How to Modify Zen Cart to Use External Images

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Sometimes due to bandwidth constraints or storage limitations, you may consider hosting images on a server separate from your Zen Cart installation. Whether you choose to host the files on another server that you own, or on a commercial image-hosting website, the process for linking external images remains the same. In some cases, linking to external sources for images may even be faster than uploading files through Zen Cart and could save you money on bandwidth costs.


Things You'll Need
External host with your images
Access to the Zen Cart "Developer Toolkit" (requires administrator password)

Instructions
Linking External Images in Zen Cart
1 Access the "Developer Toolkit" from the Zen Cart administrator screen. In the search box, type "DIR_WS_IMAGES." This brings up all the pages that contain code to be modified. In each page, replace "DIR_WS_IMAGES" with "DIR_EXT_HTTP." This tells Zen Cart to look for images externally rather than in the "image" folder. This step is necessary only once.

2 Navigate to the Web server that contains the image that you are linking. If the images are stored on your hard drive, you need to upload them first. Sites such as imageshack.us and photobucket.com (and others) offer both free and paid services for image hosting. Alternatively, you could choose to host them on a private server, if available.


3 Right-click on the image once it is displayed in your browser and select "Properties." This brings up a window that displays the image attributes and location. Highlight the URL that appears next to the "Path" field then right-click the selection and choose "Copy" from the menu. Example text (without quotes): "http://example.com/image.jpg."

4 Paste the URL copied in Step 3 into the "Product Image" text box on the "Product Attribute" page, and save the changes. Your external image should now be displayed correctly.

Tips & Warnings
1 Depending on your traffic, it may be more economical to host images with a professional image host than to pay for additional bandwidth. Even some of the paid services offered by these companies are possibly more affordable.


2 Linking to external images without permission from the owner (unless the images are owned by you) is frowned upon and may result in a request to stop linking to the server. In addition, images must be properly sized, as you will not have access to Zen Cart's image-editing features.