Zen Cart template tutorial. Zen Cart webstore design help. Zen Cart shopping cart template structure. Zen Cart template editing. Zen Cart template installation. Zen Cart template configuration. Zen Cart template FAQ. Zen Cart template tips. Zen Cart template troubleshooting.

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ZenCart Design Tutorial

Zen Cart is an open-source e-commerce system that aims to be the most simple solution for on-line commerce. Zen Cart provides you with many features available with this system: improved template system, new merchandise pricing options, new attributes, new layout settings, the demonstration mode - these are only a few of them.

Zen Cart templates are a specially designed to be completely compatible with Zen Cart shopping cart. They are actually Zen Cart skins created so that you could change them within a couple of minutes. A Zen Cart template package includes all the files necessary to install and edit the skin.

In this section of our template help system (design tutorial), you can get the detailed information related with the Zen Cart template structure, Zen Cart template editing, Zen Cart template installation & configuration, as well as useful tips, troubleshooting and the frequently asked questions related with Zen Cart store design.

In our online Zen Cart design store you can buy for a super price and instantly download the new, original, high-quality designs related with Zen Cart store management system:

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They're fully customizable, so you can easily modify them using the provided source files and tutorials. Or simply order the template customization.
Buy any design today, , and get the premium clipart library for FREE! Our great web hosting is also at your service. Enjoy!

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Zen Cart Template Help

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Zen Cart Template Structure

You have received your Zen Cart Template ZIP package and unpacked it. Let's see what you have inside:

"screenshots" - contains screenshots of the template.
"theme_xxx" - contains Zen Cart skin folder, place the files in their own directory in the "/includes/templates/" directory inside your Zen Cart installation.
"sources" - contains the source files.
"clipart_library" - contains free clipart .PSD files - all the elements are arranged in several files.
"fonts" - contains all the fonts used in .PSD files - True Type (.TTF), Adobe fonts (PFB\PFM), or both.
"psd" - contains Adobe Photoshop .PSD files.

The "sources" folder may include "Html" folder as well - this is a html version of Zen Cart skin, it contains .HTML files and sub-folders with the images.

Note: For security reasons the sources folder is in a zipped file and is password protected. To uncompress a password protected .ZIP file you will need to have a zip file utility program installed and the correct password. As soon as the zip file begins to uncompress, you will be prompted to type in the password. The password is the ID number of your order. You can find this number on the order page which is provided to you through a link that we sent to you via email.

Zen Cart Template Installation

You should have the Zen Cart software installed on your server. Download it from the www.zen-cart.com website if you don't have it.

Minimum/suggested server requirements: PHP 4.1.x or higher (PHP 4.3.x for optimal performance), Apache 1.3.x and MySQL 3.2.x or higher. Register Globals may be on or off, safe mode off recommended.

Note: There are known problems on servers running php v4.1.2. Most problems have an available solution.
Note: Many of the shipping and payment modules require URL to be "installed/compiled" with php.
Note: Support for HTTPS may be required depending on the payment methods being accepted. The use of an SSL during account creation and checkout is recommended.
PHP5 is not officially supported by Zen Cart at the present time; however, many shop owners are successfully running their shops on servers using PHP5.
MySQL 4.1.x uses an encryption scheme that is not 100% supported by PHP4, so it may not work with Zen Cart unless you are using PHP5.

The installation process is quite simple. To start off, you should extract the Zen Cart ZIP file. Once extracted, you will have a directory containing the Zen Cart scripts. The contents of this directory needs to be moved to your web server, either by copying the directory or by using an FTP program. You will then need to run the install script. To do this you need to open the browser and type in the URL. If you are running it on your own computer, this will be "http://localhost/{zen-cart-directory}/zc_install" or if on a live server: "http://{www.mydomain.com}/zc_install". You then only need to follow the prompts to install Zen Cart. For more detailed installation instructions, please see the "/docs/1.Readme-installation.html" document in the Zen Cart distribution.

When you have the Zen Cart software installed, unpack the template package that you got from our website. Also unpack the "Sources_XXXXXXXX" directory. Note: For security reasons the directory ("Sources_XXXXXXXX") containing all the source files of the template is in a compressed (zipped) file and is password protected.
As soon as the zip file begins to uncompress, you will be prompted to type in the password. The password is the ID number of your order.

There will be a folder named "themeXXX" (where "XXX" is a three digit number) inside the unpacked ZIP file. Place the files in their own directory ("themeXXX") in the "/includes/templates/" directory inside your Zen Cart installation. This will copy the theme files of the Zen Cart template to your installation.

Note: You should update the tables of your Zen Cart installation database using a mysql dump file located at "\sources\dumps\zencart_short.sql" inside the unzipped template package. Contact your hosting company for assistance. This will not affect the configuration of your Zen Cart installation, just overwrite MySQL rows (tables) that define the style of your Zen Cart store.

Once you have done this go to "http://localhost/{zen-cart-directory}"(if you are running it on your own computer) or if on a live server - "http://{www.mydomain.com}". Make sure the template is installed correctly.

The following procedure for a Zen Cart template installation is not recommended, so you may use it at your own risk because it may result in all data loss. If you wish to install an exact copy of our demo Zen Cart store (including all the settings like information on categories, products, manufacturers, prices, etc.) you need to use "\sources\dumps\zencart_full.sql" dump file to update tables of your Zen Cart installation database.
Note: This will affect the configuration of your Zen Cart installation and will overwrite all the data of your MySQL database. So make sure to back up all the data. Contact your webhosting company for assistance. Also, copy the files from the folder "\sources\images" to the "/images" directory inside your Zen Cart installation. This will copy product images that are used in a Zen Cart template to your installation. Now go to "http://localhost/{zen-cart-directory}" (if you are running on your own computer) or if on a live server - "http://{www.mydomain.com}". Make sure the template is installed correctly.

If you can't find an answer to your question regarding configuration of your Zen Cart installation and/or managing categories and products you need to refer to the Zen Cart official website for assistance.

Zen Cart Store Configuration

As soon as you have logged in onto Zen Cart's administration panel (/admin panel), you will gain access to the configuration settings of your shop with the template installed.

First of all, you can change the name of your shop. To do so you need to go to Configuration tab. There you will see the drop down menu. Simply, choose and click on My Store entry. You will see a large list of attributes that describe the layout of your shop. Select Store name and you will see the Edit button on the right. Click on this button and enter your new shop name. Then press Update button to save your changes. As soon as you do this you will see that the shop has already been changed.

All other shop configurations can be changed in exactly the same way. (E.g. name of the owner, country, taxes, etc.).

Defining Meta Tags for the Products

If you want to define Per-Product Meta-Tags go to the Catalog -> Categories -> Products list. Find the item that you want to change and then look for a symbol resembling BMW's mascot in the Action column. The new page will open. All you need to do is to fill in the details and click on the Preview button, and then on the Update button.

Please, note that the metatags must be relevant to the product entry, otherwise they will loose their benefits in usage.

Offering Free Shipping for Bigger Orders

A lot of Companies provide a free shipping offer for the orders that come to a certain value. ZenCart engine can also provide this option.

Press the Modules menu, and select Order total. From the drop down list, click the Shipping module and then the Edit button. Set the minimum amount for free shipping and click Update at the bottom for your changes to be applied.

Adding Multiple Images To ZenCart Product

First of all you should upload one image to your images folder via the categories.php page, for example, we can take the image called toaster.gif and put it in the /images/toasters directory. Now, you can upload additional images to /images/toasters folder: toaster_01.gif
toaster_02.gif
toaster_03.gif
toaster_04.gif

It is important to use the numbers so that these files are uploaded in order, as for the additional images, they are loaded in an alpha / numeric way. But you can also change the suffix to something better so as to fit your needs.

Note: the base image name is the original image name loaded for the product. The suffix of _01 or any other one is optionally defined but very useful for distinguishing image names from a visual stand point. Additional images can actually have any name that has the base name of the original image plus additional characters afterwards. Referring to our example this might be done in the following way: Main image: toaster.gif

And all these names are considered for additional images as they contain the original image name:
toastertoaster.gif
toasters.gif
toaster_01.gif
toaster_02.gif
toaster_silver.gif
toaster_blue.gif

You should only place these images in the same folder as the base image such as /images/toasters.

Showing Categories On Main ZenCart Page

Open your administration panel - go to www.yourdomain.com/admin where yourdomain.com refers directly to the address of your site. On the Configuration menu, choose Layout Settings from the menu. Find the Categories - Always Show on Main Page, click edit and enable the feature (Set to 1).

Turning Off ZenCart Reviews & Tell A Friend

Product Information Pages
To enable / disable different options at the per-product-type level:
Open your administration panel like this: yourdomain.com/admin where yourdomain.com refers directly to the address of your site. Go to Catalog button on the top menu and choose Product Types from the drop down menu. Choose Products General (or the product type you are modifying). Click Edit Layout and turn on/off any settings you do not want to display.

The configurations for "Tell-A-Friend" and "Reviews" on this screen are related to the corresponding buttons that appear on the product-information page (the configurations are set per product).

Side Boxes
To turn on/off the "Reviews" and/or "Tell-A-Friend" side boxes:
Open your administration panel. Go to the Tools tab on the top menu and choose Layout Boxes Controller from the drop down menu. You may turn different boxes on/off by changing a particular entry and saving the changes.

"Powered by Zen Cart" Text Changing

If you want to change the text at the bottom of the page "Copyright Zen Cart. Powered by Zen Cart" you should edit the following file: \includes\languages --> english.php. Here you can see a text you should modify:
define('FOOTER_TEXT_BODY', 'Copyright © <a href="http://www.zen-cart.com" target="_blank">Zen Cart</a>. Powered by <a href="http://www.zen-cart.com" target="_blank">Zen Cart</a>');

If you want to change a title bar text, you should edit the following file: \includes\languages\english --> meta_tags.php. Here you can see 2 variables for this text:
// page title
define('TITLE', 'Zen Cart!');
// Site Tagline
define('SITE_TAGLINE', 'The Art of E-commerce');

Zen Cart's Admin Panel Login Problem

Here is the short list of most common problems that may cause your inability for logging onto the admin panel.

1. Admin pages won't show at all, or show without styling. You should backup the /admin/.htaccess file (try renaming it to htaccess_bak) and then check whether the site behavior has changed. If it is so, then you need to co-operate with your hosting to find the correct way to use the supplied .htaccess security guard on your website.

2. Your site is not configured properly to handle PHP "sessions".
This issue is a lot more hard to be checked. First, clear your browser's cache and all the cookies. Then to be perfectly sure, double-check that you do NOT use any Firewall Software Applications running on your local machine as they may have been configured to "disable session cookies" or block their usage. Also, make sure your browser IS ALLOWED to accept cookies, and specially from your own domain. You should check your server's error log so as to clarify if any errors are happen at the same time that you fail to login.

3. The most common problem is not having the HTTPS address right in the /includes/configure.php and /admin/includes/configure.php

Changing ZenCart Languages & Character Settings

Most of our clients would like to use more than one language in their template shop. Here we provide the directions on how to configure your template for multiple language usage.

First of all, you can download the desired languages. We recommend you to use the original language packages provided by ZenCart.com.
Please, download the desired language packages to your local computer. Then unzip the files and upload them to the appropriate language catalogue and admin directories (located under "/includes/languages" and "/admin/includes/languages", accordingly). If you don't have these folders, you need to create them through your Panel's file manager or via FTP. Open your shop admin-panel and navigate to the Languages entry of the Localization menu. On the new page click the New Language button. Set the language configurations and press Insert.

If you need to set the default language different from the original one you simply click on any language and click the Edit button.
To delete the current language press Delete. Then in the current language settings, check Set as default box and press the update button.

Some languages require additional characters to avoid text displaying errors (E.g. Ẅ, Ậ, Ạ). To switch to non-English characters please locate your Zen Cart installation in the File Manager, and look for the "/includes/languages/" folder under the store's directory. Find the language file in use and search for the following lines:

@setlocale(LC_TIME, 'en_US.ISO_8859-1');
// charset for web pages and emails
define('CHARSET', 'iso-8859-1');
Replace the en_US.ISO_8859-1 string with the one that describes the charset, appropriate for your language.

To change the text on the front page you will need to do some coding. You should modify current language file that you use. It is in the folder "/includes/languages/english/classic/index.php". You may edit this file by opening it with a simple text editor and replace the Congratulations... text with your own one. Please, make sure you do not change any other coding to avoid malfunctioning of the template.

ZenCart Product Catalog Management

If you want to add a new category, go to the Catalog / Categories / Products list. Click on New Category and then fill in the necessary information. Afterwards click the Save button.

If you want to add a subcategory, click on the folder icon in front of the category name. After the new page opens you will need to perform the same actions of adding a category. If you want to delete a category, click the [x] icon in the Action column.

Note: if you delete a category all subcategories and products will also be removed! You can either confirm removal or cancel the action on the next page. Creating a product is done in a similar way: enter the category and click on a New product. Then enter the product details. You may also upload an image for your product at this point. As soon as you finish the editing of the product information, please, click the Preview button. You will see the new product view. If you want to finish editing the product information click Insert; else, click Back to continue editing the item.

You can also list the newly added product under each category. To do that you need to move the item under the desired category - click the purple [m] icon at the end of the row. You will be prompted to select the category for a drop down menu. Select the necessary category and click the Move button below.

ZenCart Store SSL Protection

To verify whether you are going to use your own certificate or the shared hosting you can manually edit the following files:
"includes/ configure.php"
"admin/ includes/ configure.php"

To avoid possible problems using word processors as your editing software (E.g. some additional symbols) you should use common text editors like Notepad or Dreamweaver.

If you want to use your own private SSL certificate (the one for the specific domain name) you can do the editing within either of the files listed above. Please, find them and open with the simple text editor. Search for the following lines of the file code:

// Define the web server and path parameters
define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.yourdomain.com');
define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://(www.)yourdomain.com');
define('ENABLE_SSL', false); // secure web server for checkout procedure?
Insert your domain name appropriately, and change False to True in the last line. Note that placing www. in front of your domain name depends on the certificate that you have purchased. SSL certificate can be purchased either for "yourdomain.com" or for "www.yourdomain.com" so, please, be very attentive here.

Using a shared SSL certificate, again, you need to open "/includes/configure.php" and "/admin/includes/configure.php" files with a text editor. Change the code above to:

// Define the web server and path parameters
define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.YOUR_SHOP.com');
define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://server.IP.address.here/~YOUR_USERNAME');
define('ENABLE_SSL', true); // secure web server for checkout procedure?
To disable SSL usage, find the files "/includes/configure.php" and "/admin/includes/configure.php" and in the following code:

// Define the web server and path parameters
define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.YOUR_SHOP.com');
define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://www.YOUR_SHOP.com');
define('ENABLE_SSL', true); // secure web server for checkout procedure?
change the word True to False. The encryption of your store would be turned off.

ZenCart Stylesheet Loading Problem

If your have discovered that the stylesheet is not loading properly (E.g. a page displays no coloring or expected layout, etc.), then your "/includes/.htaccess" file is most likely doesn't allow to load the "stylesheet.css" on providing security protection for your shop.

To check this, you can either check your server's error log for confirmation, or simply use your FTP program to temporarily rename it for testing. (E.g. rename "/includes/.htaccess" file to "/includes/.htaccess_OFF" ). If your stylesheet loads properly (the layout or coloring appears to be more like you expected) then you will have to modify the settings in this .htaccess file to provide the compatibility with your webhost.

Most likely it may happen if you install Zen Cart to your web host for the first time and have never installed it before. More frequently it may happen if you use Windows/IIS server.

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