Delighted Stupid Wind | Empire Illusion » Zencart

Additional images – Using Different Images for a Product

Kent — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:35:08 +0000

There are probably various occasions when you want to display multiple images for a product. For example, a zoomin of a specific product detail like the neck-line of a dress or to provide several views (plan, elevation, etc) of a machine. Refer to the following screen shot to get an idea of how different images for a single product can be displayed.

Before you add any additional images to your product, you need to understand how Zen Cart recognizes and handles additional images for a product.

Understanding How Additional Images are Recognized

Zen Cart uses a base name to distinguish the main picture of a product from other additional pictures of the same product. For example, the main picture of a laptop will usually be the front view. The side and back views might make up the other pictures for the laptop. In this case, the image names could be named as follows:

laptop.jpg
laptop_backview.jpg
laptop_sideview.jpg

Typically, an underscore is used to represent additional product images linked to a base name. You could easily have used “laptopa.jpg”, “laptop123.jpg”, “laptoplaptop.jpg”, etc. However, the latter naming schemes are difficult to comprehend and can lead to a maintenance nightmare if you have many products using images with similar names.

For simplicity’s sake, we shall assume that all additional product images referred to in this book use the underscore as the separator to distinguish them from the base name of the product’s main picture. Thus, from the list of sample laptop pictures listed above, the base picture is the one without an underscore (i.e. laptop.jpg). The base picture is usually uploaded when you create a new product in the Admin Console. For the other pictures, they will need to be manually sent to the server via FTP

Adding Additional Images to a Product

Before you can show additional images for your products, you need to enable this feature for your particular product type:

1. Click on Catalog > Product Types to access the Product Types screen.
2. Choose the product type for which you want to have multiple images displayed and click on the edit layout
button on the side-panel.
3. Make sure that the Show Product Additional Images field is enabled.

To add an additional image to a product:

1. Make sure your additional image contains an underscore (i.e. “_”) after the base name of the main product image you have already uploaded. For example, if a product’s main image is “aaa.jpg”, then the base name is simply “aaa”. A possible name for the product’s additional image might be “aaa_side.jpg”. Recall that the underscore is the naming convention we are using for this book to identify the additional images of a product.

2. Upload the additional image via FTP to the same directory where the base product image is located on the server.

To change the layout for the additional product images of a product:

1. Click on Configuration > Images to access the Images screen

2. Specify the required value in the Product Info – Number of Additional Images per Row field.

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Zencart Taxable Goods Bulk Setting

Kent — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 19:19:10 +0000

It’s about the US tax stuff.

I installed the Easy Populate, and seems it doesn’t support taxable good stuff bulk import to the zencart.

and I see the source code for the taxable option in the product management cpanel, and the value is 1, so I find the database table and update it with the commend below:

UPDATE `zen_products` SET `products_tax_class_id`=1 WHERE `products_tax_class_id`=”

the zen_ maybe needed to be changed to match the prefix on your tables.

If you don’t konw how to login the phpmyadmin, you can also go to the cpanel of the zencart, go to the tools, insert SQL Patches, and use the below commend:

UPDATE products SET products_tax_class_id=1;

and you can also set the Tax Rates in your zencart now.

Though it’s only for US demand, if you are in china, you don’t need that, haha

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An easy way to add a sidebox for zencart

Kent — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:29:04 +0000

Last time we talked about how to add a sidexbox using some php code, but it seems still a little hard for some people, so today I’ll introduct another way to add a sidebox for zencart.

First download the free addon from zencart which named Blank Sidebox, you can download here.

It’s so easy that you just upload everything, and it’s done.

the only thing you need to change is in the file of the template folder, tpl_blank_sidebox.php.

change it to be what you want, and it’s done.

One thing to mention is taking care of your code, even one more blank is missing and you zencart will get problems

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Zencart Develop Situation in China

Kent — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 20:32:54 +0000

In china zen-cart develops not so good as the ecshop and shopex, though zen-cart is the best shopping cart in the world.

Not only the shopping cart itself, but maybe some culture and the user habit. I’m sure if you try the zen-cart once, you”ll fall in love with this great shopping cart.

The main problem I think is the marketing of zen-cart, the zen-cart chinese version holder Jack now living in the Canada, and he is busy working, and does not have enough time to modify and to market the zen-cart shopping cart in china.

Another problem is the zen-cart technology basic, it’s good for shopping cart, but most of the webmasters are still not so good at programming, if one day zen-cart is going to be like the wordpress, I’m sure everybody will like it.

Also the payment method is the problem, it’s hard for chinese people to buy and pay for the products, so most of the zen-cart applications are export websites in the export companies.

One of the famous shopping cart in china is the lightinthebox.com, and this website is developed by zencart, you see?