Zen Cart Tutorials

How to Add Social Bookmarking to Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 12:02:00 +0000

Best 10 Social Bookmarking Solutions for Zen Cart. Handpicked Zen Cart Tutorials to help you add a Facebook Like Button, Facebook Fan Page or other social media buttons and boxes to Zen Cart.

It is easy to add social bookmarking share buttons to your Zen Cart store product pages for Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus One. Perhaps you already have a like button and want a Facebook Fan Page in a sidebox of your Zen Cart shop. No problem. The modifications to Zen Cart outlined in these Zen Cart tutorials only take a few minutes to implement but will provide invaluable exposure for your Zen Cart e-commerce store. And best of all they are all provided free.

Many Zen Cart webmasters and bloggers have written articles about how to get Facebook like buttons onto a Zen Cart store. Others have instructed in ways of adding Facebook Fan Pages to Zen Cart. Some have also discussed ways to add social media or social bookmarking buttons including Facebook, Twitter, Stumble Upon and Google +1 to Zen Cart.

Rather than deliver up the same instructions as everybody else I thought it would be more helpful to compile a list of Zen Cart tutorials that discuss the different ways to place social bookmarking buttons on a Zen Cart store. Remember these links all point to free Zen Cart tutorials that I have personally handpicked because of their quality and clarity.

Not Technical and Would Rather Pay Someone?
However if you are not technically minded and don't want to manually change Zen Cart files you can always pay a small fee and have some technical person at Freelancer.com implement a Facebook like button or fan page or add social media options on your Zen Cart store. Or for that matter upgrade your Zen Cart store in anyway you would like it customized. Check out Freelancer.com here

How to Add a Facebook Like Button to Zen Cart

Picaflor Azul provides details of the simpliest method to get a Facebook like button installed on a Zen Cart store. If you are not technically minded and just want the button this Zen Cart tutorial may work best for you.
How to Add a Facebook Like Button to Your Product Pages
Numinix walks you through the steps to add Facebook like button code to various Zen Cart files to display a Facebook like button on every product page in a Zen Cart store. Instructions for implementing both XFBML method and the iframe method are given.
How to add a Facebook like button to your Zen Cart product pages
Kerrin Hardy provides a comprehensive and thorough tutorial on how to add a Facebook like button to Zen Cart to promote a Zen Cart store around the world. Included in the Zen Cart tutorial are details about how to change the meta tags to capture product descriptions and details.
Add the Facebook Like Button to your Zen Cart store

If you want to understand how Facebook and Zen Cart work together also see how a Facebook Like button works with a Zen Cart store
Pro-webs.net has come up with a very nice tweak to ensure that only the product image is shared when a visitor clicks on the Facebook like button in Zen Cart by using Facebook Open Graph Protocol. This tweak assumes you already have a Facebook like button added to your Zen Cart store.
Product Images for Facebook Like Buttons in Zen Cart

How to Put a Facebook Like Box on Zen Cart

Picaflor Azul takes you through the steps to add a Facebook Like Box to Zen Cart with lots of graphics and easy to follow instructions.
How to Add a Facebook Like Box to Zen Cart
Kerrin Hardy provides complete step-by-step instructions on how to put a Facebook fan page box on a Zen Cart store. This walk-through has easy to follow steps that will help you add a Facebook Fan Page sidebox on your Zen Cart store in no time.
Add a Facebook Page Fan Box to your Zen Cart store

Also check out how to make a Facebook Like Box in Zen Cart visible to everyone

How to Add Social Bookmarking Buttons to Zen Cart

Pro-webs.net describes a neat Javascript solution for adding Google Plus 1 Google Buzz, Twitter, Facebook and Stumble Upon buttons to a Zen Cart store in one short piece of code.
Google Plus 1 For Your Zen Cart
Navspan takes a different approach to putting social sharing buttons on a Zen Cart store by suggesting the addthis.com all in one solution. Beginners will appreciate this thorough discussion on how to add Twitter, Google +1 and Facebook buttons to Zen Cart
Adding Facebook “Like”, Twitter and Google +1 to Zen Cart™ (How To)
That Software Guy offers instructions on how to add submission buttons for four popular social bookmarking buttons including Furl and del.icio.us. Also shows how to add a AddThis.com all in one social bookmarking button.
Social Bookmarking for Zen Cart
Embryo Design describes a simple way to add Facebook, Twitter and Google +1 buttons to Zen Cart but without displaying count - ie the number of likes or tweets etc. I have included this Zen Cart tutorial for anyone interested in this method but be advised that the image used by Facebook may not be the product image.
How to place social media links in Zen Cart

How to Customize Emails Sent Directly From Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Wed, 18 May 2011 01:55:00 +0000

In today's Zen Cart tutorial I discuss how to customize the emails sent directly from Zen Cart so that they reflect your store details. This will ensure that the email contains your store logo, copyright notice and any changes to the disclaimer in the footer section of the email you may wish to make.

Replace the Zen Cart logo by modifying the file: /admin/images/logo.gif as outlined in my previous Zen Cart tutorial - How to Replace the Zen Cart Logo in Admin.
Download the file:

admin/includes/languages/english/email_extras.php
Open this file in a text editor such as notepad. Do not use a word processing program such as Microsoft Word or unexpected results may result. Make the following changes to the file:
To make changes to the email footer find line 40

define('EMAIL_FOOTER_COPYRIGHT','Copyright (c) ' . date('Y') . ' <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>');
Change the Zen Cart URL address to that of your store (denoted in red)
Change the words "Zen Cart" to the name of your store eg Sally's Bookshop (denoted in green)
To remove "powered by Zen Cart" delete the text (denoted in magenta) taking care to leave the single quote mark at the end of the line intact.
If you wish to change the wording of email disclaimer you can do so by editing the text between the single quote marks on line 38
If you wish to change the email spam disclaimer change the text in line 39 between the single quote marks.
Save your changes to the file email_extras.php and upload to your server.

How to Remove the Shipping Estimator Button in Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:11:00 +0000

In today's Zen Cart tutorial I discuss how to remove, delete or turn off the Shipping Estimator button in a Zen Cart shopping cart. The Shipping Estimator in Zen Cart is a very handy feature which allows customers of your Zen Cart store to see what the cost of shipping the items in their shopping cart is before they checkout.

Sometimes however you may wish to turn off the shipping estimator, perhaps because you fear your customers will get put off by the price of shipping. Or perhaps you wish to turn it off to improve the look of your shopping cart. Whatever the reason turning off the Shopping Estimator button in Zen Cart is a quick and easy process. Follow these simple directions to stop the Shipping Estimator button displaying in your Zen Cart store.

How to Remove, Delete or Turn Off the Shipping Estimator Button in Zen Cart

Login to Zen Cart admin
Go to Configuration > Shipping/Packaging
By default the Shipping Estimator is set to 1 (the on position). Switch off by setting to 0

In today's Zen Cart tutorial you have learned how easy it is to turn off the shipping estimator button in a Zen Cart store. Enjoy! As always any questions please ask.

Related Articles
Zen Cart Tutorials List

How to Display Your Own Logo in Zen Cart Admin

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 23:45:00 +0000

In today's Zen Cart tutorial I discuss how to replace the default Zen Cart logo with your own logo in Zen Cart admin so that your company logo appears on packing slips and invoices for your Zen Cart ecommerce store. The new logo will also head the top of your Zen Cart admin when logged in and any reports generated from the reports menu.

Changing the Zen Cart admin logo to your own logo is one of the musts of customizing your Zen Cart store. It only takes a couple of minutes to change the logo and yet it is a big step in making your Zen Cart store unique.

Follow the steps below to replace the admin logo in Zen Cart:

How to Replace the Logo in Zen Cart Admin with Your Own Logo

Create your own logo for your Zen Cart store if you don't have one already. In most cases it is best to use the same logo as your store front logo for consistency.
Using FTP or your server's File Manager upload feature upload your logo to the following directory of your Zen Cart store:

/admin/images/

If you have renamed your admin directory for security reasons then go to the renamed directory that contains the admin of your Zen Cart store. For example:

/my_admin/images/
Find the image named logo.gif
Rename logo.gif to logo_original.gif or alternatively you can delete it
Now rename the logo that you just uploaded to logo.gif
Log in to Zen Cart admin
To check the logo is working properly go to admin > reports. Each report will now be headed by your own logo.
Also check packing slips and invoices by navigating to a customer order customers > orders and then select a single customer. Click on invoice and packing slip respectively to check your new logo is displaying in the top right hand corner.

In today's Zen Cart tutorial you have learned how to replace the logo that appears in the admin of your Zen Cart store so that any reports, invoices or packing slips bear your own logo and not the default Zen Cart logo. Good luck!

Related Articles
Zen Cart Tutorials List

How to Change More Information Pages and Sidebox in Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 21:47:00 +0000

In today's Zen Cart tutorial I show you how to change the more information pages and sidebox in Zen Cart to suit your individual requirements. You will learn how to customize the more information pages and specifically learn to:

change the content of a more information page (Page 2, Page 3, Page 4)
add a hyperlink to the more information page
turn the more information sidebox on and off
change the status of a more information page in Zen Cart admin
change the title and label of the more information page
change the heading of the more information sidebox

The changes to Zen Cart will take only a few minutes and are easy to implement provided you follow these step by step instructions.

How to Change the Content of the More Information Sidebox and Pages in Zen Cart

In Zen Cart admin go to Tools > Define Pages Editor
Select one of these pages to edit:

define_page_2.php
define_page_3.php
define_page_4.php

depending on your individual needs
Change the existing text to your own. Notice how I have kept the page spacing by only changing the text denoted in blue

Page 3 Sample Text ...
This section of text is from the Define Pages Editor located under Tools in the Admin.
To remove this section of the text, delete it from the Define Pages Editor.

to

Links
Other webpages you may also be interested in:
<a href="http://zencarttutorials.blogspot.com/">Zen Cart Tutorials</a>
In the above example I have added a hyperlink. To duplicate the hyperlink just copy the link in blue and replace the URL address (denoted in purple) and target text (denoted in green) to that of the website you wish to link to
Click on Save to save your changes
If you have turned off the More Information Box in the Layout Boxes Controller you will need to turn it back on to see your page displayed. Go to Tools > Layout Boxes Controller
If you have changed the define page status to off you will need to turn it on again in Zen Cart admin by going to Configuration > Define Page Status
Under the respective page (Page 2, Page 3 or Page 4) turn on the link and define text by setting to "1"

Enable the Defined Page 2 Link/Text?
0= Link ON, Define Text OFF
1= Link ON, Define Text ON
2= Link OFF, Define Text ON
3= Link OFF, Define Text OFF
To change the name of the more information page as it appears in the more information sidebox you will need to edit the following Zen Cart file:

includes/languages/english.php

or if you are using a custom template then you will need to edit the file in your custom template directory

includes/languages/custom_template/english.php
Find these lines around 159 - 161

define('BOX_INFORMATION_PAGE_2', 'Page 2');
define('BOX_INFORMATION_PAGE_3', 'Page 3');
define('BOX_INFORMATION_PAGE_4', 'Page 4');
Change the name of the more information page to reflect the content you added in Step 3. Take care to only change the text denoted in blue and leave the single quote marks undisturbed. For example:

define('BOX_INFORMATION_PAGE_2', 'Links');
define('BOX_INFORMATION_PAGE_3', 'Page 3');
define('BOX_INFORMATION_PAGE_4', 'Page 4');
If you wish to change the name of the more information sidebox in Zen Cart edit the following line (around Line 158) as denoted in blue

define('BOX_HEADING_MORE_INFORMATION', 'More Information');

to eg

define('BOX_HEADING_MORE_INFORMATION', 'Other Information');
To change the labels at the top of the more information page (ie breadcrumb and heading) you will also need to edit the actual page file. ie page_2.php, page_3.php or page_4.php. For example if you changed the content of the Page_2 file in Step 3 you will edit that file in

includes/languages/english/page_2.php

If you are using a custom template make sure you place a copy in the folder where your custom files reside:

includes/languages/english/custom-template/page_2.php
If you have followed the steps above you will notice the following as you navigate around your Zen Cart store:
- the more information sidebox will now show your custom labels instead of the generic Page 2, Page 3 and Page 4.
- the title of the sidebox may have changed if you did this in step 12
- the actual page will now have a new label in the breadcrumb and the heading even though the actual URL address of the page will remain the same
  
  http://www.nameofyoursite.com/index.php?main_page=page_2
- the more information page that you changed at Step 3 will now be displaying the content you added

In this Zen Cart tutorial you have learned how to customize the more information pages to reflect your own content rather than the generic content that came with the default install of your Zen Cart store. I have also shown you how to change the labels of the Zen Cart More Information sidebox and more information pages.

How to Change or Remove the Welcome Guest Message in Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 19:30:00 +0000

In today's Zen Cart tutorial I discuss how to delete or change Welcome Guest message in Zen Cart. A new Zen Cart store installation has a Welcome Guest message by default. If you would prefer to remove the message it is not hard to do so. Alternatively Zen Cart allows you the flexibility to adapt the text message to meet the needs of your particular Zen Cart ecommerce store.

Below are the steps to take to remove or change the Welcome Guest message in Zen Cart:

How to Remove the Welcome Guest Message in Zen Cart
1. Log in to Zen Cart admin
2. Go to Admin > Configuration > Layout settings
3. Set Customer Greeting > Show on Index Page to 0
How to To Replace, Change, Alter, Edit the Welcome Guest Message in Zen Cart
1. To make changes to the default Welcome Guest Message in Zen Cart you will need to edit the core English index file using notepad or another simple text editor. Download the file using FTP or your server's File Manager
 
 If you are using the default Classic template edit the following file:
 
 includes/languages/english/index.php
 
 If you are using a custom template then edit that override file. For example:
 
 includes/languages/english/custom_template/index.php
2. Find the following lines of code:
 
 if (STORE_STATUS == '0') {
 define('TEXT_GREETING_GUEST', 'Welcome Guest!
 Would you like to <a href="%s">log yourself in</a>?');
 } else {
 define('TEXT_GREETING_GUEST', 'Welcome, please enjoy our online showcase.');
 }
 define('TEXT_GREETING_PERSONAL', 'Hello %s!');
3. Any text shown in red can be changed. The blue code shows links to other pages and needs to be left alone unless you know what you are doing with respect to hyperlinks.
 
 When editing these line take care not to remove any of the single quotation marks or brackets. To use an apostrophe in your text place an escape character (backward slash) before the apostrophe, e.g. Bob's Bookstore becomes Bob\'s Bookstore. An example of an edited Welcome Guest message is shown below:
 
 if (STORE_STATUS == '0') {
 define('TEXT_GREETING_GUEST', 'Welcome Guest! Please <a href="%s">log in</a> to make a purchase. New customers receive 20% off their first order.');
 } else {
 define('TEXT_GREETING_GUEST', 'Welcome to our online showcase.');
 }
 define('TEXT_GREETING_PERSONAL', 'Welcome Back %s!');
4. Save your changes
5. Once you are satisfied with your changes upload your changed file and replace the existing index.php file in same location as downloaded it from.

In today's Zen Cart tutorial you have learned how to change the Welcome Guest message to one of your own or remove it all together. Good luck!

How to Change Product Weight from Pounds (lbs) to Kilograms (kgs) in Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 07:10:00 +0000

In today's Zen Cart tutorial you will learn how to change the product weight from the imperial system of pounds (lbs) to the metric system (kgs) in Zen Cart. By default Zen Cart is configured for US weights and measures standards rather than the metric system used by much of the world. Fortunately this it is easy to change the product weight into kilograms in Zen Cart by editing just a few files. Please follow the step by step instructions below:

How to Change the Product Weight in Zen Cart from Pounds (lbs) to Kilograms (kgs)

In your Zen Cart store either by FTP or using File Manager edit the following language file

includes/languages/english.php

or if you are using a custom template make sure you edit the override file instead rather than the core file

includes/languages/custom/english.php
Change lbs to kgs by changing the values shown in red:
- define('TEXT_PRODUCT_WEIGHT_UNIT','lbs');
  
  to
  
  define('TEXT_PRODUCT_WEIGHT_UNIT','kgs');
- define('TEXT_SHIPPING_WEIGHT','lbs');
  
  to
  
  define('TEXT_SHIPPING_WEIGHT','kgs');
Remember to save your changes
Also change lbs to kgs by editing the following Zen Cart admin file:

admin/includes/languages/english.php

Around Line #574 :
define('TEXT_PRODUCT_WEIGHT_UNIT','lbs');

to

define('TEXT_PRODUCT_WEIGHT_UNIT','kgs');
Save your changes

Once you have made the changes the product weight will now appear in kilograms throughout your Zen Cart ecommerce store.

Related Articles
List of Zen Cart Tutorials

Extra Field to Customer Sign Up Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 06:04:00 +0000

Zen Cart contribution test. Today I tested the Extra Fields for Customer Sign Up (Create Account) Page add on contribution for Zen Cart. I installed this on my test Zen Cart store which is running v1.3.9g.

I am happy to report that this 3rd party Zen cart add on contribution module worked well and enabled me to add an extra field to insert an additional phone number.

I did however have to manually change all the core files because I have already made significant modifications to my Zen Cart store.

The instructions on this contribution are good and the support thread is active.

Core Files that are changed are:

admin/customers.php
admin/includes/languages/english/customers.php
includes/modules/pages/account_edit/header_php.php

Files that are Modified Using the Zen Cart Override System:
includes/templates/YOUR_TEMPLATE/templates/tpl_modules_create_account.php

includes/modules/YOUR_TEMPLATE/create_account.php

Note I had to make copies of the files first as they weren't already being overridden. Copied from includes/templates/template_default/templates directory to my templates folder

Download Extra Fields for Customer Sign Up (Create Account) Page contribution for Zen Cart

Main Support Thread for this Zen Cart contribution

Additional Support Thread for this Zen Cart contribution

How to Change the Date of Birth Field to Optional in Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 09:18:00 +0000

In this Zen Cart tutorial you will learn an easy way to change the required date of birth field into an optional one in Zen Cart. By default a customer's date of birth information is collected during the account creation process. However, there are many instances when you may wish to either turn off the DOB field or alternatively make it optional for customers to supply their date of birth details.

In this easy step by step guide I show you how to:

Turn off the default date of birth field at customer sign up
Change date of birth field from mandatory to optional so customers have a choice about whether to supply DOB information at sign up.

Zen Cart Requires Date of Birth Information By Default

How to Turn Off the DOB Field in Zen Cart
1. Sign in to Zen Cart admin
2. Go to Configuration > Customer Details
3. Change the Date of Birth field to FALSE
How to Change Date of Birth Field to Optional in Zen Cart
1. Sign in to Zen Cart admin
2. Go to Configuration > Customer Details
3. Make sure the Date of Birth field is set to TRUE
4. Go to Configuration > Minimum Values
5. Change the Date of Birth to blank (not zero)
6. In your Zen Cart store either by FTP or using File Manager edit the following language file
  
  includes/languages/english.php
  
  or if you already have an override file make sure you edit the override file instead rather than the core file
  
  includes/languages/name-of-your-template/english.php
7. Remove the red asterisk (star) by changing this line
  
  define('ENTRY_DATE_OF_BIRTH_TEXT', '* (eg. 05/21/1970)');
  
  to
  
  define('ENTRY_DATE_OF_BIRTH_TEXT', '(eg. 05/21/1970)');
8. Remember to save your changes
9. Now when you go to the customer registration or log in page in your Zen Cart store you will see that the DOB field is still displayed by the red asterisk denoting a required field has been deleted. Just to be sure do a dummy sign up to test that your changes to the date of birth field have been successful

This simple change to your Zen Cart store will mean that you will no longer aggravate customers to your shop by asking them for date of birth details that they are reluctant to give. And better customer relations means more sales. Enjoy!

Turn Off New Products Feature Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:34:00 +0000

In this Zen Cart tutorial I show you how to turn off the New Products feature in Zen Cart to prevent new products from appearing on the home page and subcategory pages.

By default Zen Cart displays new products on the index page of any Zen Cart ecommerce store when first installed. If you want to stop the new products from displaying then you can turn off these settings from the Admin section of your Zen Cart shop.

How to Turn Off or Switch Off New Products Feature in Zen Cart (Both Main Page and Sub Category Pages)
These instructions will remove the "New Products Table" from your store front and sub categories

In your Zen Cart Admin go to Configuration > Index Listing
Make the following changes
- Set New Products on Main Page to 0
- Set Show New Products on Main Page - Category with SubCategories to 0
- Set Show New Products on Main Page - Errors and Missing Products Page to 0
- Set Show New Products - below Product Listing to 0

How to Turn Off or Switch Off New Products Feature in Zen Cart (Sub Category Pages Only)
These instructions will remove the "New Products Table" from your sub category pages only while still displaying new products on your main page (home page)

In your Zen Cart Admin go to Configuration > Index Listing
Make the following changes
- Set Show New Products on Main Page to 1
- Set Show New Products on Main Page - Category with SubCategories to 0
- Set Show New Products on Main Page - Errors and Missing Products Page to 0
- Set Show New Products - below Product Listing to 0

Possible search terms for this Zen Cart tutorial:

how to disable new products
delete new products table
stop new products displaying
turn off new products

Turning off the new products in your Zen Cart is a useful feature and depending on the look of your store may be essential. This Zen Cart tutorial is a guide to how to not show new products feature on the main page and category pages of your Zen Cart store. Enjoy!

Zen Cart Tutorials Articles List Help

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 21:24:00 +0000

If you are looking for Zen Cart tutorials here is an easy way to find them with this Zen Cart article index. Below is a complete list of all the articles that have been published by Zen Cart Tutorials to date organized into categories for easy reference.

Zen Cart Versions and Upgrades
Upgrade to Zen Cart 1.3.9g for Added Security

Zen Cart Templates
Free Zen Cart Templates to Download

Zen Cart Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
How to Customize Zen Cart Store Meta Tags

Account Creation in Zen Cart
How to Make the Date of Birth Optional in Zen Cart
How to Turn Off the Date of Birth Field in Zen Cart
How to Add an Extra Field to Sign Up Page in Zen Cart

Zen Cart Products
How to Set a Specific Product Category to Open on Home Page in Zen Cart
How to Turn Off New Products Feature on Main Page of Zen Cart
How to Change the Product Weight in Zen Cart from lbs to kgs

Zen Cart Orders
How to Change the Orders Status Type in Zen Cart

Zen Cart Logos
How to Change the Zen Cart Logo in Admin

Zen Cart Sideboxes
How to Change the More Information Pages and Sidebox in Zen Cart

Zen Cart Pages
How to Change, Remove, Update the Welcome Message in Zen Cart

Zen Cart Buttons
How to Turn Off, Remove, Delete the Shipping Estimator Button in Zen Cart

Zen Cart Social Media
How to Add Social Bookmarking (Twitter, Facebook, Google +1 to Zen Cart

Free Zen Cart Templates to Download

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 22:32:00 +0000

Did you know that free Zen Cart templates are available for your Zen Cart ecommerce store? Below is a list of websites which offer free Zen Cart templates that can be uploaded to your Zen Cart store to suit your particular business needs. There is absolutely no need to stick to the default Zen Cart classic green template when there are plenty of professional looking Zen Cart templates available free that will improve the look and professionalism of your Zen Cart website.

For screenshots and live demos of a variety of free Zen Cart templates check out this list which extends those free templates available on the official Zen Cart site. Happy zenning!

Zen Flavor
Choice of 2 free Zen Cart templates available. Compatible with Zen Cart 1.3.8 and 1.3.9.

12leaves.com
Specially designed templates compatible with Zen Cart 1.3.9a - 1.3.9h and Zen Cart 1.3.8 shopping cart engine. 2 styles to choose from and a variety of color schemes for your Zen Cart store.

Picaflor Azul
Choose between 9 free Zen Cart templates that are fully compatible with the latest versions of Zen Cart ecommerce store.

Kerrin Hardy
Choose between the clean and simple 2 column Simply Kerrin Zen Cart Template suitable for zen Cart store owners using Zen Cart version 1.39 or the Zesty Kerrin which is a single column free Zen Cart template optimized to improve online shoppers buying experience.

zen-cart-power.net
A couple of free Zen Cart templates available in several styles and a variety of colors to choose from. Suitable for any Zen Cart store running Zen Cart versions 1.3.8 and 1.3.9.

Zen Cart Templates
Massive grouping of free Zen Cart templates from many different contributors available free to download. Zen Cart skins and Zen cart templates suitable for any version of a Zen Cart ecommerce shop.

For Zen Cart users who still have older versions of Zen Cart store installed there are still some free templates available at imakewebsites.com that are compatible with Zen Cart 1.3.0.1 through 1.3.7.

We hope you enjoyed this list of free skins and free templates for Zen Cart. Please check back often as more websites to find free Zen Cart themes and templates will be added as they become appear.

How to Change Orders Status Types in Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:13:00 +0000

In this Zen Cart tutorial you will learn how to change orders status so that it more closely reflects the process of handling a customer order.

By default Zen Cart (1.3 versions) come with 4 different orders status types or options:

Pending (default)
Processing
Delivered
Update

To my mind "delivered" is an inexact term. Most of us are shipping our goods to customers and we don't know whether they have been delivered till later down the track. Therefore, for clarity, it is a good idea to change "delivered" to read "shipped".

How To Change Orders Status in Zen Cart

Login to your Zen Cart Admin
Go to Localization > Orders Status
Click on the information icon to the right side of delivered
Choose the Edit button
Delete "Delivered" and type in "Shipped" in the text box
Click on the Update button to save your changes
Go to Customers > Orders
Choose a customer by clicking on the edit icon next to the customer's order
Scroll down to the bottom left of the page. You will now see that "Shipped" has become an option type that can be selected from the drop down menu

This simple Zen Cart tip will mean that your customers are clearer about what stage their order is at and you will receive less enquiries about when an order is likely to be received.

Set Main Page Category to Open on Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:32:00 +0000

In this Zen Cart tutorial you will learn how to set a category to display on the main page of your Zen Cart ecommerce store instead of the default main page so that your store always opens at that category.

There may be occasions when you want to display a particular category to customers on entering your store instead of the home page.

Consider the following scenarios -

Scenario 1
You run a book store and your most popular category is crime fiction. You decide to increase your sales by greeting customers with this category instead of the usual home page.

Scenario 2
Your picture books sales are flagging and you decide to discount your books by 5% to increase sales. Your category structure is "children's books > picture books". How do you set a subcategory to display on the home page by default?

How do you go about changing your main page to a chosen category? Follow these step by step instructions

Log into the admin page of your Zen Cart store
Open your online catalog and navigate to the category you wish to display on your main page when the customer first arrives. Look at the top of your browser to see what number has been assigned to the category. In this example the category number is 10 but you would use what the actual number is.

yourstore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=10

If you wish to use a subcategory then navigate to that subcategory and note the numbers. In this example it is 10_20. 10 being the top category and 20 the number assigned by Zen Cart to the subcategory

yourstore.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=10_20
Go to Configuration > Layout Settings
Scroll down to the Categories - Always Show on Main Page and set to 1. Click on the update button.
Then just below that line you will see Main Page - Opens with Category. Change that to corresponding number for the category you wish to show on the main page. For instance if your category number is 10 as in the previous example you would enter 10. If you wish to use a subcategory then you would change it to 10_20 in the previous subcategory example. You would of course need to use the correct category number for your store. Remember to click on the update button
Go to the online catalog and click on home and you will see that the main page of your store now opens with listings from your desired category.

In this Zen Cart tutorial I have shown you how to set your Zen Cart store to always open to show a particular category or subcategory. Enjoy!

Customize Store Meta Tags Zen Cart

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:15:00 +0000

In this Zen Cart tutorial article you will learn how to customize the site wide meta tags of your Zencart ecommerce store. This is an action that needs to be taken after installation so that any search engines crawling your site, index the correct site title, site tagline and keywords for your store rather than the default "Zen Cart - The Art of ECommerce" details.

NOTE: This article assumes you have already installed Zen Cart and have an FTP program installed to download and upload files within your site or can access file manager on your server to manage the Zen Cart files of your store.

How to Customize Store Wide Meta Tags on Zen Cart

Go to the home page of your newly installed store catalog and select view source in your browser. In Internet Explorer and Google Chrome you will find this under Tools > View Source
Scan lines 1 to 49. You will notice that there are a lot of references to Zen Cart and online shopping. In this tutorial we will be customizing lines around the 45-47 area so that the information reflects your store and is better SEO optimized
Using FTP download the meta_tags.php file from the includes/languages/english/meta_tags.php directory of your Zencart store
Open the meta_tags.php file using a text editor such as notepad and make the following edits to the file:
- Page Title
  
  define('TITLE', 'Zen Cart!');
  
  Change Zen Cart! to the name of your store eg 'Sue's Bookstore' Take care not to delete any inverted commas. Change the text inside the inverted commas only!
- Site Tagline
  
  define('SITE_TAGLINE', 'The Art of E-commerce');
  
  Change The Art of E-commerce to reflect your store requirements eg New Books at Discount Prices
- Custom Keywords
  
  define('CUSTOM_KEYWORDS', 'ecommerce, open source, shop, online shopping');
  
  Change the keywords ecommerce, open source, shop, online shopping to reflect the business of your store eg bookshop, bookstore, discount books, online bookstore
Save your changes to this meta_tags.php file
Using your FTP program or file manager on your server make a new directory called CUSTOM. If you already have a custom directory with a different name then you can skip this step. Be sure to keep the same naming conventions though throughout. If you don't have the directory create the new directory with the following path:

your_store/includes/languages/english/custom
Now upload the revised meta_tags.php file to this new directory. Please note it is important that you follow this method rather than overwriting the existing meta_tag.php file otherwise when you come to upgrade to a newer version of Zen Cart your file will get overwritten. This way you have all your customized files in a custom directory which is not affected by upgrades.
Refresh the home page of your store and admire the changes you have made by navigating Tools > View Source in your browser.

You now have SEO friendly meta tags that define the site title, site tagline and keywords for your entire site. Making these changes will help your site get properly indexed in search engines like Google.

You will also need to set up meta tags for categories and products on your Zen Cart store. I will be giving you some tips on how to do this in future Zen Cart tutorials so please follow me or add this site to your favorites for more free help in customizing Zen Cart.

Upgrade to Zen Cart v1.3.9g for Added Security

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:11:00 +0000

It is worth upgrading to the latest version of Zen Cart v1.3.9g ecommerce store to take advantage of the bug fixes particularly if you have a Paypal shipping module installed on your online shop.

The latest release of Zen Cart (v1.3.9g) contains a number of important security fixes so it is advisable to upgrade.

Before upgrading back up. If you have modified any core files you will need to keep a back up of these to avoid deletion in the upgrade process. Of course with the template override system modifying core file is generally unnecessary. Also ensure you back up your database before upgrading. If your store is heavily modified it is advisable to back up all files.

Download Zen Cart v1.3.9g at http://sourceforge.net/projects/zencart/files/

Details of changes to Zen Cart v1.3.9g for this release can be found on the Zen Cart Forum

Also note that there is a mistake in the change log documentation. Two additional files were changed that were not recorded:

/includes/classes/payment.php
/includes/modules/payment/paypal/tpl_ec_button.php

About Zen Cart Tutorials

noreply@blogger.com (The Whizz) — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:13:00 +0000

Find tutorials, hacks, tips and tweaks to help you modify and customize Zen Cart. Easy to understand beginner guides to help demystify the Zen Cart software.