Custom CMS and seamless Zen Cart integration

jawcsx10

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I'm in the process of creating a site that has an easily editable custom file based CMS. The site will be using Zen Cart for e-commerce and I'm trying to make it all blend together as seamlessly as possible. Responsive with no images in the styling. (Images for content only). Still quite a bit to do yet, but I'd like some feedback on what I've got so far.
http://jawcs.x10.mx
 

essellar

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So far, so good. I'm not a big fan of the khaki colour (it's neither subdued enough to "just be there" nor bright enough to be "branding" without some accents), but that's really neither here nor there. The text-shadow on the body copy and menu text is a little bothersome, though -- it looks blurry, and an e-commerce site should probably look more like a brochure printed with a fine screen on glossy cover stock rather than like something web-printed on newsprint. Keep the shadows on the accent text (headings and such); if you have crisp body copy to contrast it with, it will "pop" as an effect.

I'm not a "device" user so I can't comment on the mobile experience, but the design seems to hold up well (or at least well enough) at any reasonable size I can make my browsers. I'm limited to 1080p for browsing though; it looks like there's nothing restraining the content width for stupid-large monitors, and it could get hard to read at widths much greater than 2000px. I'd put a max-width on it or use a media query to set the font size in vw units after you reach a certain width just to keep the line lengths manageable.

I suspect that the most interesting bits are the stuff we can't see. That's the problem with showing off a custom CMS: nobody can tell you're using a custom CMS unless you've done something horribly wrong. So while it's possible to get "hails of derisive laughter, Bruce", you won't get much in the way of attaboys unless people can play with the back end, and you should probably take "I didn't even notice" as a high compliment. And, truth to tell, I didn't notice anything other than my usual picayune design niggles; everything is where it ought to be, and works like it says on the tin. I have no idea how it works or whether it will scale nicely, but it works and seems to handle at least one user at least as well as anything else posted here. (Believe it or not, a lot of what's posted for review here has trouble scaling even to one user on Free Hosting, though it may have seemed snappy running with local file access, 8 CPU cores and gigs upon gigs of RAM to play with.) The HTML is neat and tidy, the request numbers/sizes are reasonable for a jQuery + bootstrap site, and all is apparently well.
 

jawcsx10

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Thanks Essellar, your review has been very helpful and encouraging. In the past I've "tweaked" some javascript and php but the CMS is my first attempt at writing the complete php code. The vw units is news to me, I'll have to investigate that. Never had any formal training or education in any type of programming. What I've learned has been through w3schools.com, php.net, a whole lot of searching, trial and error.
My focus right now is on error-free pages that load quickly with an original design. After that comes the joyous task of SEO!
Thanks Again
 

Zenax

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Loads fast and looks great. Not to sure on the Khaki colour either, but all the colours seem to fit well together. I wouldn't of known that it was running on a custom CMS either. You have done a great job at getting everything to load correctly. I looked around at the other pages and I couldn't find any issues with them. I agree with Essellar that if it is to be selling stuff, then I would opt for the more "glossy magazine/brochure" look, but that is personal preference. The main thing is that it loads well, no errors appear and it looks great. Keep up the good work!
 

fretwizz

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It's amazing how far away from the non-custom 'look' you can get with any of the CMS' out there once you understand about the given template system they use.
 
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