Template Monster: Public Service Announcement

Tmonster:

How do you suggest to resolve the issue? I think the layout is designed to have the Featured Products section. This is the idea of the designer. If you do not plan to use this section in your store, then you have to select another design with different layout. That's my understanding of the issue.
When we are talking about normal web templates - the layout is the primary concern for the customer. For example, customer will never buy 3 column design to remove 2 columns and leave only one. He will try to find one column design instead.Personally, I don't see it as much of an issue. I usually recommend to my clients that they lead with Featured Products anyway, as it gives them control over the products and images that appear in the most prominent position.

Wouldn't entirely agree with your assessment of customer behaviour though. We pros understand that you start with an appropriate structure and then add the gloss you want, but posts in the free template support threads and complaints about TM themes show that many customers choose templates because they like the images, or even the colors and then try to change the structure.

Odd though this behaviour may seem to us at first glance, Zen Cart has been designed to accept this as a way that many store owners, who may not be web savvy, choose to work. As a result it is deliberately flexible and forgiving of this approach. Unfortunately the way your themes are implemented tends to remove much of this flexibility, leading to the frustration that you see exhibited in many of the posts on this thread. Though hopefully your presence here is a prelude to change!

Tmonster:

How do you suggest to resolve the issue? I think the layout is designed to have the Featured Products section. This is the idea of the designer. If you do not plan to use this section in your store, then you have to select another design with different layout. That's my understanding of the issue.
When we are talking about normal web templates - the layout is the primary concern for the customer. For example, customer will never buy 3 column design to remove 2 columns and leave only one. He will try to find one column design instead.

You are not comparing apples and oranges. Featured products vs. No Featured Products is NOT the same as 3 columns vs 2 or single columns. One is describing an optional feature, and one is describing the entire format of the site. The fact that you even equate the two shows the bassackward-ness of Template Monster's thinking.

IF you guys USED the zen cart method, then your customers could CHOOSE to make that section FEATURED products. OR NEW PRODUCTS. OR SPECIAL PRODUCTS. OR UPCOMING PRODUCTS. Or they could turn it off, and have home page text that extends further. All by using the nice little gui interface in the admin, without having to touch (I mean fix) any code. By requiring it BY HARDCODING, you are severely limiting your customers. It makes absolutely NO SENSE.

You really need to have an awakening here. There is absolutely no design limitations with zen cart. You can create any psd, and make it work, while offering your clients flexibility AND nice design. I may not be talking pixel for pixel, but I for one as a designer have never ended up with an exact pixel for pixel replica from the .psd's I design. Function HAS to come into account. The only limitation I see here is a lack of motivation to find out how to do things correctly. You guys simply don't care enough to try. Have your designers who mercilessly HACK away at zen carts structure come here when they are working to ask questions about how it should be done.

I also see a lack of your knowledge about design and css. You CAN have each sidebox with its own background color. You CAN do more with h1 tags.

But I do not expect you to actually digest this message, understand it, and come out with a reasonable answer. I've seen you completely miss the point, and ignore the obvious.

One BIG issue I can see from a design and zen cart integration standpoint in your .PSD's, is the fact that the designer seems to want the left and right columns to be the exact same height as each other, and if the page lengthens, the designer wants there to be white underneath the sideboxes (which personally I think looks odd, but that's not the point). Lets take this step by step. Shouldn't your customers be able to choose which links should show in their sidebox (something you can do in a standard zen cart install)? Or are you saying that people need to ALSO choose their template based on the sidebox links? So lets say someone who purchases your template doesn't want to bother with Newsletters. What then? Should they move along and find a template with ONLY THE LINKS THEY WANT? Or wait, if they purchase it, can they turn it off in the admin (as you can in a standard zen cart install)? And if they actually could (which I highly doubt), GASP, their sideboxes would be un-even?!?! But wait, that's not what the DESIGNER had in mind. I Just Don't Follow This Reasoning. :frusty::frusty::frusty:

I'd like to take your competition on, but I would make it so that people could turn off their links, and then sideboxes wouldn't be exact, and then it would not be what you are asking for, would it? It would work, it would still look nice, but I'm sure the things I would do to make this template USEABLE by more than one person would be unacceptable. I could make this template LOOK really close to what it is now, I could make ALL of the zen cart functions STILL work, and I can give people OPTIONS that wouldn't BREAK the design.

jettrue:

IF you guys USED the zen cart method, then your customers could CHOOSE to make that section FEATURED products. OR NEW PRODUCTS. OR SPECIAL PRODUCTS. OR UPCOMING PRODUCTS. Or they could turn it off, and have home page text that extends further. All by using the nice little gui interface in the admin, without having to touch (I mean fix) any code. By requiring it BY HARDCODING, you are severely limiting your customers. It makes absolutely NO SENSE.

First of all, I would like to thank you for your time. You have written a long and very constructive post here. Please allow me to reply to some of your points. People CAN change Feature products to NEW PRODUCTS. OR SPECIAL PRODUCTS. OR UPCOMING PRODUCTS easily, they have very similar formating - so our designers design only one block and we code others in the same style. I think the main problem comes when the customer wants to turn off ALL blocks in this area. (P.S. Fellis please correct me if I am wrong).

I also see a lack of your knowledge about design and css. You CAN have each sidebox with its own background color. You CAN do more with h1 tags.

I have never pretented here to be a tech guru. That is why I asked Fellis to join the discussion to discuss technical issues.

But I do not expect you to actually digest this message, understand it, and come out with a reasonable answer. I've seen you completely miss the point, and ignore the obvious.

I don't think this is true. I hope I've showed enough persistence to prove that I am eager to cooperate and find out the solution.

So lets say someone who purchases your template doesn't want to bother with Newsletters. What then? Should they move along and find a template with ONLY THE LINKS THEY WANT? Or wait, if they purchase it, can they turn it off in the admin (as you can in a standard zen cart install)? And if they actually could (which I highly doubt), GASP, their sideboxes would be un-even?!?! But wait, that's not what the DESIGNER had in mind. I Just Don't Follow This Reasoning. :frusty::frusty::frusty:

I think you greatly exaggerate things. I was talking only about the Featured Products section which takes the major part of the design. Of course people should be able to turn on or turn off different small blocks of the design. But if they want to put header in the footer - do not expect the design looking great. We should consider only minor changes that keep the overall design in order.

I'd like to take your competition on, but I would make it so that people could turn off their links, and then sideboxes wouldn't be exact, and then it would not be what you are asking for, would it? It would work, it would still look nice, but I'm sure the things I would do to make this template USEABLE by more than one person would be unacceptable. I could make this template LOOK really close to what it is now, I could make ALL of the zen cart functions STILL work, and I can give people OPTIONS that wouldn't BREAK the design.

I would appreciate if you participate in the competition and present the results to other community members.

Tmonster:

First of all, I would like to thank you for your time. You have written a long and very constructive post here. Please allow me to reply to some of your points. People CAN change Feature products to NEW PRODUCTS. OR SPECIAL PRODUCTS. OR UPCOMING PRODUCTS easily, they have very similar formating - so our designers design only one block and we code others in the same style. I think the main problem comes when the customer wants to turn off ALL blocks in this area. (P.S. Fellis please correct me if I am wrong).

Can they change Feature products to NEW PRODUCTS in the admin? When they come here asking for help, can we say "Go to your admin, go to "Configuration", "Index Listing" and change "Featured Products" to 0, and change "New Products" to 1"? If not, why not? Can they go in the admin and turn them all off, then go to "Tools", "Define Pages Editor" and change their home page text to be longer? If there was more text to fill in that section, then there is no problem with them turning any or all OFF, if it is done correctly. All it would require is for your designers to LEARN how it is done. Then it would be EVEN EASIER for your clients.

Tmonster:

I think you greatly exaggerate things. I was talking only about the Featured Products section which takes the major part of the design. Of course people should be able to turn on or turn off different small blocks of the design. But if they want to put header in the footer - do not expect the design looking great. We should consider only minor changes that keep the overall design in order. Really? Can your clients turn off any of the links they should be able to in their zen cart admin? I didn't suggest being able to put the header in the footer. I suggested being able to turn links off. If they are hardcoded, it is not easy to do. Again, your designers simply need to learn how to do this. It CAN BE DONE, and its not rocket science. Instead, what you guys do, is have designers create their perfect vision, then force any functionality to work around that.

Sorry I was on Blackberry, I couldn't edit my post so let me write a new one.

Let me add my two cents about our design.

As I understand, we're now talking about the functionality of zen-theme based on our PSD. I must admit that all features of admin area should be editable and the theme shouldn't be limited to sideboxes, welcome block, other elements. These files are just an example, how the theme creator understands the idea of the designer. As Tmonster said, Features listing, new products listing, etc are are designed in the same style. I do not see any problem with that. So the customer can change one section to another with no problem. As for blocks (sideboxes) - designer creates 3-4 blocks but programmers set styles to all standard zencart sideboxes using one or several styles, proposed by the designer.

If you see the lack of any elements, please give me a list of them and their analogs in standard theme.

Besides if you still confident that it's impossible to create zencart theme from these PSDs, please download the demo theme we produced and I have uploaded above to see that the majority of functions of admin area work fine, except several listing features.

P.S. Moderators please remove my previous post

As Jettrue said earlier, "There is absolutely no design limitations with zen cart". Some designs may be more difficult than others, but not only is the offered design possible in Zen Cart, I'd place it at the relatively straightforward end of the scale. There would be quite a lot of work to build it, but I imagine that TM has has code and style libraries that normally speed up the process.

Yes, there are functions that are not shown in the design. Probably the most important for many store owners would be one that Merlin raised earlier, i.e. attributes. But that said, this design is still more comprehensive than anything that I have ever received from a client, or given to a client before starting work on building a site or a template.

TM is rightly getting castigated for the quality of implementation of its templates. And tellingly much of the strongest criticism is coming from web designers who have been employed to help clients sort out the problems. But that's a separate issue to the quality of the PSD offered here, which, in my judgement, is very fair.

"Oranges and apples". I agree. That was not a good example, since you're talking about a static design (columns) versus a dynamic design (a program with options). Here you need another paradigm to focus the issue.

"A list of features". That is a very good departing point. Remember, functionality is first, and design must adhere to it. You can't cover everything, of course, but the basic ones must be.

Having said that, I totally agree with kuroi. I welcome your persistence and peaceful desire to solve this. Bravo. Please, go forward with this.

fellis:

I must admit that all features of admin area should be editable and the theme shouldn't be limited to sideboxes, welcome block, other elements. These files are just an example, how the theme creator understands the idea of the designer. As Tmonster said, Features listing, new products listing, etc are are designed in the same style. I do not see any problem with that. So the customer can change one section to another with no problem.

So, I want to confirm, when you guys setup a template like this, and a person using that template comes here and says "I want to turn off the featured listing on my home page", we can say "Go to your admin, go to "Configuration", "Index Listing" and change "Featured Products" to 0"? Same question with turning off links in the sideboxes. Can they do it with one click in the admin. Same question with the languages up in the header. What if they only have two languages, not three. If they turn off spanish, will the little Spain flag disappear? Same question with the shopping cart, if your clients go to the admin and turn off weight from showing in the shopping cart, will it disappear? Same question with product reviews on the product page. When your clients want to turn reviews off, will they be able to go into their admin and turn it off with one click?

If not, is that something that you guys plan to change moving from here? If not, the point of this thread is totally being missed.

jettrue:

So, I want to confirm, when you guys setup a template like this, and a person using that template comes here and says "I want to turn off the featured listing on my home page", we can say "Go to your admin, go to "Configuration", "Index Listing" and change "Featured Products" to 0"? Same question with turning off links in the sideboxes. Can they do it with one click in the admin. Same question with the languages up in the header. What if they only have two languages, not three. If they turn off spanish, will the little Spain flag disappear? Same question with the shopping cart, if your clients go to the admin and turn off weight from showing in the shopping cart, will it disappear? Same question with product reviews on the product page. When your clients want to turn reviews off, will they be able to go into their admin and turn it off with one click?

If not, is that something that you guys plan to change moving from here? If not, the point of this thread is totally being missed.

sure all these features should be editable from admin area.

I propose another way to demonstrate it. What if we code this PSD using our usual way and publish a demo with admin access here too. This way we will give to respected forum members the ability to see themselves what is working and what is not. Please let me know if it is a good idea - and if so, we will start coding this template asap.

Tmonster:

I propose another way to demonstrate it. What if we code this PSD using our usual way and publish a demo with admin access here too. This way we will give to respected forum members the ability to see themselves what is working and what is not. Please let me know if it is a good idea - and if so, we will start coding this template asap.:huh:
I'm puzzled. Surely you already have this coded ... it's your existing template no. 12497. I had been assuming that you wanted to compare your existing approach with the solutions developed by experienced Zen Cart users.

yes, the template 12497 is one of ours. but since the time it was produced there were a lot of improvements made with our zencart themes. we're struggling to embed all working admin features of zencart into our designs. now I'm creating a list of admin area features we can embed to design. and it will be great if you help us with bringing non working features to our theme.

Hope, admin area functions list will be ready in several days.

fellis:

yes, the template 12497 is one of ours. but since the time it was produced there were a lot of improvements made with our zencart themes. we're struggling to embed all working admin features of zencart into our designs. now I'm creating a list of admin area features we can embed to design.This is exactly the sort of action about which we want to hear. But on a practical note, wouldn't it be easier to build your templates onto Zen Cart code that already works, rather than trying to embed Zen Cart features into templates that are flawed?

We tried to create some themes based on standard zen-cart theme. But we had and still have some problems with embedding our design to zen-cart code. Zen-cart default theme:
"This template set is designed to be easily modified using only the style sheet to change colors, fonts, and the store logo. Three images are required; logo.jpg, header_bg.jpg, and tile_back.jpg.';
$template_screenshot = 'scr_template_default.jpg"
But we need more customization abilities, we need to change products listing layouts, sibeboxes design, product details page and other features.
Zencart override system allows to do it, but such theme installation will be problematic for our customers.
if we put a background image to <h1> tags of sideboxes headings, we'll lose an ability to change width of the side column. we need at least 3 elements to create stretched columns (one for the left part of background, one for the right and one for the center repeated background) - it's html coding basics.
So let's focus our discussion on technical stuff. First of all we need to get advice concerning products listing and sideboxes creation process.

P.S. In addition - as you advised we made the folders structure of "template_tm_test"(899kb) similar to "template_default"(515kb). Please download it again and share your technical point of view. We're very interesting on technical solutions which would make our themes better.

It will be also great if some of you will show some code examples to compare.

fellis,

another downfall that I have seen is that you have coppied the ENTIRE template_default, this is NOT required
ONLY include the files and folders that you have changed,

and the sataement about only needing those 3 things is for a novice to get zc running right out of the box and have their logo in place and their colors,

that is NOT the be all end all,

as Kuroi suggested START with a fresh install of ZC 1.3.7 and create the template the way the designers ( Like Kuroi, Kim and others ) do them and you will discover that its 1 not that hard and 2 will make your clients alot happier,

On another note,

TM you come in here and ask for ideas and how things could be made better,
then fellis comes in and defends your current position,

this is just my humble opinion but are you actually listning or just trying to apease the masses,

I have yet to see a responce from your designer that shows that hes getting it,

no, " that would be a good idea" or " Now I get it" its always we cant do it that way because.......

that reads to me like the designer is telling the folks here to go to hell and that they are only involved here because you told em to and they are not willing to change teh way they do things

To Merlinpa1969

I think you are not right. We came to listen to the community and find out the win-win solution here. Fellis does not protect his way, but explains it and tries to explain what were the reasons that forced us to choose this way. That does not mean that we are going to continue using this way. We are simply discussing pros and cons of each way while preparing the list of supported features and waiting for results from contest participants.

P.S. When I see another way to create these templates, which will be easier for our customers, believe me I'll push everybody to implement this standard into production process shortly.

fellis:

We tried to create some themes based on standard zen-cart theme. But we had and still have some problems with embedding our design to zen-cart code. Zen-cart default theme: "This template set is designed to be easily modified using only the style sheet to change colors, fonts, and the store logo. Three images are required; logo.jpg, header_bg.jpg, and tile_back.jpg.';
$template_screenshot = 'scr_template_default.jpg"
But we need more customization abilities, we need to change products listing layouts, sibeboxes design, product details page and other features.That text is aimed at inexperienced users. And it's true. But clearly your more sophisticated templates will need more. Though usually that's more skill in the implementation. Not more divs.
fellis:

Zencart override system allows to do it, but such theme installation will be problematic for our customers.You've said that before and I thought it strange then. Why do you believe this? It's not consistent with my experiences helping new users in this forum.
fellis:

if we put a background image to <h1> tags of sideboxes headings, we'll lose an ability to change width of the side column.Sideboxes has h3 tags not H1s. H1s are reserved for page titles. I'll assume though, that we are talking about sideboxes here. > fellis:

we need at least 3 elements to create stretched columns (one for the left part of background, one for the right and one for the center repeated background) - it's html coding basics.It's not HTML coding basics. It's old-fashioned old tables-based slice and dice thinking. And it's simply not necessary in XHTML/CSS layouts. The sliding doors technique enables width expandable elements with just two containers. In Zen Cart sideboxes one of these can be the h3 tag, the other teh sidebox container div. Of the 79 Zen Cart templates you have currently, only three (13803, 14098 and 14508) needed even a 2nd glance to confirm that the default Zen Cart markup was sufficient. Only two (12998 and 13813) would actually need extra containers.
fellis:

So let's focus our discussion on technical stuff. First of all we need to get advice concerning products listing and sideboxes creation process.
P.S. In addition - as you advised we made the folders structure of "template_tm_test"(899kb) similar to "template_default"(515kb). Please download it again and share your technical point of view. We're very interesting on technical solutions which would make our themes better.I downloaded it again, but couldn't see any changes. It still suffers from the problem Merlin pointed out previously, namely it over-rides every template file, even when they are identical to the equivalent Zen Cart file. This effectively blocks many Zen Cart enhancements and makes upgrading much more difficult than it ought to be.
fellis:

It will be also great if some of you will show some code examples to compare.This forum is about quick advice, freely shared. Code examples go rather beyond this, though hopefully you'll get them from the contest participants.

Tmonster:

P.S. When I see another way to create these templates, which will be easier for our customers, believe me I'll push everybody to implement this standard into production process shortly.

I refuse to join this competition, because it is not my job to correct the craziness that has become a Template Monster Template. It is the job of Template Monster employees to do that. Are you trying to say that they are not capable of figuring it out? It needs to be handed to them? Have them read the faq, have them ask questions, have them start fresh, as there is still a long way to go. Also, it's not about seeing "another way" to create the templates, its about seeing the "correct" way.

Instead of joining the competition, I challenge someone from your company who normally does the template integrating in the zen cart, to start with a fresh blank install of zen cart. I challenge them to use override folders correctly (they can read the faq, or ask questions here). I challenge them to NOT take any single admin function away. I challenge them not to add new functions to zen cart. It can be done. Question is, how important is it to Template Monster?

Thank you all for your patience.
As Tmonster mentioned, I'm not protecting our templates. I just want to improve them. We removed from our theme all unmodified files and uploaded it again to http://osc.template-help.com/zencart_test.zip

As for previous Kuroi remarks, I will examine his post and try to implement solutions to our theme. I will be very happy if you take a look at it