Archive for category Zen Cart

Do you ALWAYS proofread before you publish?

You’ve put a lot of effort into writing the content for your online store – from product descriptions to frequently asked questions about shipping and everything in between.   This content says a lot about you and your store.  Errors diminish your credibility.  Bad links cause visitors to leave.  Typos convey a slap-dash attitude.  People notice [...]

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Zen Cart version 1.5 BETA released and ready for testing

A couple of days ago, the Zen Cart team shared the beta release of Zen Cart 1.5.  What’s really exciting about this version is that, following final code certification, it will make Zen Cart the first free Open Source Ecommerce Solution that is fully PA-DSS certified.  As well as the numerous changes to support PA-DSS [...]

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Remove the sub category text links in Zen Cart

A category in Zen Cart can have either products or sub-categories.  Where you have a category within a category, we refer to these as sub-categories.  Sub-categories are displayed at the top of a category page and include an image and a text link.  If you have custom images that include the sub-category name, the text [...]

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How do I change the Simply Kerrin Zen Cart template from a fluid width to a fixed width?

The Simply Kerrin Zen Cart template has been designed with a fluid width of 90%.  This means that the width of the store front will grow (or shrink) depending on the size and resolution of the monitor that your customers are using to view your store. With large, wide screen monitors being far more affordable [...]

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Add an automatic slider to your Zen Cart home page

Sliders are a great way to add a touch of flair to your Zen Cart store’s home page.  As well as just looking good though, sliders allow you to include lots of information for your customers all in that very important, above-the-fold position.  Information such as new products just in, hot specials on clearance lines, [...]

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Step-by-step guide to installing Easy Slider 1.7 in Zen Cart

Easy Slider 1.7 is a popular jQuery slider plugin that is packed full of options making it easy to customize to suit your Zen Cart store.  An image slider can really bring your store front alive and is the perfect way to use the limited screen ‘real estate’ on the home page effectively. The slider [...]

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Step-by-step guide to installing the Automatic Image Slider w/ CSS & jQuery from Soh Tanaka in Zen Cart

This Automatic Image Slider with CSS and jQuery from Soh Tanaka is a simple and good looking slider that is a great addition to your Zen Cart store’s home page.  This slider has been designed to revert to displaying the first image (as a static image) if the visitor has JavaScript turned off, to keep [...]

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How do I change the width of my Zen Cart template?

The width of your Zen Cart store front is set by the current template’s stylesheet.  Most websites have the width set as either a percentage (eg 100%) or in pixels (eg 960px).  The width of the default template with Zen Cart – Classic Contemporary Green – is set at 750px, which is quite narrow for [...]

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Enable GZip compression to increase Zen Cart performance

GNU GZip is a popular data compression program used to compress web pages before they are transmitted from the web server to the visitor’s browser.  The smaller, compressed data results in a much quicker delivery to the browser.  Compression is a simple and effective way to save bandwidth and speed up your Zen Cart store. [...]

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How do I change the sidebox heading to an image?

As part of your online store design, you may wish to use a specific font or add a flourish to your sidebox headings.  It is easy to specify an image for Zen Cart to use for the sidebox headings so you can go from the default look to something more ‘you’. To replace a sidebox [...]

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What is a 404 Error?

Every time a customer visits your online store they are making requests via their browser to your web server.  One of the first ‘replies’ from the web server is the http status code.  The http status code of a successful page is 200, but you don’t actually see this because your browser simply proceeds to [...]

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Important update of Zen Cart – latest version now 1.39h

An important update for Zen Cart has been released – version 1.39h.  This update contains important security fixes.  It is recommended you plan to upgrade your Zen Cart store to the most current version as soon as possible to take advantage of the improved security and fixes to several software bugs. Official announcement thread: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=166875 [...]

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New version of Zen Cart – 1.39g – released today

A new version has been released today bringing the latest version of Zen Cart available  to 1.39g.  It is recommended you plan to upgrade your zen cart store to the most current version as soon as possible to take advantage of the improved security and several fixes to software bugs. Official announcement thread: http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=165017 Official [...]

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How do I change the unit of measure for weight in Zen Cart?

The product information page in Zen Cart can be set to display the product weight.  By default the unit of measure is ‘labelled’ as lbs.  The reason I say ‘labelled’ as the unit of measure is only a label used and is set in a couple of language defines.   The shopping cart page can [...]

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Disable Text Pricing by word or letter to increase Zen Cart performance

If you’re not using the Text Pricing by word or letter feature in Zen Cart, setting Enable Text Pricing by word or letter to False will stop unnecessary calculations and related queries and therefore speed up the rendering of your store’s product pages. To disable text pricing by word or letter in Zen Cart: Log [...]

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