The Cart Blog

The following contributions of mine to the Zen Cart project have brand new updates for Zen Cart 1.5.0.

• Giftwrap at Checkout
• Quick Status Update
• Sale Ending
• Save for Later

My other contributions work as is in Zen Cart 1.5.0 rc2.

The following commercial mods of mine have Zen Cart 1.5.0 updates:

• Auto Add
• Better Together Admin
• Better Together Offers on Listing Pages
• Big Upsell
• Combination Discounts Admin
• Combination Discounts offers on Listing Pages
• Customer Password Edit
• Favorites
• Impulse Buy
• Manufacturer Discounts
• Order Copy
• Roundup
• Sale Ending Listing

The rest of my Zen Cart extensions (unless otherwise noted) will work on Zen Cart 1.5.0 without change.

For Zen Cart 1.x modules, my upgrade fee is only $10.  If you have purchased the module from me before, pay only $10 for the latest version!

As ridiculously overengineered powerful as my software may seem, some shopowners can’t help but take it up a notch by using complex PHP within the setup() functions I provide.  Here are some examples of complex Zen Cart discount configurations you can do by adding more logic to the setup() functions of Zen Cart Better Together, Combination Discounts and Table Discounts.

This is a common problem I see in failed mod installs: incorrectly renaming files you wish to keep as backups.   Zen Cart automatically loads all files ending with the extension “.php” in certain directories (such as includes/functions/extra_functions and includes/modules/order_totals), so you must name your backup files in a way such that they do not end with the extension “.php”.

For example: suppose you want to save a backup copy of the file ot_coupon.php

Good names:

ot_coupon.php.5Oct10
ot_coupon.php.orig
ot_coupon.php.old

Bad Names

5Oct10.ot_coupon.php
orig-ot_coupon.php
old.ot_coupon.php

Zen Cart Find Duplicate Models allows you to quickly identify which items in your catalog are using the same model number – an important feature if you are using a plugin like QBI, which requires unique model numbers for every item in your catalog.

Want customers to be able to easily reorder their favorite products? Take a look at Zen Cart Favorites, a mod which allows logged in users to build a favorites list.

Zen Cart Big Spender now has a mechanism to offer free or discounted shipping on orders which reach specific spending thresholds with certain products, categories or manufacturers. Check out set_cart_free_shipping and set_cart_discounted_shipping in Big Spender for Zen Cart!