New/Featured/Special/Upcoming Products sections

Zen Cart Centerbox enable / disable

This article is about controlling centerboxes from the admin.

There is a “New Products” section on several pages, including Home Page, New-Products page, All-Products Page, (empty) Shopping Cart page, etc. These sections are called centerboxes.

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

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

The pages where the centerboxes are displayed each have a group of centerbox settings.

When you go to Index Listing under Admin > Configuration, you will see options like:

  • Show New Products on Main Page
  • Show Featured Products on Main Page
  • Show Special Products on Main Page
  • Show Upcoming Products on Main Page

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

The same is true on other similar configuration menus under Admin > Configuration:

For setting up the Centerboxes of the Empty Shopping Cart, use the settings on the Admin > Configuration > Stock, you will see the settings for:

  • Show New Products on empty Shopping Cart Page
  • Show Featured Products on empty Shopping Cart Page
  • Show Special Products on empty Shopping Cart Page
  • Show Upcoming Products on empty Shopping Cart Page

The number of products shown in each centerbox is controlled using settings from Admin > Configuration > Maximum Values.

For example:

  • The number of New Products displayed is controlled by MAX_DISPLAY_NEW_PRODUCTS.
  • The number of Featured Products displayed is controlled by MAX_DISPLAY_PRODUCTS_FEATURED_PRODUCTS.
  • The number of Special Products displayed is controlled by MAX_DISPLAY_SPECIAL_PRODUCTS.
  • The number of Upcoming Products displayed is controlled by MAX_DISPLAY_UPCOMING_PRODUCTS.


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 August 18, 2020 by Scott C Wilson (9c4788e).