This tutorial features the London Grunge zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

London Grunge by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration–> Shipping/Packaging.

Click on “Package Tare Small to Medium – added percentage:weight”, input the desired amount, and click on the “update” button.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Brighton Pets zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Brighton Pets by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Shipping/Packaging.

Click on “Enter the Maximum Package Weight you will ship”, enter the desired amount, and click on the “update” button.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Piccadilly Posh zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Piccadilly Posh by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Shipping/Packaging.

Click on “Postal Code”, input the desired number, and click on the “update” button.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Piccadilly Posh zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Piccadilly Posh by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Shipping/Packaging.

Click on “Country of Origin”, select the desired country, and click on the “update” button.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Apparel Boutique zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Apparel Boutique by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Shipping/Packaging.

Click on “Order Free Shipping 0 Weight Status”, select ’0′ to turn off, or ’1′ to turn on, and click on the “update” button.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Abbington Mega zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Abbington Mega by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration–> Stock

Click on “Subtract stock”, select “true”, and click on the “update” button.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Preston Elite zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Preston Elite by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Product Listing.

Click on “Product Listing – Columns Per Row”, set the number of columns in the box, and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Lancaster Lux zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here.:

Lancaster Lux by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration–> Stock

Click on “Check stock level”, Select “True”, or “False” to turn off, and click on the “update” button.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Lancaster Lux zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here.:

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration–> Product Listing

Click on “Include Product Listing Sub Categories Image”, Select “true” or “false”, and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Lancaster Lux zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Lancaster Lux by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Product Listing.

Click on “Include Product Listing Top Categories Image”, set to “true” to enable, or “false” to disable, and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Aberdeen Neutral zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Aberdeen Neutral by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Product Listing.

Click on “Include Product Listing Alpha Sorter Dropdown”, set it to “true” to enable, or “false” to disable, and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Aberdeen Neutral zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Aberdeen Neutral by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Product Listing.

Click on “Display Multiple Products Qty Box Status and Set Button Location”, set the sort order, or select “0″ to turn off, and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Lancaster Lux zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here.:

Lancaster Lux by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration–> Product Listing

Click on “Display Product Description”, type in the desired number of characters, or “0″ to turn it off, and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Alysa Rounded zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Alysa Rounded by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Product Listing.

Click on “Display Category/Manufacturer Filter (0=off; 1=on)”. Set to “1″ to enable, and to “0″ to disable the manufacturer filter, and click on the update button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Abbington Mega zen cart template by
Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can
download it for free here:

Abbington Mega by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration–> Product Listing

Click on “Display Product Add to Cart Button”select “0″ or “2″, and click on the update button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Cambridge Pro zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here.:

Cambridge Pro by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Product Listing

Click on “Display Product Quantity”, set the sort order as desired, or set it to “0″ to turn off, and click on the update button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Cambridge Pro zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Cambridge Pro by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Product Listing

Click on “Display Product Name”, set the sort order in the box or set to “0″ to turn it off, and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Abbington Mega zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Abbington Mega by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration–> Product Listing

Click on “Product Listing – Layout Style”, Select “Columns”, and click on the update button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Abbington Mega zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here.:

Abbington Mega by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration –> Product Listing

Click on “Display Product Image”, add the sort order to move the image or “0″ to turn off the product image, and click on the update button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Abbington Mega zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here.:

Abbington Mega Free Zen Cart Template by Picaflor Azul

The best position for the previous/next navigation is at the top because it is the most intuitive for shoppers. But, zen cart has native options to show the previous/next navigation also at the bottom of the product info page and at the top and bottom of the product info page.

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration -> Product Info

Click on “Previous Next – Navigation Bar Position”, select “1= Top of Page”, “2= Bottom of Page,” or “3= Both Top and Bottom of Page” and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Abbington Mega zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here.:

Abbington Mega Free Zen Cart Template by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration -> Product Info

Click on “Previous Next – Navigation Includes Category Name and Image Status”, select “1= Category Name only” and click on the “update” button.

Navigate to your store and click on the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Abbington Mega zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here.:

Abbington Mega Free Zen Cart Template by Picaflor Azul

In your zen cart admin go to Catalog -> Categories/Products

Navigate to your free shipping product and click on the green “e” icon

Scroll down to “Product is Virtual” select “Yes, Skip Shipping Address”. Then click on the “preview” button. On the next screen click on the “update” button.

Do this for all of your free shipping products.

Now when your customer buys this (these) product(s) the checkout shipping page will be skipped and they will be taken directly from the shopping cart page to the checkout payment page.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Apparel Boutique zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it you can download it for free here.

If you don’t have any products on special see this tutorial for instructions on adding specials to zen cart:

Easy Help Zen Cart Tutorial: How to Create a Special for a Product

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration -> Index Listing

Click on “Show Speical Products on Main Page“, select a sort order, and click on the “update” button.

Go to your home page and refresh your browser to see the change.

If you need help with your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features one of our free zen cart templates. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your Admin and go to Admin -> Configuration -> Product Listing

Click on “Display Product Model”, set to “0″, and click on the “Update” button.

Navigate to your zen cart website and hit the “refresh” button to see the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features one of our free zen cart templates. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your Admin and go to Admin -> Configuration -> Product Listing

Click on “Display Product Manufacturer Name”, set to “0″, and click on the “Update” button.

Navigate to your zen cart website and hit the “refresh” button to see the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

If you need a great template for your zen cart website download them for free here.

1. Log into your Admin and go to Admin -> Modules -> Shipping

Click on “Per Unit”, and click on the “Install” button.

Complete the settings as follows and click on the “update” button:

A. Enable Per Weight Unit Shipping — “true”

B. Shipping Cost per Unit — “1″

C. Handling Fee — enter your handling fee amount or leave it set to 0

D. Handling Per Order or Per Box–select “order” or “box”

E. Tax Class — select a tax class or leave it at “none”

F. Tax Basis — select “shipping”, “payment”, or “store”

G. Shipping Zone — select a shippiong zone or leave it at “none”

H. Sort Order — enter a sort order

In your admin go to Configuration -> Shipping/Packaging

Select “Package Tare Small to Medium – added percentage:weight” and set to “0:0″

In your zen cart admin go to Catalog -> Categories/Products

Go through each product and edit the “Products Shipping Weight” to be the shipping cost for that item. So, for example, if the shipping cost is $5.00, set the shipping weight field for that product to 5. Click on the “preview” button. On the next screen click on the “update” button.

In your zen cart admin go to Catalog -> Product Types

Click on “Product – General” and click on the “edit layout” button

Click on “Show Weight”, select “false” and click on the “update” button

In the zen cart admin go to Configuration -> Product Listing

Click on “Display Product Weight” set to “0″ and click on the “update” button

In your zen cart admin go to Configuration -> New Listing

Click on “Display Product Weight”, set to “0″ and click on the “update” button

Repeat for Configuration -> Featured Listing and Configuration -> All Listing

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Pink Boutique free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your Admin and go to Admin -> Configuration -> EZ Pages Settings

Click on “EZ-Pages Footer Link Separator”, add the code for the new link separator for the EZ pages footer links, and click on the “Update” button.

Navigate to your zen cart website and hit the “refresh” button to see the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Avonlee Contempo free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your Admin and go to Admin -> Configuration -> EZ Pages Settings

Click on “EZ-Pages Header Link Separator”, add the code for the new link separator for the EZ pages header links, and click on the “Update” button.

Navigate to your zen cart website and hit the “refresh” button to see the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Apparel Boutique free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Tools -> EZ Pages

Find the ID number of the page that you want to turn off display of the footer hand column.

Go to Admin -> Configuration -> EZ Pages Settings

Click on “EZ-Pages Pages to disable headers”, add the ID number of the EZ Page, and click on the “Update” button.

Navigate to your EZ page on your zen cart website and hit the “refresh” button to see the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Andover Modern free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Tools -> EZ Pages

Find the ID number of the page that you want to turn off display of the footer hand column.

Go to Admin -> Configuration -> EZ Pages Settings

Click on “EZ-Pages Pages to disable footers”, add the ID number of the EZ Page, and click on the “Update” button.

Navigate to your EZ page on your zen cart website and hit the “refresh” button to see the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Ashley Pink free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Tools -> EZ Pages

Find the ID number of the page that you want to turn off display of the left and/or right hand column.

Go to Admin -> Configuration -> EZ Pages Settings

Click on “EZ-Pages Pages to disable left-column”, add the ID number of the EZ Page, and click on the “Update” button.

Repeat the process for the right hand column if you want to disable it as well.

Navigate to your EZ page on your zencart website and hit the “refresh” button to see the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Alysa Rounded free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Customer Details

Click on “Date of Birth”, select “true”, and click on the update button.

Go to Admin -> Configuration -> Miminum Values

Click on “Date of Birth” set the number to “0″ and click on the “Update” button.

In your favorite plain text editor, open includes/languages/your-custom-template/english.php file. If there isn’t already an override for that file, copy the includes/languages/english.php file to includes/languages/your-custom-template/english.php. On or around line 193 find this code:

This tutorial features the Alysa Rounded free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Customer Details

Click on “Date of Birth”, select “false”, and click on the update button.

Navigate to your create account page and hit the “refresh” button to see the date of birth verification removed.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the All Business free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Shipping/Packaging

Click on “Shipping Estimator Display Settings for Shopping Cart”, select “2″, and click on the update button.

Navigate to your shopping cart page and hit the “refresh” button to see the shipping estimatore added.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Step One is to follow the tutorial here to add the About Us page to your Admin -> Configuration -> Define Pages Status menu. The status must be set to “1″ for the page to show on your sitemap:

Easy Help Zen Cart Tutorial: How To Add About Us Page to Configuration – Define Page Status

Next, in your favorite plain text editor, open includes/templates/override-directory/templates/tpl_site_map_default.php file. If the file is not there, create an override for it by copying the includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_site_map_default.php to includes/templates/override-directory/templates/tpl_site_map_default.php.

At the end of the file, just before the last tag, add the following code:

<?php if (DEFINE_ABOUT_US_STATUS <= ’1′) { ?>
<li><?php echo ‘<a href=”‘ . zen_href_link(FILENAME_ABOUT_US) . ‘”>’ . BOX_INFORMATION_ABOUT_US . ‘</a>’; ?></li>
<?php } ?>

***This is a php file and MUST be edited in a plain text editor. If you try to edit this file in any type of wysiwyg editor, the code will be corrupted and when you insert the file back into your zen cart it will break your entire site.***

Save the file.

Navigate to your sitemap page and hit the “refresh” button to see the page added.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

• Enable the Defined About Us Page 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

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Install SQL Patches

Paste this in the box and click on the Send button:


INSERT INTO `configuration` VALUES ('', 'Define About Us Status', 'DEFINE_ABOUT_US_STATUS', '1', 'Enable the Defined About Us Link/Text?0= Link ON, Define Text OFF1= Link ON, Define Text ON2= Link OFF, Define Text ON3= Link OFF, Define Text OFF', 25, 90, '', '', NULL, 'zen_cfg_select_option(array(''0'', ''1'', ''2'', ''3''),');


Go to Admin -> Configuration -> Define Page Satus to see the About Us page in the list:

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Error Message: 0 ERROR_DB_NOT_CONNECTED

This common error message is most likely caused by:

1. includes/configure.php database settings don’t match properly to your website database credentials
2. if you have phpBB installed and the link “active” in Zen Cart, then your phpBB database is down, or the config.php in the phpBB folder may have invalid info or permissions are not set to readable

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Admin – Configuration – Shipping/Packaging. General shipping information including locations, weight and size limits, etc.

Configuration – Shipping/Packaging

• Country of Origin: Set this to the country of origin to be used in shipping quotes.
• Postal Code: Set this to the postal code of the store to be used in shipping quotes. For zip codes within the US, only use your five digit zip code.
• Enter the Maximum Package Weight you will ship: Set this to the maximum weight limit for a single package.
• Package Tare Small to Medium – added percentage:weight: Set this to define a percent of product weight as packaging. This is expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. First number is a % of the weight of that will be your small package weight. Second is your small package weight maximum or upper limit.
• Larger packages – added packaging percentage:weight: Set this to define a percent of product weight as packaging. This is expressed as two numbers separated by a colon. First number is a % of the weight of that will be your large package weight. Second is your large package weight average or maximum or upper limit.
• Display Number of Boxes and Weight Status: Options are: 0 = off, 1 = Boxes Only, 2 = Weight Only
  , 3 = Both Boxes and Weight.
• Order Free Shipping 0 Weight Status: If there is no weight to the order is shipping free?
• Shipping Estimator Display Settings for Shopping Cart: Set whether a shipping estimator link is displayed in the Shopping Cart or not. Options are: 0 = Off, 1 = Display as Button on Shopping Cart Page, 2 = Display as Listing on Shopping Cart Page.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Admin – Configuration – Customer Details. This menu controls which options will be included in the User Login/Registration page and also on the My Account page.

Configuration – Customer Details

• Email Salutation: Set this to true to display Email Salutation choice during account creation and with account information.
• Date of Birth: Set this to true to display Date of Birth field during account creation and with account information.
• Company:Set this to true to display Company field during account creation and with account information.
• Address Line 2: Set this to true to display Address Line 2 field during account creation and with account information.
• State: Set this to true to display State field during account creation and with account information.
• State – Always display as pulldown?: When State field is displayed, should it always be a pulldown menu?
• Create Account Default Country ID: The country that is set to default for the create account page.
• Fax Number: Set this to true to display Fax Number field during account creation and with account information, set to true or false.
• Show Newsletter Checkbox: Show Newsletter Checkbox during account signup. Can be set to either 0 (off), 1 (display unchecked) or 2 (display checked). Defaulting this to accepted may be in violation of certain regulations for your state or country.
• Customer Default Email Preference: Set the customer default email preference. Can be set to either 0 (text) or 1 (HTML).
• Customer Product Notification Status: Customer should be asked about product notifications after checkout success. Can be set to 0 (never ask) or 1 (ask, unless already set to global).
• Customer Shop Status – View Shop and Prices: Set whether the customer must be approved to shop. If you wish customers to login to see prices, it is recommended that you use option 2 so that search engine spiders can index your pages. Options are: 0 = Not required, 1 = Must login to browse, 2 = May browse but no prices unless logged in, 3 = Showroom Only
• Customer Approval Status – Authorization Pending: Set whether the customer must be authorized to shop. If you want a restricted shop, it is recommended that option 2 or 3 be used so that search engine spiders can index your pages. Options are: 0 = Not required, 1 = Must be Authorized to Browse, 2 = May browse but no prices unless Authorized, 3 = Customer May Browse and May see Prices but Must be Authorized to Buy.
• Customer Authorization: filename: Customer authorization filename.
• Customer Authorization: Hide Header: Hide the header before customer authorization.
• Customer Authorization: Hide Column Left: Hide the left column before customer authorization.
• Customer Authorization: Hide Column Right: Hide the right column before customer authorization.
• Customer Authorization: Hide Footer: Hide the footer before customer authorization.
• Customer Authorization: Hide Prices: Hide the product prices before customer authorization.
• Customers Referral Status: Set if a customers referral code is created, and if so, how it is created. Once the customers referral code has been set it can only be changed in the Customer Admin. Options are: 0 = Off, 1 = 1st Discount Coupon Code used, 2 = Customer can add during create account or edit if blank.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Admin – Configuration – Images settings. Here you can control the sizes of images on each page and type of content in your zen cart.

Configuration – Images

• Small Image Width: This controls the width of images in side boxes.
• Small Image Height: This controls the heigth of images in side boxes.
• Heading Image Width – Admin: The width, in pixels, of heading images in the Admin. This adjusts the spacing on the pages in the Admin pages or could be used to add images to the heading in the Admin.
• Heading Image Height – Admin: The heigth, in pixels, of heading images in the Admin. This adjusts the spacing on the pages in the Admin pages or could be used to add images to the heading in the Admin.
• Subcategory Image Width: The width, in pixels, of subcategory images.
• Subcategory Image Height: The height, in pixels, of subcategory images.
• Calculate Image Size: Set this to true if you want your image sizes to be calculated.
• Image Required: Enable this to display broken images. A great tool for development.
• Image – Shopping Cart Status: Set this to 1 to show product images in the Shopping Cart.
• Image – Shopping Cart Width: The width, in pixels, of product images displayed in the Shopping Cart.
• Image – Shopping Cart Height: The height, in pixels, of product images displayed in the Shopping Cart.
• Category Icon Image Width – Product Info Pages: The width, in pixels, of category icons displayed on the Product Info pages.
• Category Icon Image Height – Product Info Pages: The height, in pixels, of category icons displayed on the Product Info pages.
• Product Info – Image Width: The width, in pixels, of product images displayed on the Product Info page.
• Product Info – Image Height: The height, in pixels, of product images displayed on the Product Info page.
• Product Info – Image Medium Suffix: Suffix for medium sized images.
• Product Info – Image Large Suffix: Suffix for large sized images.
• Product Info – Number of Additional Images per Row: Number of additional product images to display per row.
• Image – Product Listing Width: The width, in pixels, of the product listing image.
• Image – Product Listing Height: The height, in pixels, of the product listing image.
• Image – Product New Listing Width: The width, in pixels, of the new product listing image.
• Image – Product New Listing Height: The height, in pixels, of the new product listing image.
• Image – New Products Width: The width, in pixels, of the new product image.
• Image – New Products Height: The height, in pixels, of the new product image.
• Image – Featured Products Width: The width, in pixels, of the featured product image.
• Image – Featured Products Height: The height, in pixels, of the featured product image.
• Image – Product All Listing Width: The width, in pixels, of the all products product image.
• Image – Product All Listing Height: The height, in pixels, of the all products product image.
• Product Image – No Image Status: Use automatic No Image when none is added to the product.
• Product Image – No Image picture: The name of the image in /images/ to use as the No Image picture.
• Image – Use Proportional Images on Products and Categories: Use proportional images on products and categories. (Force image to keep its original proportions and fit inside display dimensions; width or height will be smaller as required.)

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Admin – Configuration – Maximum Values settings.

Configuration – Maximum Values

• Address Book Entries: Maximum number of Address Book entries a customer is permitted to have.
• Search Results Per Page: Maximum number of products to list on a Search Result page before showing next page navigation.
• Prev/Next Navigation Page Links: Maximum number of number links displayed in the next page navigation section.
  This number should be small, but not less than three.
• Products on Special: Maximum number of products on special to display in the “Specials for this Month” center box.
• New Products Module: Maximum number of new products to display in a category in the “New Products” center box.
• Upcoming Products: Maximum number of upcoming products to display in the “Upcoming Products” center box listing.
• Manufacturers List – Scroll Box Size/Style: Maximum number of manufacturers names to be displayed in the manufacturers sidebox. Setting this to 1 or 0 will display a dropdown list instead of the scrollbox.
• Manufacturers List – Verify Product Exist: Verify that at least one product exists and is active for the manufacturer name to show in the Manufacturers sidebox.
• Music Genre List – Scroll Box Size/Style: Number of music genre names to be displayed in the music genre sidebox. Setting this to 1 or 0 will display a dropdown list.
• Record Company List – Scroll Box Size/Style: Number of record company names to be displayed in the scroll box window. Setting this to 1 or 0 will display a dropdown list.
• Length of Record Company Name: Maximum length of Record Company Name to display in Record Companies sidebox. Longer names will be truncated.
• Length of Music Genre Name: Maximum length of Music Genre Name to display in Music Genres sidebox. Longer names will be truncated.
• Credit Card Owner Name: Minimum required length of the Credit Card Owner Name field when customers are entering payment information.
• Length of Manufacturers Name: Maximum length of Manufacturers Name to display in the Manufacturers sidebox. Longer names will be truncated with an elipsis (…).
• New Product Reviews Per Page: Maximum number of product reviews to display on each page before showing next page navigation.
• Random Product Reviews For Box: Maximum number of random product reviews to rotate in the Reviews sidebox.
• Random New Products For Box: Maximum number of random new products to display in the New Products sidebox.
• Random Products On Special For Box: Maximum number of random specials to display in the Specials sidebox.
• Categories To List Per Row: Maximum number of categories to list per row on the Categories pages.
• New Products Listing- Number Per Page: Maximum number of product listings per page on the New Products pages before showing next page navigation.
• Best Sellers For Box: Maximum number of best sellers to display in Best Sellers sidebox.
• Also Purchased Products: Maximum number of products to display in the “This Customer Also Purchased” center box.
• Recent Purchases Box- NOTE- box is disabled: Maximum number of products to display in the Recent Purchases sidebox.
• Customer Order History List Per Page: Maximum number of orders to display in the order history list in My Account.
• Maximum Display of Customers on Customers Page: Maximum number of customers to display each Customers page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Maximum Display of Orders on Orders Page: Maximum number of orders to display on each Orders page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Maximum Display of Products on Reports: Maximum number of products to display per page on reports in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Maximum Categories Products Display List: Maximum number of products to list per page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Products Attributes – Option Names and Values Display: Maximum number of option names and option values to display on the Products Attributes page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Products Attributes – Attributes Controller Display: Maximum number of attributes to display on the Attributes Controller page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Products Attributes – Downloads Manager Display: Maximum number of attributes downloads to display on the Downloads Manager page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Featured Products – Number to Display Admin: Maximum number of featured products to list per page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Maximum Display of Featured Products – Main Page: Maximum number of featured products to display on the main page before showing next page navigation.
• Maximum Display of Featured Products Page: Maximum number of featured products to display per page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Products Listing- Number Per Page: Maximum number of products to list per page on the main page before showing next page navigation.
• Random Featured Products For Box: Maximum number of random featured products to display in Featured Products sidebox.
• Maximum Display of Specials Products – Main Page: Maximum number of special products to list on main page before showing next page navigation.
• New Product Listing – Limited to …: Limit the New Product Listing to: 0 = All desc, 1 = Current Month, 30 = 30 days, 60 = 60 Days, 90 = 90 Days, 120 = 120 Days
• Maximum Display of Products All Page: Maximum number of products to list per page on the All Products page before showing next page navigation.
• Maximum Display of Language Flags in Language Side Box: Maximum number of language flags to display per row in the Languages sidebox.
• Maximum File Upload Size: Maximum file size for uploads in bytes. This threshold is also dependent on the PHP setting for your server for maximum-upload-size. The lower of the two numbers will be used. Work with your host to change the PHP setting if needed.
• Allowed Filename Extensions for uploading: The permissible filetypes (filename extensions) to be allowed when files are uploaded to your site by customers. Separate multiple values with commas (,). Do not include the dot (.).
• Maximum Orders Detail Display on Admin Orders Listing: Maximum number of Order Details in the Admin before showing next page navigation. 0 = Unlimited.
• Maximum PayPal IPN Display on Admin Listing: Number of records to show on the PayPal™ IPN Listing page in the Admin before showing next page navigation.
• Maximum Display Columns Products to Multiple Categories Manager: Maximum display columns in the Products to Multiple Categories Manager in the Admin.
• Maximum Display EZ-Pages: Number of EZ-Pages records to display in the Admin before showing next page navigation.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Admin – Configuration – Minimum Values settings.

Configuration – Minimum Values

• First Name: Minimum required length of the First Name field.
• Nick Name: Minimum required length of the Nick Name field. The Nick Name field is used only when connecting the store to a related support forum such as phpBB and becomes their username there.
• Last Name: Minimum required length of the Last Name field.
• Date of Birth: Minimum required length of the Date of Birth, if the field is enabled. Set it to 0 to disable the field length checking. Date-format validation is done separately.
• E-Mail Address: Minimum required length of the Email Address field.
• Street Address: Minimum required length of the Street Address field.
• Company: Minimum required length of the Company field.
• Post Code: Minimum required length the of Post Code field when.
• City: Minimum required length of the City field.
• State: Minimum required length of the State field.
• Telephone Number: Minimum required length of the Telephone Number field
• Password: Minimum required length of the Password field.
• Credit Card Owner Name: Minimum required length of the Credit Card Owner Name field when customers are entering payment information.
• Credit Card Number: Minimum required length of the Credit Card Number field when customers are entering their payment information.
• Credit Card CVV Number: Minimum required length of the Credit Card CVV Number field when customers are entering their payment information.
• Product Review Text: Minimum required length of the Product Review Text field.
• Best Sellers: Minimum number of Best Sellers which must be in the database for the Best Sellers sidebox to show.
• Also Purchased Products: The minimum number of products to display in the “This Customer Also Purchased” center box.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Admin – Configuration – My Store settings.

Configuration – My Store

• Store Name: The name of your store that is displayed on certain store pages and emails. This is set by you during installation, but can be edited at any time.
• Store Owner:The store owner’s name that is displayed in the from field of any email that is sent from the site and on various store pages. This is set by you during installation, but can be edited at any time.
• Country: The country from where the store is located. This is set by you during installation, but can be edited at any time.
• Zone: The zone from which the store is based. Tax and shipping calculations are based on this value and it is displayed on various store pages and emails. This zone may be used for shipping criteria. This is set by you during installation, but can be edited at any time.
• Expected Sort Order: The column the Expected Products center box is sorted by. Can be set to either products_name or date_expected.
• Switch To Default Language Currency: Automatically switch to the language’s currency when it is switched. Can be set to true or false.
• Language Selector: Should the default language be based on the store preferences, or the customer’s browser settings? Can be set to Default or Browser.
• Display Cart After Adding Product: If set to true the customer will be taken to the Shopping Cart page immediately after adding a product to their cart. If set to false the customer will stay on the product info page the Shopping Cart box will change, and a message will pop up acknowledging that an item has been added to the cart.
• Default Search Operator: Default method of the store search.
• Store Address and Phone: This is the store name, address and phone number used on printable documents and displayed online (used by the Money Order payment module, as an example, to direct the customer as to where to send their payment).
• Show Category Counts: Show the number or products in each category and subcategories beside the category name.
• Tax Decimal Places: Pad the tax amount this amount of decimal places. For example, if the amount of tax was $2 and tax decimal places was set to 2, it would display as $2.00.
• Display Prices with Tax: Display product prices with tax included or without tax included.
• Display Prices with Tax in Admin: Display product prices with tax included or without tax included in the Admin section.
• Basis of Product Tax: Calculate product tax based on: Shipping – Based on customer’s shipping address, Billing – Based on customer’s billing address, or Store – Based on store address if billing/shipping zone equals store zone.
• Basis of Shipping Tax: On what basis is shipping tax calculated? Options are: Shipping – Based on customer’s shipping address, Billing – Based on customer’s billing address, Store – Based on store address if billing/shipping zone equals store zone.
• Sales Tax Display Status: Always show sales tax, even when amount is 0. Can be set to 0 (off) or 1 (on).
• Store Status: Status of the store. Options are: 0 – Normal Store, 1 – Showcase no prices, 2 – Showcase with prices.
• Admin Session Time Out in Seconds: Number of seconds that the Admin session will last without activity in the Admin before it expires.
• Admin Set max_execution_time for processes: Number of seconds the max_execution_time of processes should be.
• Show if version update available : Automatically check to see if a new version of Zen Cart is available when entering Admin for the first time of each session.
• Server Uptime: Display the server uptime on the Server Info page.
• Missing Page Check: Controls whether a page not found error is redirected to the index page. It doesn’t check for missing pages or show a custom page not found error page. If such errors are redirected to the index page, the content of this page can be controlled independently of the normal index page using the Errors and Missing Products Page section of Admin – Configuration – Index Listing.
• cURL Proxy Status: If your host requires that you use a proxy for cURL communication set this to true.
• cURL Proxy Address: If you have GoDaddy hosting or other hosting services that require use of a proxy to talk to external sites via cURL, enter their proxy address here. Go here for a list of our top recommended web hosts:

  Zen Cart Hosting

• HTML Editor: HTML/Rich-Text editor used for composing admin-related emails, newsletters, and product descriptions. Can be set to NONE or HTMLAREA.
• Enable phpBB linkage? Set Zen Cart to synchronize new account information with your already-installed phpBB forum
• Show Category Counts – Admin: When you are viewing the category list in Admin, you can either see the product count for the categories or not. Turn this off to dramatically reduce the time it takes for the page to load, especially if you have a large number of categories.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Extras menu options.

Extras

• Record Artists: View, add, edit and delete recording artists.
• Record Companies: View, add, edit and delete record companies.
• Music Genre: View, add, edit and delete music genres.
• Media Manager: View, add, edit and delete collection names, which may be assigned to products.
• Media Types: View, add, edit and delete media type names and media types (like MP3, WAV etc.).

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Gift Certificate/Coupons menu options.

Gift Certificate/Coupons

• Coupon Admin: Create and manage discount coupons.
• Gift Certificates Queue: View and release gift certificates which have been issued.
• Mail Gift Certificate: Generate gift certificates and issue them by e-mail.
• Gift Certificates sent: View gift vouchers which have been sent.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart Templates

The zen cart admin is packed with functionality. Here is a handy overview of all of the Tools menu options.

Tools

• Template Selection: Assigns a template to a language as the default for that language.
• Layout Boxes Controller: Turn on or off the side boxes and set the order that they will be displayed.
• Banner Manager: Manage banners.
• Send Email: Compose a plain text email message to be sent to a customer or a group of customers.
• Newsletter Manager: Compose an HTML (with optional plain text) email message to be sent to a customer or a group of customers.
• Server/Version Info: Information about your web server and PHP.
• Who’s Online: View information about the users who are currently using your site.
• Admin Settings: View information about users who have administrator privileges, or to grant administrator privileges to users.
• Email Welcome: View the welcome message a user is sent when they first register for an account.
• Store Manager: Delete information from activity logs if they become too large. Backup is recommended.
• Developers Tool Kit: Search system files. A must know tool for customization.
• EZ-Pages: Add, sort, and remove EZ-Pages pages (an easy way to add content to your site).
• Define Pages Editor: Edit define pages.
• Install SQL Patches: Run SQL commands on your zen cart database.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Reports

• Products Viewed: List of the number of views for all products.
• Products Purchased: List of products which have been purchased.
• Customer Orders-Total: List of all orders which have been placed.
• Products Low Stock: List of items sorted by number available in stock, low to high.
• Customers Referral: List of all orders having a referral or coupon code.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Localization

• Currencies: Add new currencies or edit existing ones.
• Languages: Add additional languages to your Zen Cart.
• Orders Status: Add names of new order status entries, edit existing order status name entries, or delete an order status name entry.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Locations / Taxes

• Countries: Defines every country and ISO-3166 2-letter and 3-letter country code. Also defines the address format for letters sent by postal mail.
• Zones: Defines subdivisions of countries such as states/provinces or counties for tax or shipping purposes.
• Zones Definitions: Create a zone for taxes, payments, or shipping modules.
• Tax Classes: Used to differentiate between the type of tax calculations that apply to products.
• Tax Rates: Create a specific tax rate for a zone.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Customers

• Customers: Go here to manage customers. You can edit customer information, delete customers, and email customers.
• Orders: Go here to manage orders. You can edit order information, delete orders, and print invoices and packing slips.
• Group Pricing: Create, edit, and delete pricing groups.
• PayPal IPN: Go here to view paypal payment notifications. Sort by payment status. You can also view the order associated with the payment from this page.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Modules

• Payment: Install, edit or disable payment processing systems. Go here to set up paypal payments, authorizenet, check/mo, etc.
• Shipping: Install, edit or disable shipping methods. Go here to set up shipping with usps, ups, flat rate, etc.
• Order Total: Install, edit or disable checkout total items. Go here to set up global free shipping, enable gift certificates, etc.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Catalog

• Categories/Products: Create, manage, and edit products and categories.
• Product Types: View and edit product types. Go here to remove elements from the product info page such as model number, weight, etc.
• Products Price Manager: Edit product pricing by category. Go here to add quantity discounts.
• Option Name Manager: View, edit, add and delete option names for product attributes (size, color, etc).
• Option Value Manager: View, edit, add and delete option values for product attributes such as black, white, red, or small, medium. large.
• Attributes Controller: — View and edit product attributes.
• Downloads Manager: View and edit certain information about downloadable items.
• Option Name Sorter: View and edit sort order for option names.
• Option Value Sorter: Change sort order for option values.
• Manufacturers: View, add, edit or delete manufacturer information.
• Reviews: Edit, enable, or delete customer product reviews
• Specials: View, add, edit or delete specials. These will show in the specials sidebox or centerbox and on the specials items page.
• Featured Products: View, add, edit or delete featured products. These will show in the featured sidebox or centerbox and on the featured items page.
• SaleMaker: View, add, edit or delete sales.
• Products Expected View or edit expected products. These will show in the upcoming products centerbox.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Configuration

• My Store: Basic information about your zen cart store.
• Minimum Values: Go here to set the minimum number of characters required for various text input fields and minimum number of also purchased products and bestsellers.
• Maximum Values: Go here to set the maximum values for various items including number of product per page, number of new, featured, or specials, number to appear in sidebox, etc.
• Images Controls sizes of images on various pages.
• Customer Details: Go here to set options included in User Login/Registration and My Account pages.
• Shipping/Packaging: Set up general shipping information including locations, weight and size limits, etc.
• Product Listing: Controls the appearance of the main Product Listing pages.
• Stock: Set the various options regarding zen cart stock control.
• Logging: Controls how events are logged.
• E-Mail Options: Set the various email configuration options used by zen cart.
• Attribute Settings: Controls how product attributes are handled, including downloadable products. Turn off some options here to speed up your site loading time.
• GZip Compression: Controls compression settings if the information is transmitted to the user’s web browser in compressed format.
• Sessions: Information about user sessions (such as whether they are stored in a file on the server or in a cookie on the browser).
• Regulations: Provision of terms and conditions for customers. For example, you can require that your customers have read your website terms and conditions before they can checkout.
• GV Coupons: Various configuration options for the Gift Voucher module (gift certificates and coupons).
• Credit Cards: Go here to set which credit cards you would like to accept.
• Product Info: Basic options controlling elements to include on Product Info page. Includes setting such as previous/next button position, product reviews require approval, etc.
• Layout Settings: Controls certain layout options such as turning on column left or column right, setting which pages to show breadcrumbs, etc.
• Website Maintenance: Controls how your store appears to customers when it is down for maintenance.
• New Listing: How and where certain product listing information for new listings are displayed.
• Featured Listing How and where certain product listing information for featured listings are displayed.
• All Listing: How and where certain product listing information for all listings are displayed.
• Index Listing: Set new products, featured products, specials, upcoming products show on main page, or on empty shopping cart page, or below product listings.
• Define Page Status: Controls whether define pages editor text is used and whether a link to a certain page is displayed.
• EZ-Pages Settings: Configure ezpages to show in header or footer, define separator between the links, etc.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Apparel Boutique free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. You can download it for free here:

Download the Apparel Boutique free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

In your favorite image editing program, create your background image. Upload it to the includes/templates/your-custom-template/images folder.

In your favorite plain text editor, open the includes/templates/your-custom-template/css/stylesheet.css

At the top of the file, usually line 1, find this code:


body {margin: 0;font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 62.5%;color: #888787;background: #fff;}


Change the code to:


body {margin: 0;font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;font-size: 62.5%;color: #888787;background-image: url(../images/your-background-image-name.jpg);}


Go to your website and hit the “refresh” button to see the change.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the All Business free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart store, you can download it for free here:

All Business free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

Log into your zen cart admin and go to Catalog -> Product Types.

Select the product type that you are using. Most likely it will be “Product – General” and click on the “edit layout” button.

Click on “Show Date Available”, select “false” and click on the “update” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Aberdeen Neutral free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart store, you can download it for free here:

Aberdeen Neutral free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

Log into your zen cart admin and go to Catalog -> Product Types.

Select the product type that you are using. Most likely it will be “Product – General” and click on the “edit layout” button.

Click on “Show Date Added”, select “false” and click on the “update” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Andover Modern free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart store, you can download it for free here:

Andover Modern free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

• Header: The basic zen cart header elements include the logo, tagline, header search, category tabs navigation, top ez pages navigation, and main navigation menu.
• Sideboxes: There are many sideboxes available in the default zen cart installation. The most popular are: categories, search, reviews, information, more information, and shopping cart. The product related sideboxes are: best sellers, featured, order history, what’s new, specials, manufacturers, manufacturers info, product notifications.
• Footer:The basic zen cart footer elements include banners, ip address, and copyright message.
• Centerboxes: These include featured, specials, new products, and upcoming products.
• Main Page: The define_main_page.php layout can be edited using the define pages editor in the zen cart admin. Since this is a php file it is advisable to use the “plain-text” editor when editing this file.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. Use this program to unzip the zen cart file after you have downloaded it to your computer.

7-Zip

2. Use this FTP (file transfer protocol) program to safely transfer files from your computer to your web server.

Filezilla

3. Use this plain text source code editor to make edits to zen cart files.

Notepad++

4. Use this image editing program to create or edit any images that you need for your design or to resize/optimize your product images.

GIMP

5. A good file comparison tool is a must for upgrades and installing modules that make changes to files that you have already modified.

Winmerge

6. My most recommended database manipulation tool is phpMyAdmin. If your host does not offer this, ask them to install it for you. If they won’t, it is a good idea to switch hosts. See our list of recommended zen cart hosts here.

phpMyAdmin

7. Use these css and xhtml validators to make sure that there are no problems with your code before taking your site live. Bad code is not search engine friendly.

CSS Validation Service

W3C Markup Validation Service

8. Set up a local web server to develop your site offline before taking it live.

XAMPP

9. Use this tool to make sure that your downloaded zip files (modules, templates, etc.) are not corrupted.

HashTab

10. Don’t know the first thing about xhtml, css, php, mysql? Follow these tutorials and gain important basic knowledge before attempting to customize your zen cart site.

W3 Schools

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. How do I add my own logo?

How to Add Your Logo

2. How do I change or delete the sales message or tagline?

How to Change or Delete the Tagline Text Under the Logo

3. How can I change or delete the “Congratulations! You have successfully installed…” ?

How to Change the “Congratulations! You have successfully installed…”

4. How can I Change the “Welcome Guest …” Message?

Change “Welcome Guest! Would you like to log yourself in?”

5. How can I remove the “Home” link in the middle of the main page next to the categories sidebox?

How to Turn Off Breadcrumb Navigation on the Main Page

6. How can I change the buttons?

How to Change the Buttons or Create a New Button Set?

7. How can I change the categories heading or any sidebox heading?

Change the Name of the Categories (or any) Sidebox Heading

8. How can I make a backup copy of my zen cart?

How to Backup Your Zen Cart

9. How can I add my site title to the browser bar?

How to Change My Browser Bar It Says “Zen Cart!, The Art of …”

10. How can I add my logo to printed invoiced and packing slips?

How to Add Your Logo to Invoices, Packing Slips, Etc.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Since this release is BETA software, DON”T USE IT ON A LIVE SITE!!!

The BETA release has a two main purposes. The first is to identify any major bugs which can be fixed before the final release. The second is to give add-on module authors a head-start on updating their modules for compatibility. All of our free zen cart templates have been tested and are fully compatible with 1.3.5. These versions are available already for download from our web site, and will be available for download on the zen cart site as soon as the updates have been posted.

The BETA release is also intended to bridge some time between PA-DSS certification submission and completion of the final certification steps.

It is also intended to bridge some time between PA-DSS certification submission and completion of final certification steps. The BETA period will last until the development team deems that major bugs are identified and handled and/or the PA-DSS certification process is complete. This might mean a few weeks, or many weeks.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS

Zen Cart v1.5.0BETA requires the following minimum server configuration:

• PHP 5.2.14
• MySQL 4.1.3
• Apache 2.0
• Apache configured with AllowOverride set to either ‘All’ or at least both ‘Limit’ and ‘Indexes’ parameters, and preferably the ‘Options’ parameter as well.
• PHP configured to support CURL with OpenSSL

Improvements and Bugfixes included in v1.5.0beta since v1.3.9:

• CHANGE-12 – Numerous system changes to support PA-DSS compliance certification
• Admin passwords now expire every 90 days, as per PA-DSS specification
• Admin passwords now require a combination of letters and numbers, as well as uniqueness (cannot use already-used passwords)
• Admin passwords can have a configurable length, but no less than 7 characters
• Admin passwords also expire, for security reasons, when changing admin configuraton from non-SSL mode to SSL mode.
• Admin Profiles – is now built-in, with a significant number of additional features, and simpler to use.
• Add basic admin Activity Log Viewer/Exporter tool
• HTMLarea editor removed from core due to obsolescence. Use preferred plugin instead if similar functionality is required.
• FCKeditor components removed from core due to obsolescence. CKEditor is the replacement editor by the same author. Switch to the new plugin if desiring to use this editor.
• USPS module removed from core in favor of being an addon, due to the volatility of frequent changes made by USPS. The addon is available in the Free Addons section of the Zen Cart website.
• CHANGE-12 – PA-DSS – prevent payment modules from ever storing more than 10 characters of sanitized CC numbers
• CHANGE-12 – PA-DSS – prevent built-in “gateway” payment modules from functioning if the site is not protected by SSL
• CHANGE-12 – PA-DSS – add admin detection of SSL mode change and auto-expire all passwords if SSL mode is enabled either with ENABLE_SSL_ADMIN or using an https address for HTTP_SERVER
• CHANGE-12 – PA-DSS – add two-factor authentication hook in admin login
• zc_install now treats supplied initial admin password (during install) as temporary … requiring the admin user to select a new password at first login. This is to prevent abuse from password sniffing.
• Incorporate TZ (timezone) support, with ability to override/disable simply by defining a DISABLE_MYSQL_TZ_SET constant. c/f http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=174346
• PADSS-30 – Admin SSL now enabled by default in configure.php file if Enable-SSL is selected during zc_install
• BUGSFORUM-1774 – Add ‘secure’ flag support for session cookie when site is running entirely in SSL
• BUGSFORUM-1081 – Fixed: no default set for shipping radio buttons if module is disabled after previously selecting a shipping method
• BUGSFORUM-1347 – Remove file-based session handling support due to security concerns and chicken/egg situation caused by garbage collection processes.
• BUGSFORUM-1497 – Admin order totals section of orders.php page ignored currency-formatting display rules in some cases
• BUGSFORUM-1550 – Fix occasional problem with “duplicate entry” in sessions table caused by some servers using longer session ID keys
• BUGSFORUM-1558 – typefilter incorrect lookup problem in case of (unlikely) file-not-found scenario
• BUGSFORUM-1554 – Shopping Cart Problems when updating product quantities for products with Max limit set
• BUGSFORUM-1564 – orders_status wrongly set to 0 in rare cases
• BUGSFORUM-1584 – no_picture.gif could be accidentally deleted if specified as an actual product image
• BUGSFORUM-1589 – Fixed problem with some downloadable orders where an update of an order might set the number of days to a wrong value
• CHANGE-151: Fix rounding and tax calculation issues in Cart/Order Class
• CHANGE-90 – SECURITY: Fix Local File Inclusion Vulnerability
• Whos_online – several improvements to allow the option to exclude spiders and/or admin IP’s from the list of displayed results
• Improvement: Developers Toolkit can now optionally search .js files too.
• CHANGE-136 on new installs, DB_CHARSET now defaults to UTF8, not latin1
• CHANGE-137 Removal(deactivation) of CDE payment modules when SSL disabled
• BUGSFORUM-1592 – Fix rounding problems affecting coupon min-purchase eligibility calculations
• CHANGE-70 – zc_install now checks whether .htaccess rules will work, and provides an alert if there’s a problem.
• BUGSFORUM-XXXX – PayPal improvements – allows Transaction ID to show on admin order confirmation emails for WPS, just like other payment modules do
• BUGSFORUM-XXXX – PayPal – partial fix for bug where currency code not specified during partial refunds causes request to fail
• BUGSFORUM-XXXX – PayPal – fixed bug where debug logging might happen even if switched off (caused by broader server-config issues)
• BUGSFORUM-XXXX – PayPal – fix bug in Express Checkout where a shipping-override would still send a shipping phone number, causing a 10001 error without explanation.
• BUGSFORUM-XXXX – PayPal – fix bug where EC button was removed from login page but left PayPal text prompts, resulting in confusion.
• BUGSFORUM-XXXX – PayPal – fix various rounding problems in all modules
• BUGSFORUM-XXXX – PayPal – Change to VPS-Timeout-90 instead of 45 at PayPal’s request. This means customers

might have to wait longer for transactions to complete, but will reduce timeout errors when PayPal’s systems are slow.

• BUGSFORUM-XXXX – PayPal – include product ID number on line-item details since is needed for order fulfillment
• BUGSFORUM-1673 – PayPal – Fix minor html table syntax bug in paypal history details on admin orders screen
• BUGSFORUM-1760 – PayPal – Fix problems with Hungarian Forint and other 0-decimal currencies
• BUGSFORUM-1926 – PayPal – Fix problem with attributes — if a product had attributes, the product name was being replaced with attribute details, instead of being appended to
• BUGSFORUM-1971 – PayPal – Trap cases where PayPal returns a blank address unexpectedly, and ask them to supply address details by creating an account
• BUGSFORUM-1971 – PayPal – Minimize address matching issues which arise when storeowners rename their countries to non-ISO standard names (something they should not do)
• BUGSFORUM-1892 – PayPal Express: Item details were shown as “Tax included in prices: 0 (0)”
• BUGSFORUM-1959 – PayPal IPN and Express Checkout Missing free Items, or listing free items without description
• BUGSFORUM-2024 – PayPal IPN – address-override alert might insert duplicate update notices in order status history
• BUGSFORUM-1613 – Media Manager Assign to Products wouldn’t allow assigning of new products due to security change in 1.3.9h
• Fix to admin customer search: search for new customers by customers_email_address to get correct customer and not everyone named Smith
• Fixed display bug with category icons generating link to cPath=0 if cPath not set
• Fix the display of Discount Coupons when a redemption code is applied so it is more readable by the customer
• Fix Add to Cart to stay on listing when set to not display cart
• Fixed coupon admin screen to land on correct page after adding new coupon
• Various Admin pages: Fix pagination problems when changing status, searching, etc.
• Improvement: Shorten CPU cycles on double-parsing an array needlessly in Authorize.net modules. Also improved sanitized debug output.
• BUGSFORUM-1645 – Adding Featured Products ERROR Warning Warning: Product ID already on Special
• Admin products-to-categories copier: Add additional message for clarity when Copy to categories_id is invalid but allow for obscure usage
• Fixed bug on Order History going to page not found when set to not display cart
• Fix: restore shopping cart products in the order they were added
• BUGSFORUM-1662 – Gift Certificates Will Not Release
• Fixed Error message when restricting coupons
• Fixed hard-coded table names which should have been using constants, to allow for prefixes properly.
• Fix problems with the word “search” in spiders.txt
• Admin orders page now passes unformatted value back for availability to customizations which want to redisplay the values differently.
• BUGSFORUM-1696 – clear COUPON_GV_QUEUE when deleting an order
• BUGSFORUM-1681 – fix links in GV mails
• BUGSFORUM-1689 – email validation regex improvements
• BUGSFORUM-1634 – Bugfix: Prevent loading of non-PHP files in some admin autoloading routines
• BUGSFORUM-1650 – sanitize whosonline output
• Downloads – improvements and addition of support for IE9
• BUGSFORUM-1708 – Combine class methods to reduce chance of race conditions and add error suppression to filemtime
• Fix potential GZIP error if server configuration is overly generic
• CHANGE-74 Sanitization
• VARIOUS changes made to admin/catalog page forms to protect against CSRF using security token
• VARIOUS changes for date fields to be handled consistently and to remove some pre-quoting which was breaking bindVars
• CHANGE-102 Fix broken error checking in SQLPatch tool
• CHANGE-128 obscure sql injection fix
• CHANGE-135 add default value to zen_draw_pull_down_menu call to stop the value being drawn from the GLOBALS array and tested as a string.
• CHANGE-138 Set CURL Proxy Status to FALSE by default, and remove from display since it’s now deprecated
• CHANGE-139 fix sprintf() error when generating an outgoing email notification caused by language file refinement
• CHANGE-142 fix tax calculation
• CHANGE-143 fix sidebox query to ensure a correct limit statement is built, if necessary
• CHANGE-143 catch SQL errors and output generic message to user and write message to log instead
• CHANGE-144 XSS mitigation for admin forms — adds logging for inputs flagged as “rogue” by blacklist algorithm.
• CHANGE-145+146 Blank values for various Maximum Values settings causes PHP errors
• CHANGE-147 zc_install was throwing warning for MySQL versions over 5.2
• BUGSFORUM-1709 Fix extraneous products_id in url
• BUGSFORUM-1783 Fix Virtual Product defaults for all core Product Types
• BUGSFORUM-1798 Preview icon was linked directly to product-general type. Now linked to the product type

handler, allowing correct language defines to be loaded when previewing a product via this icon.

• BUGSFORUM-1862 status filter not retaining state, restrict to first char for safety
• BUGSFORUM-1754 change to calculate price/tax on zen_round(zen_add_tax(price,rate)*quantity, decimals)
• BUGSFORUM-1696 SQL error due to non-matching field name
• BUGSFORUM-1907 Fix ambiguous description on admin search switch
• BUGSFORUM-1905 Adjust schema to handle ipv6 addresses
• BUGSFORUM-1949 various ISO country updates
• BUGSFORUM-1973 Downloads might deliver an empty file if readfile() is disabled in PHP and symlink support is off
• .htaccess – add safety around apache directives to prevent errors with poorly configured servers
• Fix bug in properly detecting SSL mode with zen_redirect calls
• Addressed SSL logoff scenario specific to shared SSL on shared hosting.
• Fix email error handling – was only setting error info if the message succeeded, thus always blank.
• Fix broken markup in admin layout-controller
• add extra line-break before “spam” disclaimer in email footers
• Disable language/currency sideboxes by default, to minimize some confusion
• Fix some collation errors encountered during upgrades
• And all the security fixes and bugfixes from prior versions

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, please contact us for a quote.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Patching your database is a must have skill for any zen cart store owner. You will add database patches for many reasons including module installation, and updating any information in your zen cart database.

Step one is to back up your zen cart database. Follow this step by step tutorial if you don’t already know how to do this:

How to Backup Your Database Using PHPMyAdmin Zen Cart

Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Install SQL Patches.

There are 2 ways to execute your query. The first way is to copy and paste it into the box and click on the “send” button. Be sure to end your query with a semi-colon.

The second way is to upload a file (click on the “browse” or “choose file” button to select the file from your computer) and click on the “upload” button. Please note that Zen Cart database-upgrade scripts should NOT be run from this page.

All of our free templates come with the option of turning on the currency drop down menu and languages in the header. This step by step tutorial will show you how to turn on the header currencies and languages.

This tutorial features the All Business free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart store, you can download it for free here.

1. Step one is to log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> LayoutBoxes Controller

Click on “sideboxes/your-template-override-directory/languages_header.php” and then click on the “edit” button

Set the “Single Column Status:” to “ON” and set the “Single Column Sort Order:” to something other than “0″ then click on the “update” button.

Now click on “sideboxes/your-template-override-directory/currencies_header.php” and then click on the “edit” button.

Set the “Single Column Status:” to “ON” and set the “Single Column Sort Order:” to something other than “0″ then click on the “update” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Cost of starting an ecommerce business reduced to almost nothing by a unique new business model

In these rough economic times it is more important than ever to help one another according to Web Design expert Anne Winfrey.

To date Anne has given away over 43,800 Zen Cart templates with a retail value of over $6.5 million through her Ecommerce Web Design business, Picaflor Azul. She has also spent countless hours giving help and advice on the support forums for the templates.

“I love helping others,” says Anne, “So I have made it a priority in my business. By helping each other we can help pull the economy out of the ditch for everyone.”

Zen Cart is an Open Source ecommerce website building tool. There are hundreds of shopping cart programs available, but none come close to offering the level of options, features and support available with Zen Cart. Anne is one of the worlds leading Zen Cart experts, and a regular contributor to the extensive on line documentation and help forums which form the core of this vibrant community. The Open Source business model allows, and even encourages people to help each other by sharing computer code, knowledge, and experience.

Anne has recently released a whole new line of free Zen Cart templates. They have a clean look and are a great way to make an ecommerce website look professional. To find out more about Picaflor Azul and Zen Cart visit www.picaflor-azul.com.

Showing all of your documents in one sidebox can be very handy. You might have a recipe section on your site, or product guides, etc. This step by step tutorial will show you how to show all of your documents in their own sidebox.

This tutorial features the Andover Modern free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you would like to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Andover Modern Free Zen Cart Template

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Catalog -> Categories/Products.

2. Create a category to hold your documents. If you do not know how to create a category, see this turtorial:

How to Add Categories and Sub Categories in Zen Cart

3. Click on the edit category icon, the green “e”

4. Click on the drop down menu for “Restrict to Product Type” and select “Document General”. Then click on the “Add Include SubCategories” button and then the “save” button. Only categories restricted to product type “Document General” will show in the documents sidebox.

5. Add a “product” as you normally would to your new documents category, making sure to select “Document-General” from the pull down menu before clicking on the “new product” button.

If you don’t know how to add a product, follow this tutorial:

How to Add Products to Zen Cart

Now you will see your documents in their own sidebox.

If you would like to rename the sidebox to something else, for example “How To’s” follow this tuorial:

How to Change the Name of the Categories (or any) Sidebox Heading in Zen Cart

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Log in to your zen cart admin and go to Localization->Currencies.

Check to see that your default currency value is set to 1.0.

If your default currency value is not set at 1.0, click on your default currency and then click on the “edit” button.

Set the “Value:” box to 1.0 and click on the “update” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

To streamline the process of adding a tax class to your products, you can set a default tax class. Then, instead of having to select a tax class each time you list a new product, the default tax class will already be selected.

First, find the tax class ID number of the tax class that you want to set as default.

Go to Locations/Taxes ->Tax Classes

Go to Catalog -> Product Types.

Select “Product-General” and click on the “edit layout” button.

Select “Product Price Tax Class Default – When adding new products?”, add the tax class id number and click on the “update” button.

Now, when you list a new product, this tax class will be selected by default.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> My Store.

Click on “Zone” select the country and zone where your store is located from the drop down menu and click on the “update” button.

2. Go to Locations /Taxes -> Zones Definitions

Click on the “insert” button.

Add your Zone name and Description and click on the “insert” button. In this example we will configure taxes for the state of Colorado.

Click on the “details” button.

Click on the “insert” button.

Select “United States” from the Country drop down menu, and “Colorado” from the Zone drop down menu, and click on the “insert” button.

3. Go to Locations/Taxes > Tax Classes.

Click on the “new tax class” button.

Add the “Tax Class Title:” and “Description”, and click on the “insert” button.

4. Go to Locations/Taxes > Tax Rates:

Click on the “new tax rate” button.

Fill in the information and then click on the “insert” button:

• A. Tax Class Title:
• B. Zone:
• C. Tax Rate (%):
• D. Description:
• e. Priority:

Now, when you add a product, make sure you apply the new tax class to any products that you might be charging tax on.

To streamline the process of adding a tax class to your products, you can set a default tax class.

First, find the tax class ID number of the tax class that you want to set as default.

Go to Locations/Taxes ->Tax Classes

Go to Catalog -> Product Types.

Select “Product-General” and click on the “edit layout” button.

Select “Product Price Tax Class Default – When adding new products?”, add the tax class id number and click on the “update” button.

Now, when you list a new product, this tax class will be selected by default.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. In your favorite plain text editor, open the includes/languages/your-template-override-directory/your-language.php. If there is no override for this file already made, you can create one by copying the includes/languages/your-language.php to includes/languages/your-template-override-directory/your-language.php.

2. On or around line 22, find:

@setlocale(LC_TIME, 'en_US.ISO_8859-1');

3. Replace en_US.ISO_8859-1 with the character set appropriate for your language.

***This is a php file and MUST be edited in a plain text editor. If you try to edit this file in any type of wysiwyg editor, the code will be corrupted and when you insert the file back into your zen cart it will break your entire site.***

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Modules -> Payment:

Double check to be sure that your payment methods are installed. In the “Order Status” column, modules that are installed will have a “green” dot, modules that are not installed will have a “red” dot. If your payment modules of choice are not installed, click on the “install” button and follow the installation instructions.

2. Check to see that your payment modules are enabled. Click on your payment module and check that the line “Enable XXXX Order Module” is set to “true”. If it is set to “false” click on the “edit” button and set it to “true”.

3. Do you have any Zones set with this payment module? If you do then remove the Zone to allow you to use it during checkout.

To properly configure zones with payment modules you must create zones that match your customers’ shipping addresses. Always have at least one payment method that does not have any zones added to it, or there will be customers who will not be able to complete the checkout process.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

After you set up your banner advertising, it is important to be able to view the statistics. Banner statistics are tracked on an ongoing basis.

Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Banner Manager:

Click the banner that you want to check and you will see the last 3 days’ details on-screen.

To view the statistics for the day/month/year click on the “graph” icon:

Select the date range from the pull down menu to view the report.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

So, for example:

/images

/images/large

/images/medium

/images/attributes

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Build customer confidence by adding some short text or instructions to the shopping cart page. This step by step tutorial will show you how to do this.

This tutorial features the All Business free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Download the All Business free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

1. In your favorite plain text editor open includes/languages/english/your-custom-template-directory/shopping_cart.php. If this file is not already in your template override directory, create an override by copying includes/languages/english/shopping_cart.php to includes/languages/english/your-custom-template-directory/shopping_cart.php.

2. On or around line 13 find this code:

define('TEXT_INFORMATION', 'You may want to add some instructions for using the shopping cart here. (defined in includes/languages/english/shopping_cart.php)');

3. Replace the green text with your text.

define('TEXT_INFORMATION', 'These are my new custom instructions thanking customers for their orders, assuring them of our shipping times and your commitment to customer service.');

Save your changes.

***This is a php file and MUST be edited in a plain text editor. If you try to edit this file in any type of wysiwyg editor, the code will be corrupted and when you insert the file back into your zen cart it will break your entire site.***

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Customizing the stock zen cart installation is an important step in creating a great customer experience. This step by step tutorial will show you how to customize the line above the shopping cart that has the total items, weight, and order amount.

This tutorial featured the Apparel Boutique free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like this template and would like to use it for your zen cart store, you can download it for free here:

Apparel Boutique free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Layout Settings.

2. Click on “Shopping Cart – Show Totals”, select the setting you want, and click on the “update” button.

3. Refresh your browser and see the changes:

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Alysa Rounded free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you would like to use it for your zen cart project you can download it for free here:

Download the Alysa Rounded free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

1. In your favorite image editing program, create your logo and name it logo.gif. The default size is 200 pixels wide by 70 pixels high. Upload your logo.gif to admin/images.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Promoting your store’s new products is a great way to bring in new and repeat customers. The zen cart program offers a lot of flexibility in terms of the definition of a new product. This step by step tutorial will show you how to specify what products are treated as “new products” by the zen cart.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Maximum Values.

2. Click on “New Product Listing – Limited to …”, select the number of days that you want your new products to be limited to. Select:

• 0= All Products
• 1= Current Month
• 7= 7 Days
• 14= 14 Days
• 30= 30 Days
• 60= 60 Days
• 90= 90 Days
• 120= 120 Days

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

The “Customers Also Purchased” functionality on the product info page in zen cart is a native functionality. It will become enabled with no action from you, when customers make purchases. This step by step tutorial will show you how to format the layout of the “Customers Also Purchased” module and disable it.

This tutorial features the Aberdeen Neutral free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you want to use it for your zen cart project, you can download it for free here:

Aberdeen Neutral free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Product Info.

2. Click on “Also Purchased Products Columns per Row”, select the number of columns you would like, and click on the “update” button.

3. Go to Configuration -> Maximum Values.

4. Click on “Also Purchased Products”, set the number you want displayed, and click on the “update” button.

To disable the display of the “Customers Also Purchased” module set this number to “0″.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

If you aren’t already backing up your database regularly, you should be! Having a good, recent backup of your database will allow you to get your zen cart store up and running again quickly in case anything goes wrong. This step by step tutorial will show you how to backup your database using PHPMyAdmin.

1. Log into your web hosting account. Open your phpMyAdmin.

Select the database for your zen cart store. Click on “Export”.

Under options, make sure these recommended settings are selected:

• Structure
• Add DROP TABLE / VIEW / PROCEDURE / FUNCTION / EVENT
• Add IF NOT EXISTS
• Add AUTO_INCREMENT value
• Enclose table and field names with backquotes
• Add CREATE PROCEDURE / FUNCTION / EVENT

And:

• Data
• Complete inserts
• Use hexadecimal for BLOB
• Export type must be set to INSERT

Check “Save as file” and click on “Go”.

Save the file to your computer.

It is a good habit to back up your database on a weekly basis.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

If you only ship to the U.S. and want to prevent customers from other countries from completing checkout, follow this step by step tutorial.

Create a Zone for U.S.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Locations / Taxes -> Zones.

2. Click on the “new zone” button.

3. Fill out the information:

• A. Zones Name: United States
• B. Zones Code: US
• C. Country: Select United States from the drop down menu

Click on the “insert” button.

4. Go to Locations / Taxes -> Zones Definitions and click on the “insert” button.

5. Fill out the information:

• A. Zone Name: United States
• B. Description: U.S. only shipping

Click on the “insert” button.

6. Click on the “details” button.

7. Click on the “insert” button.

8. In the first drop down menu “Country:” select “United States”. In the second drop down menu “Zone:” select the first sub-zone that you want to include. Click on the “update” button.

Do this for each sub-zone you need to add. So, for example, if you want your U.S. only shipping to be restricted to the lower 48 states, you would only add these states. If you want to include All US Territories, Islands, Armed Forces, etc. then you would also include these.

Add the US Zone to Your Shipping Module

1. In your zen cart admin, go to Modules -> Shipping

2. Click on your shipping module (UPS is used in this example) and click on the “install” button.

3. Fill out all of the information, especially the “Shipping Zone”. Be sure to select “United States” and click on the “update” button

Now, if a customer with a shipping address outside of the United States (or any sub zone that you have not added) will get this message if they try to checkout:

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. Back up your database. If you do not know how to do this you can follow this tutorial:

Easy Help Tutorial: How to Backup Your Zen Cart

2. In your favorite plain text editor copy and paste this command:

UPDATE products SET products_price= products_price -X.XXwhere manufacturers_id = "YY";

Replace the X.XX with the dollar amount that you want to increase or decrease the prices. If you want to decrease keep the (-) sign, if you want a price increase replace it with a (+). Then replace the YY with the manufacturer ID. The easiest way to find the manufacturer ID by going to your zen cart store (be sure that you have enabled the manufacturer’s sidebox) and clicking on the manufacturers name in the manufacturers sidebox.

You will see the manufacturers ID up in the address bar of your browser:

So, for example if you want to do a $5.00 decrease for all products by manufacturer ID number 5, then you would have:

UPDATE products SET products_price= products_price -5.00where manufacturers_id = "5";

3. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Install SQL Patches

4. Paste the sql command from step 2. into the box and click on the “send” button.

5. Go to your admin Tools -> Store Manager

6. Go to “Update ALL Products Price Sorter” and click on the “update” button.

Note that if your products are priced by attributes, this procedure will not work.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. Back up your database. If you do not know how to do this you can follow this tutorial:

Easy Help Tutorial: How to Backup Your Zen Cart

2. In your favorite plain text editor copy and paste this command:

UPDATE products SET products_price= products_price * .XX;

Replace the XX with 100 – the percentage amount that you want to decrease the prices. So, for example if you want to do a 10% decrease then you would have:

UPDATE products SET products_price= products_price * .90;

3. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Install SQL Patches

4. Paste the sql command from step 2. into the box and click on the “send” button.

5. Go to your admin Tools -> Store Manager

6. Go to “Update ALL Products Price Sorter” and click on the “update” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

There are various reasons why you might want to increase the price for all of your products in your zen cart. This step by step tutorial will show you how to increase all of the prices at one time in your zen cart store.

1. Back up your database. If you do not know how to do this you can follow this tutorial:

Easy Help Tutorial: How to Backup Your Zen Cart

2. In your favorite plain text editor copy and paste this command:

UPDATE products SET products_price= products_price +X.XX;

Replace the X.XX with the dollar amount that you want to increase the prices.

3. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Install SQL Patches

4. Paste the sql command from step 2. into the box and click on the “send” button.

5. Go to your admin Tools -> Store Manager

6. Go to “Update ALL Products Price Sorter” and click on the “update” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Modules -> Shipping

2. Click on “FREE SHIPPING!”, and click on the “+install” button.

3. Fill out the information:

• A. Do you want to offer Free shipping?–true
• B. What is the Shipping cost?–0.00
• C. Handling fee for this shipping method–add your handling fee or leave at 0
• D. Use the following tax class on the shipping fee.
• E. If a zone is selected, only enable this shipping method for that zone.
• F. Sort order of display

And click on the “update” button.

4. In your favorite plain text editor copy and past the following:

UPDATE products SET product_is_always_free_shipping = 1 WHERE master_categories_id = XX;

Replace the XX with the category number of the category that you want to make always free shipping.

You can find the category number by going to Catalog -> Categories / Products. Navigate to the category that you want to make always free shipping. You will see the category ID number in the far left hand column.

5. Back up your database. If you do not know how to do this, you can follow this tutorial:

Easy Help Tutorial: How to Backup Your Zen Cart

6. In your zen cart admin go to Tools -> Install SQL Patches

Copy and pate the sql code with your added category ID number into the box and click on the “send” button.

Now all products in the category with ID 1 will be always free shipping.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Your Zen Cart comes with a hit counter. There are many reasons why you might want to either reset this counter to “0″ or some other number, for example, after your cart has been developed and you are ready to go live. This step by step tutorial will show you how to update your zen cart store counter.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Store Manager.

2. Scroll down to “Update Counter”. Add your new value and click on the “reset” button/

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Once you switch your zen cart store to the showcase mode, there will be a “Contact Us” link on your product info pages instead of the “add to cart” button.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> My Store.

2. Click on “Store Status”

3. Select “1= Showcase no prices” or “2= Showcase with prices” and click on the “update” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

By default, there are 3 order status options in the zen cart admin, processing, delivered and update. It might be a good idea for your business to add others such as “shipped”, etc. This step by step tutorial will show you how to add additional order status options to your zen cart admin.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Localization -> Order Status.

2. Click on the “insert” button.

3. There are 2 bits of information to fill out:

• A. Orders Status:
• B. Set as default–click to set this as the default order status

Click on the “insert” button.

4. See your new order status in the list and on the orders page:

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Zen Cart offers exceptional flexibility and functionality. Among these is the ability to move an entire sub-category and its contents from one category to another. This step by step tutorial will show you how to easily do this via your zen cart admin.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Catalog -> Categories / Products.

2. Navigate to the sub category that you would like to move and click on the purple “m” icon.

3. Select the category to which you want to move the sub category from the drop down menu and click on the “move” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Moving products from one category to another is a must for any ecommerce business owner. This step by step tutorial will show you how to easily move products from one category to another via the zen cart admin.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and to to Catalog -> Categories / Products.

2. Navigate to the product that you would like to move and click on the purple “m” icon.

3. Select the category to which you want to move the product from the drop down menu and click on the “move” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

As a zen cart store owner, branding should always be foremost in your mind. A great opportunity for branding is in your store communications with customers. This step by step tutorial will show you how to change the logo in HTML emails to your own logo.

1. Create your logo and name it header.jpg. The default header image is 550px x 110px.

2. Upload the image to your /email folder.

3. Go to admin Tools -> Email Welcome to see the change.

Please note that sometimes the change will not show up right away in emails that have already been sent and viewed, due to caching. Close your email program and re-open it to see the change take effect.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

A dormant customer is one who has not completed a purchase within the last 3 months. Target these customers with a specially composed email to entice them to purchase. This step by step tutorial will show you how to send an email to your dormant customers via the zen cart admin.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Send Email.

2. There are 5 bits of information to fill out:

• A. Text Editor
• B. Customer: Select “Dormant Customers (> 3 months) (subscribers)”
• C. From:
• D. Rich Text Message: and Text-Only Message:

And click on the preview” button.

3. Review your message and click on the “send mail” button.

At the top of your admin page, in green you will see the message “Notice: Email sent to: Dormant Customers (>3months) (Subscribers)”

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

The ability to send an email to all of your zen cart store customers is a valuable promotional tool. You can use this to announce sales, or make other important announcements regarding shipping delays, store closed for vacation, etc. This step by step tutorial will show you how to send an email to all of your zen cart customers via the admin.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Send Email.

2. There are 5 bits of information to fill out:

• A. Text Editor
• B. Customer: Select “All Customers”
• C. From:
• D. Rich Text Message: and Text-Only Message:

And click on the “preview” button.

3. Review your message and click on the “send mail” button.

At the top of your admin page, in green you will see the message “Notice: Email sent to: All Customers”

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Newsletter and Product Notifications Manager.

2. Click on the “new newsletter” button.

3. There are 4 bits of information to fill out.

• A. Text Editor: “Plain Text” is recommended
• B. Module: Select “product_notification”
• C. Subject:
• D. Rich Text Content: and Text-Only Content:

Then click on the “save” button.

4. Now you will see your newsletter in the list. Click on the “send” button.

5. In the left hand “Products” menu click on the product, then click on the “>>>” button. This will move the product to the “Selected Products” menu on the right. To select more than one product at a time, hold down the “ctrl” button as you click on the products. Do this for each product that you would like to send product notifications. To select all products in the store, click on the “global” button. When you are finished adding products, click on the “submit” button.

6. Review the newsletter and click on the “send” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Create and send out a newsletter to your loyal customers to increase sales or highlight a current promotion. This step by step tutorial will show you how to send a newsletter to your zen cart newsletter subscribers.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Tools -> Newsletter and Product Notifications Manager.

2. Click on the “new newsletter” button.

3. There are 4 bits of information to fill out.

• A. Text Editor: “Plain Text” is recommended
• B. Module: Select “Newsletter”
• C. Subject:
• D. Rich Text Content: and Text-Only Content:

Then click on the “save” button.

4. Now you will see your newsletter in the list. Click on the “send” button.

5. Select the audience for this newsletter mailing. Choices are:

• All Newsletter Subscribers
• Dormant Customers (>3months)(Subscribers)
• Active customers in past 3 months(Subscribers)
• Active customers in past 3 months (Regardless of subscription status)
• Administrator
• Customers who have never completed a purchase

And click on the “select” button.

6. Review the newsletter content and click on the “send mail” button.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Showcase your newly added products by using the zen cart New Products Sidebox. This step by step tutorial will show you how to adjust the number of products shown in the New Products side box.

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Maximum Values.

2. Click on “Random New Products for SideBox”, adjust the number, and click on the “update” button.

3. Refresh your browser and view the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

This tutorial features the Aberdeen Neutral free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your web site, you can download it for free here:

Download the Aberdeen Neutral free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Maximum Values.

2. Click on “Random Product Reviews for SideBox”, adjust the number to your liking, and click on the “update” button.

3. Refresh your browser and see the changes.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Promote your zen cart store’s sale products by using the center boxes. You can easily control how many specials you would like to show in these center boxes. This step by step tutorial will show you how to customize the number of specials shown in the various zen cart center boxes for maximum use of this great incredible tool.

This tutorial features the Aberdeen Neutral free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart store, you can download it for free here:

Aberdeen Neutral free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Maximum Values.

2. Click on “Products on Special”, set the number of specials that you want to display, and click on the “update” button.

3. Refresh your browser and see the changes. Changing this number will adjust the number of featured products shown on the main page, Category with Sub Categories pages, Errors and Missing Products Pages, and Product Listing pages.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Promote your zen cart store’s featured products by using the centerboxes. You can easily control how many featured products you would like to show in these centerboxes. This step by step tutorial will show you how to customize the number of featured products shown in the various centerboxes for maximum use of this great promotional tool.

This tutorial features the Apparel Boutique free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart store, you can download it for free here:

Apparel Boutique free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Maximum Values.

2. Click on “Maximum Display of Featured Products – Main Page”, set the number of featured products that you want to display, and click on the “update” button.

3. Refresh your browser and see the changes. Changing this number will adjust the number of featured products shown on the main page.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Promoting your zen cart store’s new products is a great way to increase your sales. Did you know that you can control how many new products are shown in the center box? This step by step tutorial will show you how to customize the number of new products shown in the various centerboxes for maximum use of this great promotional tool.

This tutorial features the All Business free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul. If you like it and want to use it for your zen cart store, you can download it for free here:

All Business free zen cart template by Picaflor Azul

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Configuration -> Maximum Values.

2. Click on “New Products Module”, set the number of new products that you want to display, and click on the “update” button.

3. Refresh your browser and see the changes. Changing this number will adjust the number of new products shown on the main page, Category with Sub Categories pages, Errors and Missing Products Pages, and Product Listing pages.

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Categories / Products – Load Products

Follow this tutorial for step by step instructions on how to load products into your zen cart store.

Easy Help Zen Cart Tutorial: How to Add Products

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.

Categories / Products – Setup Categories

1. Log into your zen cart admin and go to Catalog -> Categories/Products.

Follow this tutorial for step by step instructions on how to set up categories in your zen cart store.

Easy Help Zen Cart Tutorial: How to Add Categories and Sub Categories

If you need help customizing your zen cart web site, or would like a great custom design, please contact us for a quote.