Zen Cart
Zen Cart is an incredible shopping cart software. It is editable, has great support (via forums), a great team and alot of contributions. It is the best open source shopping cart in my opinion. Visit their website at http://www.zen-cart.com for more information.
Open-source software generally allows anybody to make a new version of the software, port it to new operating systems and processor architectures, share it with others or market it. The aim of open source is to let the product be more understandable, modifiable, duplicatable, or simply accessible, while it is still marketable. - Wikipedia.com
How To Create A Category
The first step to creating a category is to log into your administration area in Zen. To do this, goto the web address of your store followed by /admin.
It would look something like this:
http://www.yourdomain.com/admin
or
http://www.yourdomain.com/store/admin
This would be used if your store is located in another directory.
Of course, change yourdomain.com to whatever your domain (web address) would be.
Once you get to the administration area, you will see the following:
Enter the username and password you chose or were assigned. If you do not know this information, contact the person who set up your cart.
MAIN ZEN SCREEN
Alright! You are now logged in to the administration area of Zen Cart! This is also know as the backend because your users do not have access to this area and it is more or less behind the scenes.
Now that you are logged into your administration area, you will see the following screen:
Please click on this image to see the full picture. This will open a new window.
For now, we will just concentrate on the 'Catalog' menu option.
Hover over the 'Catalog' menu option and select the Category/Product option.
Please click on this image to see the full picture. This will open a new window.
CATEGORY/PRODUCT SCREEN
You are now at the category / products screen. This shows you what products and categories you have in your store. Since we haven't created any categories or products yet, this page is empty.
We are now going to create a category to add our products to.
To do this, click on the 'Create Category' button.
Please click on this image to see the full picture. This will open a new window.
The best way to keep your store is to be organized! Keeping a good cataloging system keeps everything in the right place and easy for you and your customers to find.
Clicking on the 'New Category' will bring up this screen:
Please click on this image to see the full picture. This will open a new window.
When you click on the image above, the picture is numbered to help explain what each area does.
- Category Name - Enter the name of category of your products. This could be Books, DVD's, Computers, etc.
- Category Description - This is where you enter the description of the category.
- Category Image - You can add an image for your category. Click on 'Browse' and you will be able to add a picture from your computer. Click HERE for a larger image (will open a new window).
- Upload To Directory - Select the directory where you want your image to be uploaded to.
- Sort Order - This allows you to put your categories in a certain order. The numbers start with 0.
You have now created a category! If you want to create a sub category (a category within a category), just select on the main category and repeat this process! |
