttons , css , and images. Buttons contains the folder english which then holds several images that are important to the template such as "add to cart" or "update cart" . The folder css contains the file "stylesheet" which is a .css file. Opening the folder images contains more image files that were used in the template.

So that is pretty much the breakdown of the 10095 template folder.. from here how do I get this template on to my server? I have filezilla, and tried to just upload the whole 10095 folder into public_html and i do not see it under the template options in my admin. I also tried to just do the includes folder but that didn't work either. Is this template incomplete? The apple zen includes folder had more items like "cases" and "modules" . hopefully this description wasn't to confusing :P . Let me know what I should do to get this template working

I would suggest you do NOT use the Template Monster template as it is not structured properly and needs advanced knowledge to install.

Template Monster makes templates according to their own ideas and not using the standard Zen Cart systems. As a matter of fact they generally remove or disable many standard ZC features and abilities. You're better off ditching that template. Use its layout for inspiration if you like, while developing your own template within ZC.

Oh ok. I would use the template as inspiration, but I do not know how to make my own template from scratch to even start that. I do not understand the process of style sheets, languages, modules, linking images, and the hundreds of other principles. Most importantly I am not experienced with html...I have seen the "Custom Template" tutorial on this website. I understand that much, but I do not understand how I would start to build the look of the template or get it close to the templatemoster one.

Play with the Apple Zen template and maybe some other properly constructed ones for a while first to get a feel for how they work... and don't be afraid to "play with it until it breaks"; just keep a backup, or be prepared to delete the whole thing and reinstall. It's good practice.

Ok. Thanks for all the help gjh42; I really appreciate it. I tried to install my logo into the apple zen template.. doesn't seem like it really fits in though : http://attireforall.com . Also, I am trying to change the color from green to red. In the style sheet the author says to "comment off" the green and "uncomment" the red. how do I do this? I am using dreamweaver to edit the stylesheet and filezilla to upload. Also is there a better way to whip up a logo that will fit with the template?