There are three options for uploading images for EZ Pages, additional images and define pages.
The simplest way to be able to upload an image and use it on your site outside the category or product images is done in admin utilizing the existing upload structure.
First, create a new category – call it anything you want but testing always comes to mind when I do this. Immediately, because the default is active, you need to deactivate that category. Easy to do – just click on the big green button under status and say yes to deactivation.
Then you can edit that category and use the category image as just an uploader. Just be sure to remember where you put those images when you upload a new image!
The reason why this works so well is that it does make database changes – adding a new category image each time – but since the category is deactivated, that doesn’t matter. You still get the image uploaded.
Once you return to your writing where you want the image to appear, click on the image icon in your WYSIWYG editor. You have to put the path to the image in the blank. That path is going to images/folder(if you put into a folder)/image name. If you want to see the image in admin and your cart is in the root folder and not inside another folder*, put a slash in front of the images – /images/folder(if you put into a folder)/image name.
*root folder: http://website.com is the root. http://website.com/cart is not in the root. This is one of the best reasons for using the root for your cart instead of putting into a folder as so many people still do!
Using Your Control Panel to Upload
Most websites tend to be on cPanel servers. According cPanel, 60% of the top hosting providers use cPanel as the control panel for their servers. That’s really great news because its file manager is just a super tool.
So, if you have a cPanel website, find the file manager option to go digging through the files on your website. Your images folder will be at the same level as your includes and admin folders. Once you get there, you can create a new folder to put your extra images in if you want or just upload them to the main images folder. If you are adding additional images for a product, they have to go in the same folder as the product image which is usually that images folder. Just look at the top icons for the upload button to upload new images.
If you aren’t on a cPanel server, you most likely will still have a file manager of some sort. It may be hard to find and not as functional as the cPanel file manager, but most likely you can use it to upload images. If you do not have a control panel or you don’t have a control panel with a file manager, I’d advise you to move your hosting. You can get cPanel hosting at a very inexpensive cost (my favorite shared hosting is BlueHost.com, super support, good servers) so there’s no reason to be using an inferior hosting company! (that includes GoDaddy – cheap, lousy support and crowded frequently slow servers).
Using an FTP Client
This gets technical and usually scarey for website owners. For those adventurous owners who like to have full control, using an FTP client is not hard. You have to go get one first. The best known free one is Filezilla but I personally do not like it. I use WS_FTP Pro – a paid one but there are still free versions floating around.
The biggest advantage of using an FTP client is that you can upload many images at one time. As long as you are careful, no harm will come of it. but if you are sloppy, you can put your images in the wrong place or upload files in general in the wrong place – to the point of taking your website down. So be very careful!
Here’s a tutorial for filezilla:
The Non-Option
It is possible to get or have installed a WYSIWYG editor that also uploads images. Every editor has that capability so any cart can be reconfigured to do this; however, this is simply not safe. For security’s sake, Zen Cart 1.5x series has totally removed an editor from the package – I’m sure a requirement from the PCI compliance folks. The only recommended editor (and by far a better one than HTMLarea is the ckeditor. Do not hire someone to make your images upload: it’s a major security risk and why it’s not been done before by the Zen Cart team.