2. Edit Products

fmProductEdit, fmEditProduct_Zen, AttributeEdtDialog_Zen - Edit Product Form.

To edit Zen Cart product you can double click on it or use "Edit product" button. It calls Edit Product form for selected product.

The availability of some of the "Edit Product" dialog pages depends on whether you have an appropriate contribution installed or not. For example, Products X-Sell page is not available if you don't have an appropriate contribution installed. Check List of Zen Cart contributions, supported by Store Manager for Zen Cart, here.

Generally Store Manager has the following Edit Product pages:

General (English)

Main Page contains general information about the Zen Cart product. If you are creating a new Product, pay attention to fields marked with *. Those fields are required and others may be left blank or with default meanings.

Date available - the date to start publishing current product at your Zen Cart store. Default setting is the same as Date added.
Date added - date, when the product was created. Date added feels in automatically when you’re adding new product to a store.
In stock - check if product is available at your Zen Cart store. If you want to pre-announce your new product, you can select out of stock and then add a date when it will be available.
Name, Model - specify this options the way you want to appear them at the store page.

Categories - One Zen Cart product may be assigned to multiple categories. To assign product to some category click "+" button , and select a category from drop-down.

2. To remove selected category from list click on the button opposite.

3. Product Manufacturer – This option is self-explanatory. You can add to this dropdown by adding a manufacture in Catalog->Manufacturers. You must do this before you add product if you want to use this dropdown. Alternatively, you can do it afterwards by editing your product.

4. Tax class - specify tax class if this item is taxable.

5. Quantity - specify product quantity.

6. Price (Net) – actual price your want to sell your item for.

7. Price Gross - specify your gross price.

8. Currency and Weight are standard Zen Cart product properties. Drop-downs allow selecting or calculating values.

9. Image - select your main image to go with your product. There are three buttons to edit image.

First one is used to browse contents of your local folders and select an image. When you press OK button on product edit form it will be uploaded to "Images directory" on FTP. When the local image is selected, this field will display local image path like shown in the example - C:\My Images\some_image.jpg. But local image path will be replaced with image name some_image.jpg right after upload.

Second button is used to select some images stored remotely. It's done by browsing contents of FTP folder specified as "Images directory". You can also choose images sub-directory as well.

Third one is used to open Image Resize Rules window. You can add or delete rules if you need.

Zen Cart images of good quality add points to the overall score of the online store as in the majority of cases customers want to see the product they are about to buy from different perspectives. Click here to check how to make your Zen Cart store more attractive for customers by means of Product Images.

URL (without http://) - This option is for you to place a link to product manufacturer's site. For example, if you're selling Dutch tulips the link should take to Some Garden in Holland.
Raw HTML Edit mode - allows you to see the description in HTML code when checked. All modifications to HTML will be saved "as they are", without any corrections. If this option is unchecked, Store manager will use WYSIWYG HTML Editor. Please note that this ActiveX control may implicitly modify HTML code and insert unexpected formatting.
Description - represents the Zen Cart product description exactly the way it's going to appear at product's page.
1. Edit HTML button - shows new HTML editor window of product description. It has 2 tabs: HTML and Code, and Properties Toolbar.
2. Source preview is useful if you are working directly with "raw" HTML text, which gives you precise control over the tags used in the page. However, by default, you can still work with objects visually.

Design view in HTML editor enables you to:

View and edit a page in a WYSIWYG-like environment.
Work with HTML controls, using the visual representation that may be seen in the browser.
Use menu and toolbar commands to apply certain types of formatting, such as paragraph alignment, that are not available in Source view.
Use menu and toolbar commands to add and edit certain elements, such as tables and lists, which you must edit as HTML text in Source view.
Drag items from the Toolbox and from the Project Explorer to create elements at your page.
Use drag method for the preposition of absolutely positioned elements.

In Source view, the Properties window does not display style properties. You can edit style properties directly in an HTML tag or by using the Properties window in Design view.

Source view in the HTML editor enables you to:

View and edit text and HTML tags.
View and edit scripts on the page.

Press 'OK' to save changes made in HTML editor.

View Product page - live at your store. To make sure that the link is generated correctly, go to Settings -> Preferences -> Advanced and find the following line:

You can uncheck "Same as database host" and type proper URL.

Press 'OK' to save General Product Settings. Or you can Apply changes and move to editing of the next product using < > buttons.

Language page

Language page(s) appear if you're using some language(s) other than your store's Language. That's way you are able to input all text that is going to appear on the page using Edit product window. This page's options are actually an extract from general page's options, such as Product name, URL to product page, Product Description and Edit HTML option.

Please note, that General page settings will appear in your store language (In our Example its English) which you set in Tools -> Store language.

Other Product options

Other Product Options page contains additional Zen Cart product fields and parameters.

Product type - you can select one of default Zen Cart product types.
Product is Free – Is your product going to be free? If yes, enable this check-box.
Product is Call for Price – You can use this option if you do not want to publish your price for this item.
Product Priced by Attributes – Products would be priced via an attribute and not the actual price you set.
Product is Virtual – when this option is enabled (checked "Yes") you can Skip Shipping Address, when Disabled (No) Shipping Address is Required. This is for items like downloadable files, e-books, etc.
Always Free Shipping – select whether this item will be shipped free (Yes, Always Free Shipping) or use Normal Shipping Rules.
Products Quantity Box Shows – Generally Show Quantity Box option is used. If you have only one of these items, you can select the option of having no quantity box.
Product Qty Minimum – If you have to sell a minimum quantity of an item. 0 = Unlimited, 1 = No Qty Boxes
Product Qty Maximum – The customer can purchase more than one item up to this amount.
Product Qty Min/Unit Mix - Is used if you have created custom attributes.
Sort Order – This will setup the sort order on how the product shows when listed in the Zen Cart store.

Price Manager

Price Manager allows you to edit Zen Cart product pricing and discount levels. Use Add new or Delete Discount Levels to modify data.

Discount type - choose Non, Percentage, Actual Price or Amount off.
Discount Priced form - Price or Special.
Discount levels - specify discount level name.
Minimum Quantity - specify minimum quantity here.
Discount value - specify discount value here.
Calculated price - specify the calculated price here (to calculate discount form).
Extended price - You can see the new price calculated (press Apply button to calculate your changes).

Attributes page

You can find exactly the same options to edit Attributes in two places. First is Attributes tab in the Edit product window. The other option is in the Product Attributes Section on the Main Categories & Products Page.

Learn more about Zen Cart product attributes below.

Featured products page

Please note that this page will be available if you have Featured Products contribution Installed. At this page you can configure appearance of current product in the list of featured items.

If you want to add a product to the list of featured items simply check Add to FEATURED option. It won't automatically update the product's status to featured at the store, but makes it available in Featured List. It gives you an opportunity to edit product's Featured status in Featured section, along with other featured Zen Cart products. There you can set time, when the product has active featured status (is featured), which equals to checking Featured status checkbox in this window.

Next three options in Zen Cart are set automatically.

Date added - the date, when the product was added to featured list.
Last modified - the date, when you have made last changes in this product status.
Date status change - automatically shows time when Featured status was changed (you can see it current meaning in the box right under Date Status Change option). Please note, that even if you manually set this date, it won't change product status.
Date expired - After this date Featured status will not be valid. You can set date when you'd like to stop displaying this product as featured. If the Featured Status box is unchecked, expiration date is of no importance as the product is already not listed.

Product will be displayed at your store as Featured only when Featured Status checkbox is checked.

Special products page

On this page you can configure appearance of current product in the list of special items. It's similar to Featured Page, except that it has several additional New Price lines.

Add to SPECIALS option doesn't automatically make product Special at the store, but makes it available in Specials List. It gives you an opportunity to edit product's Special status in Specials section, along with the other special products. There you can set time, when the Zen Cart product has active Specials status (is Special), which equals to checking Specials status checkbox in this window. You can specify:

Date added - indicates the date, when the product was added to specials list.
Last modified - the date, when you have made last changes in this product status.
Date status change - automatically shows time when Specials status was changed (you can see it current meaning in the box right under Date Status Change option). Please note that even if you manually set this date, it won't change product status.
New price (net or gross) - here you'll be able to see the discount (how many percent off the current price you're providing). You can also use up/down arrows to change price (1% step). But if you wish to set some specific discount (let's say 25%), than new price will be automatically calculated. Please note, that if you're setting %, it has to be "-25" for discount and "25" to make new price 25% higher.
Date expired - After this date Specials status will not be valid. You can set date when you'd like to stop displaying this product as special.

Product will be displayed at your Zen Cart store as Special only when Specials Status box is checked.

Other

You can find product ID and the product viewed and ordered number on this page. Product ID is a unique product identification that cannot be edited.

Meta Tabs

Meta Tags tab allows you to specify meta title, meta description and meta keywords of your product here.

Images

Images tab allows you to add Thumbnail and Large images.

Click on the following button - - to browse content of your local folders and select an image yo want to add. When you press OK button on edit form it will be uploaded to "Images directory" on FTP. When local image selected, this field will display local image path like C:\My Images\some_image.jpg. But local image path will be replaced with image name some_image.jpg right after upload.

You will see the list of images which can be used for preview on the Front-End:

You can mark with the tick a checkbox below and the same image which is indicated as a main illustration above will be used to preview the all angles of the products on the Front-End:

Do not forget to press 'Apply' button to keep your choice and assign images to the selected product.

Also here you can check related articles on Zen Cart Product Management:

How to Manage Multiple Products

Make Your Store More Attractive For Customers by Means of Product Images

Open New Perspectives to Your Business Development with Cross-Sell Functionality

How to Manage Your Media Products Fast and Effortlessly

By eMagicOne Inc.