X-Cart forums

[Jagmeister]

I am just getting started with my site and would like some help trying to figure out the overall structure. I have never worked with a template based system and am wondering why I would want to bother with "another" layer of code <sigh> Hopefully, once I get used to it I will be glad I made the plunge.

I am reasonably familiar with php, html, css, etc. and once I figure out how the templates fit into the picture I will be on my way. I will be editing the files with a text editor, not the built-in editor.

So... a few questions:

1. From what little I have learned the Smarty system uses templates which then create the php files that are actually served up to the browser. This implies that I should always edit the template files and not the php files. True or False?

2. So to change the look of my site... in which directory(s) are these template files located? Skin1?

3. It seems that a customer will initially launch index.php which redirects to home.php which pulls in a number of includes and finally runs a smarty function to display the customer/home template which appears to call ../home.php. This seems to be a little recursive but ignoring that for the moment I'm guessing the page gets built from the includes? (For the moment I just want to concentrate on the home page.)

4. Is there any sort of a "wiring diagram" for how the whole "x-xart" is put together?

Thanks,

Matt

[balinor]

Hi Jagmeister, welcome to X-Cart. Your best bet to figure out how things are 'wired' is to use Webmaster mode (over in the admin menu). This will guide you through what template is what.

Yes, for the most part you will only have to edit the .tpl files themselves, which can be found in the skin1 directory. Most files having to do with the customer interface can be found in the skin1/customer directory. You might want to start out by just using the built-in editor until you get your bearings as to where everything goes. After that, you can feel free to upload and download the .tpl files at will.

Use this forum to your advantage, most answers to common questions have already been answered, and if not, someone here will certainly be of assistance. Good luck!

[Jagmeister]

Thanks Balinor... I have experimented a little with "webmaster" mode. It is a useful tool for "finding" things. I also discovered page 344 of the manual. it has a nice layout of which templates are responsible for what.

I had been somewhat reluctant to dig into a 435 page document which has no side index ( Why did they do that?). It's way to big for me to print on my little inkjet printer!

One little trick I found useful while using the webmaster mode: The little pop-up window that shows the list of templates... if you click in that window and do a select-all <Ctrl-A>,then paste that into a text document... you end up with a nicely indented template structure of that page.

Tiime to roll up the sleeves and get to work!