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In our previous entry, choosing the right FTP will figure in the next step you’ll be going through to get your Zen Shopping Cart up. What may keep you from uploading FTP files onto your webserver may be the long file names of your cart settings. 

Let’s say that your FTP software is just the right one, upload your files through FTP on to your directory in the web host server. Keep file name preferences simple and easily remembered. Building up your directory is easier if you know what file went where.

File preference by most web hosts aren’t shown in public, then again there are some files that your client can have access to. Such as the link to your landing page from your e-mail:

/Home/MYPRODUCT/landingpage_html

Or some document files about your store

/var/www/YOURSTORE/httpdocs

Or even about user account information

/user/accounts/a/YOURNAME/httpd.

Notice the last string of letters for every file path? These are where all your shopping cart’s content is served from in short the webroot. The suffixes “html” “httpdocs” and “httpd” or sometimes “wwwroot” folder are common file names for your webroot. 

A shopping cart’s webroot is where all ZenCart files, site images and coded content must be found under this folder. When checking you uploaded cart software and a page 404’s then most often your content is not found because it isn’t where it is supposed to be.

Once you’ve uploaded your FTP files to your web host server, you would need to create (2) files. One file identifies the settings of your server while the other contains the location of the FTP files you’ve recently uploaded. Don’t forget to change the access permissions to these files, through your FTP change these permissions with the use of the chmod feature:

Right click on directory or file name opens to a menu under ‘properties’ gives this option. 

Once this is done, you can go to your server to rename configure files and change permissions to read-write-execute for all.

Locate file: /catalog/includes/dist-configure.php rename to configure.php and proceed to change permissions to 777 (read-write-execute for all).

Locate the 2nd file: /catalog/admin/includes/dist-configure.php rename to configure.php and proceed to change permissions to 777 (read-write-execute for all).

The difference of both files renamed configure.php is the first file are your cart’s inclusions and the second is the admin inclusion.

Owning a shopping cart site calls for indepth involvement, the ZenCart is one of the easiest to master in osCommerce programs. When in doubt contact your customer support for your domain.

To be able to appreciate a newly purchased ZenCart, affiliates and the source site itself has an online guide to the shopping cart’s installation. Installation instructions for all Zen Cart versions are basic and easy to follow. But before you even install your purchased ZenCart here are some things you’d have to comply with:

1. What domain will you use? 

For some companies, upgrading their online store into a shopping cart could mean using their existing domain. While most online stores start up with a shopping cart purchase like the ZenCart. Keep in mind though not all domain hosting sites can help you register your cart. Check out the Certified Hosting Sites to see what sites comply with ZenCart’s software requirements.

2. Get reliable FTP software.

The FTP software is a program you need for transferring files between your computer and webserver. Most customers who have had a smooth installation process relied on FileZilla (free), because of positive feedback this program suits as your FTP. Some FTP software to ignore are the SmartFTP and CuteFTP, we’ve had a lot of customers experience problems with both programs. Before you answer yes, please be sure the FTP software you had in mind is not the one that is included with your web hosting services. The FTP service provided by your host is not meant for large file transfer, so errors can occur. 

3. Have a good text editor

The text editor is where you would be able to edit some files in your ZenCart. For starters and non-professional programmer use simple text editing programs are easily available. Editing files with the use of your cPanel or MS Word is not recommended since this is used for more complex changes to files. Here are several Text Editing programs you could choose from: UltraEdit, Notepad++, Crimson Editor for MS. You can use BBedit for Mac while for Linux you can use Kedit.

4. Can you create a MySQL database and user account through your webhosting control panel?

Choosing the right domain web host is needed since this is one of the requirements needed to install the ZenCart. To check you MySQL user account be sure you are able to have these permissions: SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, ALTER, INDEX, DROP. Some hosting like the hSphere calls it the dba access.

Reading through this list of items is like gong through a flight plan before taking off. With all these on our desktop or laptop, you can start installing your ZenCart download. Consider this the groundbreaking of your online shopping cart store. The next step would take you even further into exploring your virtual shopping cart.

Goodluck and think Zen.