how to make a product page show as home page?

[gnuzoo]

We are using Zen Cart 1.3.8a Patch: 1:: Database Patch Level: 1.3.8

We get an error message: "WARNING: You have Products in the
Top Level Category. This will cause pricing to not work properly
in the Catalog."

We copied one of our products from a category to the to top
level. This makes it so that our best selling product shows up
on our main home page. This is what we wanted it to do.
It does not appear to have any adverse effect, but this is a
scary error message.

Is this an incorrect way to do this?

Is there a better way to do this without getting this error
message?

[DrByte]

One way:

a) create a new category ... it will hold only this one product.
b) navigate to your best-selling product via Admin->Catalog->Categories/Products, and click the "c"(Copy) button. Make a "Linked copy" of this product into the category you created above.
c) Change 3 settings:
Admin->Configuration->Layout Settings->Categories - Always Show on Main Page = 1
Admin->Configuration->Layout Settings->Main Page - Opens with Category = (enter the cPath for the category you created above)
Admin->Configuration->Layout Settings->Skip 1-prod Categories = True
Now your store will open to that category by default, and since that category has only 1 item, the item itself will open instead.

d) If you'd like the category you created to NOT be visible in normal navigation, you can disable that category (click the green icon), and then go inside that category and re-enable the product (click the red icon).

Then you won't need the product you've got in your top-level, so you can remove that one to get rid of the warnings and save yourself the trouble of pricing and sales and specials etc not working for it.

[gnuzoo]

Wow, that worked great, except for one little detail:
The product displayed on the home page has the category name
displayed just above it. Is there a way to hide that? Since this
category does not display anyways, is there a way to turn
that off?

[DrByte]

Depends what you're referring to. Is it the breadcrumb?
Or is it the usual category name+icon, which can also be disabled in the admin settings.
What's the URL where it can be seen?

[gnuzoo]

It cannot be seen. It is not on a public server.
It is right at the top of the center product area. I named the
category "Home" and the word "Home" displays as a link.
It is contained as an 'a' link inside a div:

div id="categoryIcon" class="categoryIcon"

[DrByte]

You can turn off the Category Icon section using the appropriate switch in the admin area. This will affect *all* pages.

[gnuzoo]

I think I found it at:


Configuration -> Product Info ->
Previous Next - Navigation Includes Category Position

Thanks DrByte !!!!