Welcome to Zen Cart™ ...


The Zen Cart™ software is made available to you for use, additions, changes, modifications, etc. without charge, under the GNU General Public License.

While we do not charge for this software, donations are greatly appreciated each time you download a new version, to help cover the expenses of maintenance, upgrades, updates, the free support forum and the continued development of this software for your online e-commerce store.

Donations can be made at: The Zen Cart™ Team Page

We appreciate your support.
The Zen Cart™ Team

Zen Cart™ is derived from: Copyright 2003 osCommerce
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY;
without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
and is redistributable under the GNU General Public License



This software is OSI Certified Open Source Software.
OSI Certified is a certification mark of the Open Source Initiative.

NOTE FOR UPGRADERS

If you are using PayPal, you'll need to REMOVE and re-INSTALL the paypal payment module in Admin, after upgrading.

If you need a reference for paypal settings, see the Setup document in the /docs folder , or go to: https://www.paypal.com/en_US/pdf/integration_guide.pdf .

Whats New ...

The following are new features / enhancements in v1.2.5d:
  • NEW: Add New Meta Tags-Per Product with Per Product-Type settings
  • NEW: Product Descriptions can now be shown in the Product Listings (set length in admin)
  • NEW: Product to Multiple Categories Link Manager in Admin
  • NEW: Added numerous indexes to database tables to speed performance significantly
  • NEW: Orders with Downloads toggle available/unavailable with status icons
  • NEW: Downloads "too many attempts" page instead of just a dead white page
  • NEW: Added ability to turn off the gethostbyaddr lookup configurable in the Admin (for speed)
  • NEW: Multiple Add to Cart updates for New, Featured and All Products.
  • NEW: Admin Orders page - Show order content on orders display listing (right side menu)
    (See Switch in Admin->Config->Max Values->Maxium Orders Detail display to control length)
  • NEW: Orders class now gathers shipping module and method
  • NEW: Orders display payment module and shipping module on display - admin
  • NEW: Admin Modules now display module's name for easier reference
  • NEW: Maximum Per Page switches for Discount Coupons and Reports (Config->Max Values)
  • NEW: New Banners Box "banners_all" - allow all banners in 1 group to be displayed together at the same time. (Sort Order added to the Banners Manager for use with this banners_box only.)
  • NEW: Display allow_add_to_cart status on Product Types for easier debugging on user issues
  • NEW: Add an admin Session-selectable Products Sorter on Catalog/Products. Now you can set your sort order while logged in for your active session only. Doesn't affect other administrators.
  • NEW: Categories/Products Toggle HTMLarea editor selectable "per session"
  • NEW: Select Product Option Name and Value to copy to any product with an Option Name for whole shop or one category with base settings blank or from an existing product
  • NEW: Session oriented Show/Hide Global Features for Option Names and Values in Admin area
    This will save large sites from long delays when features not needed
    Default Setting is in Layout Settings
  • NEW: More detailed error message if email template not found when sending HTML emails
  • NEW: Improved the Products Purchased report to pull more accurate info from the orders_products table rather than from just the products table.
  • NEW: Product Reviews can now notify the administrator by email of Pending status
  • NEW: SMTPAUTH server PORT added for SMTP email processing (Config->Email Options)
  • NEW: Upload filetypes (valid file extensions) now configurable in Admin->Maximum Values
  • NEW: Store can now be configured to display or not display Tax for $0.00 tax amounts
  • NEW: Meta Tags only show Active Categories on pages for Categories
  • NEW: Add a CUSTOMERS_APPROVAL_AUTHORIZATION value 3 for Allow Customer to Browse, See Prices but NOT buy until approved (Admin->Config->Customer Details->Cust Approval)
  • NEW: Tracks IP ADDRESSS on a per order basis (orders table and to Admin "Orders" page)
    IP address is searchable.
  • NEW: Admin activity logging added to protect CC merchants accessing customer info
  • NEW: whos_online shows User Agent for easier update of spiders.txt
  • Renamed Documentation files in the /docs folder
  • Significantly updated the "onload" feature documentation
  • Smarter intelligence in the Install SQL Patches tool

Bug Fixes and Code Improvements

The following bug-fixes / improvements were applied in v1.2.5d
  • Warning added to check if database version matches ZC PHP code version
  • Fix the orders ID = 0 error on checkout_success
  • Customer Date-of-Birth field fixed for 1969 dates
  • Paypal payment module in admin area now points out the correct URL to set in PayPal.com IPN settings page.
  • Paypal module also sends more accurate address info to paypal
  • Removed sandbox setting for paypal module --- too many people confused over the unreliability of the sandbox services provided by paypal
  • Fixed spelling in product-related language files (admin) for "attribuites"
  • Admin login now checks to be sure that the configure.php file exists, rather than blank page if problems
  • Warning for Admin default logins -- points out potential security issue if exists in admin
  • Admin->Config-Email Options->Email Friendly Errors now properly suppresses email errors. Set this to false when testing, and ideally to true for a live shop.
  • Fix invoice page so displays correct billing address
  • Fixed Bug regarding DOWNLOAD_MAX_DAYS key 'title' typo
  • Fix multilingual issue in admin related to welcome email display in admin.
  • Define Page Editor $_POST fix
  • Fix "also purchase" per row
  • Fix Discount Coupon popup to show products/categories allowed
  • Fix USPS Shipping Issues international
  • Fix Text Areas Zones and Tables
  • Adjust checkout_shipping for FedEx
  • Fixed Report Navigation bug in Coupon-Admin page
  • Admin "email a coupon" no longer sends duplicate admin copies of coupon emails
  • Add installer link to the /docs folder for the "congrats you've installed Zen Cart" page.
  • Installer "inspector" upgrades for better PHP-as-CGI detection and explanation text.
  • Changed installer "Finished" page to launch catalog in a new browser session if click on "Click to open store".
  • Installer checks for null HTTPS:// entries and use HTTP:// versions instead. This prevents EREG and other errors during installation.
  • Installer now checks for potential SQL failures during Upgrade activities, making upgrades less likely to fail due to errors.
  • Installer now reports free disk space value
  • Installer now reports PHP session.auto_start setting
  • Installer now prevents invalid characters from being entered in table-prefixes
  • installer now warns if PHP's session.use_trans_sid is enabled
  • Fix: Missing   define('PRODUCTS_PRICE_IS_FREE_TEXT', 'Product is Free') in admin area
  • New field in banners table: banners_sort_order
  • Fix UPS Commercial Shipping Quote ----> $this->_upsResComCode = '0'; not 2
  • Added clarity to legend on admin orders page
  • Fix Shopping Cart Bug on priced by attributes
  • Fix default display order on Listing Display Order
  • Added new user_agent field on whos_online table
  • add "slurp" separately to spiders.txt (plus several others)
  • Fix GVs to convert negative values to positive and strip many common currency symbols
  • Fixed GV emails to not send with zenid attached.
  • New function zen_check_show_prices(): If prices can show, returns 'true' otherwise 'false'
  • Enlarged fields for payment_method and shipping_method 32 was too small set to 128
  • Orders updates for Payment and Shipping module and Text Names
  • Send GV can now take $25 or 25 or whatever and still work correctly
  • Fixed "remove images" when none is used and subcategories in the update_product module
  • Fixed syntax error on search ... missing )
  • Sales/Featured/Specials now only auto-update upon first customer session, if set. Brings slight speed improvement.
  • Fix pricing options for when to show and not show prices/text for Show Case, Meta Tags etc.
  • Fix display price/text when Show Case etc. turns of price to not show the text either
  • Fixed missing ALT tag defines in banners area
    Change Default of Proportional Images to OFF vs ON
  • Fix database structure for TEXT attributes to allow for 64 characters to match structure in products_options_values and customers_basket_attributes
  • Fix for ICON_ERROR vs ICON_ERROR_ALT
  • Fix for ICON_WARNING_ALT vs ICON_WARNING
  • Fix missing default sort order on Search sidebox and Advance Search
  • Fix the <noscript> contents for popup image calls... was producing URL's like mysite.com/index.php?main_page=/images/00_small.jpg. Now uses zen_href_link(FILENAME_POPUP...
  • Fix emailer system inconsistencies, and missing defines.
  • Slight tidying of english.php layout, related to metatags
  • Fix Customer Approval to check status when customer is waiting for approval
    Otherwise, customer must leave site and start a new session before check is performed again
  • Set Categories-Tabs to OFF by default (will be an Admin switch in v1.3)
  • Fix bug in Currencies class related to upper/lowercase
  • Fix Currency code security issue when URL is hacked
    Fixed to switch to default when unknown and to uppercase when known
  • Fix secure page error when you login to write Review
  • Fix the audience.php logic so it's windows-friendly, and also repair a minor logic flaw.
  • Add a CUSTOMERS_APPROVAL_AUTHORIZATION value 3 for Allow Customer to Browse, See Prices but NOT buy until approved
  • removed reference to SQL DELETE for music_genre_info table -- table isn't used presently
  • disabled also-purchased-products if max set to 0 in admin
  • Moved the Click for Update button to the right side of admin header, out of the way
  • Tidy up admin CSS menu
  • Fix upload error messages to display more consistently
  • Weights are now tracked as a FLOAT field type in database to solve rounding problems
  • Multiple Add To Cart now "on" by default for NEW installs, and untouched ('off') for upgrades.
  • Cleaned up sideboxes to remove duplicate SELECT statements/code & variables
  • Adjusted whos_online timeout to 1200 to match admin default set in language file
  • Added clarification in admin that "SHIPPING_ORIGIN_ZIP can only be the 5 digit not zip+ for USA zip codes"
  • Removed duplication of "sale_categories_all" SELECT queries in various files
  • Remove hardcoded "Please Select" in shipping_estimator
  • Suppress fsockopen errors when unable to connect (USPS, UPS, and some SMTP email)
  • Fix Specials Bug when entered as % on Products Price Manager
  • Updated Newsletters and Product Notification modules to properly show progress while sending emails
  • Installer now shows detailed MySQL error message code if it fails to connect to the database during installation.
  • Made Administrator "password reset" button more obvious
  • Suppress errors if ini_set() is disabled by webhost for some reason.

Template-specific changes

  • fix javascript bug in login & contact_us templates (related to onload events)
  • Fix default display order on Listing Display Order
  • New banners_all option added
  • Add new customer approval authorization level
  • Fix secure page error when you login to write Review
  • NEW: Downloads "too many attempts" page instead of just a dead white page

Tips On Customizing With New Features

  • Due to metatags improvements, metatag Language settings have been removed from english.php and put into english/meta_tags.php
  • To access new meta-tags-per-product, go into Admin->Catalog->Select a product->Click on the new icon at the far right of the product's button-bar.
  • To use the new Copy-Multiple-Products-To-Another-Category feature, click on the "c" icon on the product's button-bar, and look for the link to multiples "button" in the bottom of the category-copier infobox on the far right.
  • To turn on product "short descriptions", flip the switch under Admin->Product Listing->Display Product Description, and enter the number of characters you want to display in short descriptions.
  • In various pages in Admin where HTMLarea can be used, it can now be enabled "per-login-session" simply by selecting your choice from the drop-down list. Resets to default at logout.
  • Multiple-Add-To-Cart "quantity" box and "add" buttons can be enabled in each of
    Admin->Configuration->New Listing
    Admin->Configuration->Featured Listing
    Admin->Configuration->All Listing
  • In Admin->Catalog/Products, you can change the sort order on-the-fly by choosing from the drop-down list at top center of the screen