New/Featured/Special/Upcoming Products sections

Zen Cart Centerbox enable / disable

Centerboxes are pieces of content that are displayed in the middle of the screen in the Zen Cart storefront.

This article is about controlling centerboxes from the admin.

As the title of this article suggests, there are four built-in Centerboxes:

  • New Products
  • Featured Products
  • Special Products
  • Upcoming Products

Each of these blocks can be displayed on a number of pages. Using the New Products centerbox as an example, the following settings exist:

On Admin > Configuration > Stock,

  • Show New Products on empty Shopping Cart Page

On Admin > Configuration > Index Listing,

  • Show New Products on Main Page
  • Show New Products on Main Page - Category with SubCategories
  • Show New Products on Main Page - Errors and Missing Products Page
  • Show New Products - below Product Listing

For each of these values:

  • The values you set are the Sort Order of the Centerboxes
  • Turn OFF by setting to 0 all of the ones you do NOT want to see displayed

Once you have turned on a centerbox and determined its position, you must decide how many items it should contain.

The number of products shown in each centerbox is controlled using settings from Admin > Configuration > Maximum Values. Note that names of these settings changed in Zen Cart 1.5.8.

For example:

Purpose Pre-1.5.8 1.5.8 and higher
The number of items in the New Products centerbox New Products Module New Products Centerbox
The number of items in the Featured Products centerbox Maximum Display of Featured Products - Main Page Featured Products Centerbox
The number of items in the Special Products centerbox Maximum Display of Specials Products - Main Page Products on Special Centerbox
The number of items in the Upcoming Products centerbox Upcoming Products Upcoming Products Centerbox



Still have questions? Use the Search box in the upper right, or try the full list of FAQs. If you can't find it there, head over to the Zen Cart support forum and ask there in the appropriate subforum. In your post, please include your Zen Cart and PHP versions, and a link to your site.

Is there an error or omission on this page? Please post to General Questions on the support forum. Or, if you'd like to open a pull request, just review the guidelines and get started. You can even PR right here.
Last modified June 14, 2021 by Scott C Wilson (f82a6a12).