I have many complaints about responsive and have been very vocal about it. I finally did something about it! 

My complaints:

1. Adds too many files and increases load time.

2, Mobile first leads to ugly (yes, down right ugly) desktop websites.

3. Mobile first dictates what is included on desktop. (and that is frequently chosen by a designer who is not a zen cart pro)

So I started playing with the basic (classic) Zen Cart site to see what it would take to convert my Ready To Go template.

First I changed the viewport by inserting one line in the header.

Then I changed the three column layout that is presently in a table to a simple CSS only layout.

Converting the checkout just took adding some more CSS in.

The biggest challenge was the mobile menus. I found a simple script that worked and converted it to work with my template.

I chose to use the top combined EzPage menu as the site menu and created a new categories sidebox that only shows on mobile. If a website has more links that need to be visible – such as ones in the information sidebox, those can be added in admin as footer ezpage links that still shows in mobile.

I hid the side columns completely and it was all over but the integrating it into existing sites. A long weekend of work but I was totally satisfied with the results.

And it's Google approved – check it out here.

So what that means is that I now can convert most existing zen cart sites to mobile. It's best that a site stick close to the default template and have a reasonable logo that does not depend on a background for a header. Many of those bought templates that I hate to begin with are not only bad candidates for this type of conversion but are also just bad templates. I usually recommend someone change them anyway.

The Responsive Ready to Go is offered as an installable package on the ZenCartDelia website if you want to have a go at it yourself. (though you may have to wait after buying it for me to send you the package as I don't have them all packaged up)

By the way, in case you didn't know, all you have to do to see the mobile version is simply decrease the width of your browser.