new categories problem

[feolindo]

I have created a half dozen new product categories and added products to these categories. however when I try and test the 'add to cart' function on a product I get a blank page. After much hand-wringing and hair pulling I'm beginning to suspect that the problem is that these categories are not linked to any of the categories that admin shows have 'add to cart' permission. Do ALL new categories have to be a subcategory of an existing zen cart category (like General for instance)?
Currently all my categories come under "Top". I've read a few threads that suggest that is not a good thing.
any help would be appreciated.

[Ajeh]

Categories should be under the Top Level category ...

Have you an URL where we can try to see what is happening here?

[feolindo]

I wish I could give a link but client won't allow. sigh.
Maybe a decent follow-up question would be: why don't any of my new categories show up in admin/product_types, where it seems 'add to cart' permissions are set?
(maybe that's not a decent follow-up question but its got me wondering anyway)

[Ajeh]

Categories are in the Catalog ... Categories/Products ...

Product Types are in the Catalog ... Product Types ...

You add Categories and Products in the Catalog ... Categories/Products ... and you want to add Categories and within the Categories you add either Categories or Products, but never both to the same Category ...

Product Types are used to control the files used for adding, editing and displaying the Products ...

Zen Cart comes with 5 default Product Types ...

What are you changing/adding? Categories and Products or Product Types?

Did you try to make new Product Types?

[feolindo]

Thanks for your replies.
I think my follow-up question was not so good after all. More digging revealed that when I set up my new categories i did restrict them to the "general' product type. and when i go to admin/product_type i don't see my categories but i do see the number of products i've added in the edit box of the general product type. So I guess that's a non-issue. Every thing else seems pretty straightforward with setting up this cart, this is the first problem I've had that has really got me shaking my head. Another, possibly related thing, is that even though I can see on the individual product page that it will say i've got "x" number of products in the cart, there is no link anywhere to 'view cart'

[Ajeh]

The Categories and Products are found in the menu choice:
Catalog (put mouse over it to make menu show)
Categories/Products (put mouse over it and click it to select it)

You should now see a list of all Top Level Categories ...

Click a Category and you will either see SubCategories or Products ...