So far I'm disappointed with the way they coded ZenCart in tables... but maybe they had to in order to please everyone... I'm a fairly new web designer and have never had to code around a shopping cart or anything that was formatted in tables...

So my problem is a standard Zen Cart template traditionally has 2 sidebars and a middle content box. Yes, these are made up of <tr>, <td>. How do I had margin between these to show the BODY? Or do I have to change my strategy? Please give me insight. Much appriciated.
Johnny.

It's been a while since I worked with Zencart but you probably need to define a width to the parent table/td/tr tag which will confine it then add a css class to the parent and in a stylesheet, add padding/margins.

If you're not too deep into the project then I would highly recommend Magento although that is rather complex to deal with at first and probably not a good idea if your deadline is tight.

I've changed sizes... added margin. padding won't do me any good in this scenario. May I ask why should I use Magento over Zen Cart?

Will it save me time to do products?
Does the layout NOT use tables?
Pros/Cons I should know about?

Originally Posted by NewBreed

I've changed sizes... added margin. padding won't do me any good in this scenario. May I ask why should I use Magento over Zen Cart?

Will it save me time to do products?
Does the layout NOT use tables?
Pros/Cons I should know about?

It's been about 2 years since I worked on Zen Cart and then I stuck with oscommerce until last month to which I used Magento and so I can't give you a fair comparison on a Magento v Zen Cart but what I can tell you is that Magento's backend isn't as messed up as oscommerce/zencart experience I had.

Magento is css/xhtml based - NO tables and was built on OOP so you know what you're dealing with and what you're looking for when making backend modifications. It was also built with SEO in mind with its sitemaps, search results/keywords per product and named-categories in URLs - not that you couldn't get that in rival software but as a default installation is what the key question is here.

Its cons could be that it is rather stiff in its customisation despite its clean code it can be a pain to move navigation or box somewhere else but like with everything in life; practice makes perfect and like I said before; Don't take on Magento if your deadline is tight - think about giving it a go in your spare time or a project which you know you will have enough time for.

It WON'T save you time to do products - I guess it's pretty much the same.

Use the www.zen-cart.com help forums. They are very helpful.

I think it is not a problem to modify the stylesheet.css file for any interface purpose. Of course, you could firstly setup the 3 column width via your zen-cart admin. The site in my signature is built on zen-cart and I have make some CSS changes for it, too.