Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

27 Feb 2008, 7:05 AM

#1

New Zenner

Join Date:: Jun 2007
Posts:: 5
Plugin Contributions:: 0

Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

Hi All,

Had someone do my website design using ZenCart. Looks great, but been longer than I thought since the days when i did some simple html in college. I couldn't even figure out how to add some Google Adsense script to my homepage without having to pay for help.... very embarrassing.

Which leads to the question, is there a good WYSIWYG editor that works well with ZenCart sites? I'm somewhat paranoid about making changes given the realization of my limited skill set to fix any mistakes. I have CoffeeCup software but not sure if I dare try to use it to edit my site.

Any advice appreciated. Thx!

babybiz

27 Feb 2008, 7:14 AM

#2

schoolboy

Totally Zenned

Join Date:: Jun 2005
Location:: Cumbria, UK
Posts:: 10,327
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Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

Unfortunately for us HTML junkies, Zencart does not work on flat HTML (neither do practically ALL dynamic content sites.)

It works off a template system, and pages are "cobbled together" on the fly - sometimes from scores of different resources (including a complex database). So the content of a page depends on dynamic data.

The layout and styles are largely controlled by positioning elements within the PHP templates, and by CSS codes in the stylesheets.

What you see on-screen is actually HTML (that's what browsers understand), but it is the RESULT of a complex series of calls and instructions, and not the SOURCE of them.

There are no "static" html pages in zencart (other than a tiny handful of template components that rely on the PHP as well).

Hence, a wysiwyg html editor is not possible.

27 Feb 2008, 7:52 AM

#3

drbyte

Sensei

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

Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

While editing exact "pages" of Zen Cart is challenging, as schoolboy mentioned, you CAN edit the product-descriptions and ez-pages data, etc using the built-in rich-text editor support. HTMLarea is built-in to v1.3.x, and TinyMCE or FCKeditor are available as addons from the downloads area.

So, wysiwyg editing of product/page content is possible.

You can also edit the same content offline and paste it into the product/page description details as raw HTML (being sure to only post content that would normally occur between BODY and /BODY tags).

27 Feb 2008, 9:10 AM

#4

schoolboy

Totally Zenned

Join Date:: Jun 2005
Location:: Cumbria, UK
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Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

Thanks Doc, for pointing out that SOME aspects of content can be edited with a wysiwyg editor. I should have mentioned this.

And as the doc says, you can even use an external html editor (dreamweaver, frontpage) to create html for these elements - as long as you toggle your internal zencart html editor (htmlArea or FCKEditor) to display the html code, into which you PASTE the copied code from your external editor. As stated, copy and paste code ONLY between the <body></body> tags from your external editor.

These days, CSS is the de facto standard for design and style purposes and it's not difficult to learn CSS. There are good tutorials online, the one I used was the W3C tutorial set - and I still refer to it when faced with a design challenge.

27 Feb 2008, 1:51 PM

#5

afo

Totally Zenned

Join Date:: Aug 2004
Location:: New York City
Posts:: 6,800
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Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

Consider getting the FireFox browser with the web developer addon which will allow you to play with the stylesheet (CSS) and see the changes immediately.

28 Feb 2008, 4:54 PM

#6

babybiz

New Zenner

Join Date:: Jun 2007
Posts:: 5
Plugin Contributions:: 0

Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

I've done some editing of ez pages and popped in some html, but these tips are helpful, some good nuggets to get me to the next level. You guys are the best, thanks for your help!

babybiz

28 Feb 2008, 5:13 PM

#7

afo

Totally Zenned

Join Date:: Aug 2004
Location:: New York City
Posts:: 6,800
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Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

Also consider getting yourself a decent text editor to use on the php files. Notepad++ and Crimson Editor are good ones.

28 Feb 2008, 7:47 PM

#8

rugbythug

New Zenner

Join Date:: Feb 2008
Posts:: 25
Plugin Contributions:: 0

Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

What I was hoping to do is a little different not sure if I am barking up the wrong tree here. I was hoping to Have my main site pages be Html with my order buttons taking you to the Cart page for check out. Then over time actually incorporating more of the dynamic data from Zen into my Html Pages. Am I way of base here?

Current Site.
https://www.universalfabricator.com

Current site is using yahoo check out.

28 Feb 2008, 8:01 PM

#9

stevesh

Black Belt

Join Date:: Feb 2005
Location:: Lansing, Michigan USA
Posts:: 19,793
Plugin Contributions:: 2

Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

Zencart isn't really designed to just be a back end shopping cart add-on to an existing site. Better you should customize a fresh Zencart installation to match what you have now, if that's what you want it to look like.

28 Feb 2008, 8:34 PM

#10

cwcgroup

New Zenner

Join Date:: Feb 2008
Posts:: 23
Plugin Contributions:: 0

Re: Is there a good WYSIWYG editor for ZenCart?

afo:

Consider getting the FireFox browser with the web developer addon which will allow you to play with the stylesheet (CSS) and see the changes immediately.

Yes, I find Firefox browser with the Firebug addon a dream to work with. Without it I wouldn't have a clue! Now at least I have 1/2 a clue!:blush: