When I access my shopping cart, index.php?dispatch=checkout.cart, I see the entire product below including thumbnail, product options, unit price, quantity, and total price. The entire area is actually wider than the cart itself, so I have to scroll left to right to see everything. Can I change the template or layout used in the cart to something that works better?
Which version are you using? You shouldn't be having this problem if you're only using a 1 or 2 column layout in the cart. The main content grid should be at least 13 wide in V3 otherwise things start pushing along the page which causes the scroll bar to appear, also very long option names can cause this too in both V2 and V3. Keep the main content grid to +70% of the full width and you should be OK with 2 columns. 3 columns don't work without changing all the widths of the cart main content.
How can I change to a 2 column?
Is your checkout location using 1 column or 3 columns?
It's very easy to change your layouts from 1 to 2 or even 3 columns, however, 3 columns makes the checkout area rather untidy without a lot more CSS changes so I usually just change the checkout to 2 columns.
In Design>Blocks > Checkout (tab location)
The inability to move grids and only allow the movement of blocks adds another couple of steps too, but it's easy to overcome.
1.) Where the 'Main Content' block is, you want to change the grid which contains this block. Set the Width of the Grid to '4'.
2.) Create a new Grid, set the Width to 12.
3.) Move the Main Content block from the Grid 4 to the Grid 12.
4.) Now you just need to populate the Grid 4 to whichever blocks you wish.
5.) You now have a 2 column checkout. You can change the widths of the grids to suit to a total combined width of 16, but I've always found 4+12 to be the best fit.
Thanks for that. Didn't realise it was so easy. I think I will make the whole site 2 column. Might we worth me asking on this subject…how can I add features to products that display as ticks, such as:
12 Month warranty
Gauranteed to work…etc.
You would need to customise at least one of the templates to display 'ticks' depending on how you want to display this info. I would use Product Features for this purpose and customise the template for product features. EG. Product Feature: Value…
Type: Electric Screwdriver
Watts: 200W
Amps: 12A
Volts: 19V
Warranty: 12 Months