How to make the HOME page (index) different than the STORE page (main page)?

[Dianna668]

Zen Version 1.3.9h
New install
Addons:
Zenflavor template
Image Handler
Column Layout Grid
Extra Pages About Us Page


Hi, I'm relatively new to Zen and cannot figure out how to get my home page to be different than the store page.

Being so new to Zen, to get a jumpstart I purchased a ZenFlavor (Preimium 8a) template which is clean and simple but has a flash slideshow on the index/home page. It is designed to pull up this slideshow banner within the header template. Then the rest of the home page is pulled from the main page template to show the welcome greeting and the multiple columns at the bottom for information, networking, policy, returns, contact us etc..

So if I use the options in the admin panel to try to show top categories on the main page it doesn't do anything of course since the main page is hard coded for the slideshow only appearance on the home page. This is how my client wants their website with a slideshow only on the hompage. Then the SHOP on the SHOP tab.

So for my SHOP tab, I have a blank top level page. The template is designed to have you go directly to whichever category or the all products. So my main SHOP page is empty. I want that page to have just the CATEGORY TOP LEVELS on it. Is there a way to code one of the pages for the SHOP page or is there a way to make the index page called up differently than the main page for the shop?

In WordPress they have spoiled me with having an admin function that allows you to select a "static page" for the home page and to put the actual blog on a different page that you indicate.

[Donal]

If I get what you mean...
Basically you want all of the product catagories to be "sub catagories" of the main "shop"
So if you were to make your template call a catagory named "shop"
It would display a list of all the Sub catagories which would in fact be the ones you have set as top at the min?

[Dianna668]

I'm sorry I'm not explaining it correctly. Let me try to explain it better. My home page is simply a flash banner. So my main store page is the "SHOP" tab. Then of course I have other pages on my other tabs in my navigation, "about" "contact" "blog" etc.

So what I want is the SHOP tab to be basically the shops home page where the top categories pull up in the center column. I want my main SHOP page to have a top banner and then 4 product images in a row below the banner that pull in the images of each of the 4 top categories.

Each of my stores sub-categories are fine and perfect..."tops" "bottoms" "accessories" "cover-ups".

Right now if you click on the SHOP tab, it's just a blank page. I just built a page in the EZ Pages for the SHOP. This is where I'm confused. I'm not sure how to setup the main shop page to be on this different SHOP tab other than the home page of the site.

Does that make better sense? I'm probably just missing something something very simple and over thinking it. I just don't know how to get the main zen store page setup on this SHOP page since my index page is a flash banner.

Here's my structure:

http://www.mysite.com/index.php (HOME PAGE WITH FLASH BANNER ONLY)
http://www.mysite.com/index.php?main_page=index (SAME HOME PAGE WITH FLASH BANNER ONLY)
http://www.mysite.com/index.php?main_page=page&id=5 (SHOP MAIN PAGE this is the page I want as the stores main page with a top banner and my 4 top categories)
http://www.mysite.com/index.php?main_page=products_all
http://www.mysite.com/index.php?main...index&cPath=67 (CATEGORY PAGES)
http://www.mysite.com/index.php?main...index&cPath=66 (CATEGORY PAGES)
http://www.mysite.com/index.php?main...index&cPath=66 (CATEGORY PAGES)
http://www.mysite.com/index.php?main...index&cPath=65 (CATEGORY PAGES)

[beyre]

You would have to create a folder called something like /store/ for example and then install zencart there.

So, the file path to the "home page" of your store would then be:
http://www.mywebsite.com/store/

By editing the /includes/languages/english/html_includes/define_main_page.php file, you can add what you want (text, images, flash, etc) to the main content area of the cart's index/home page.

Hope that is clear as mud!

Now, just as a side-note, food for thought - the flash only intro you have for your website's index page ... will more than likely not be beneficial in terms of search engine rankings since search engines typically can't read flash files. Another words, you are creating dead real estate.

Make sure the Title, meta description, and meta keywords are fine tuned for the index page. And, depending on how the flash is designed on your page ... try to put appropriate text above the flash element - text that both your visitors and search engines can see (ie, normally displayed text), of which the language is in a nature flow (ie, text written for your visitors) and has your main keyword(s) naturally peppered with the paragraph(s).

Just a suggestion - nothing you HAVE to take to heart. This is your website after all.

[Donal]

Is the flash banner page partr of the template?
if so I still think it can be done by putting the 4 cats you have as sub cat of a main cat shop, and then just use the "shop" tab to link to it,

On my test site:

ignore the main page layout that i have and think of it as your flash banner page
http://naturalhorseireland.com/drops...ain_page=index

now in the catagory button in top bar (this would be your "shop" tab)
click on "test top"

http://naturalhorseireland.com/drops...index&cPath=12
This will bring you to a page listing what would be your 4 main cats

either that or I'm way off the plan

[Dianna668]

Wow, you both have great suggestions that totally make sense!

Beyre, I was starting to think in this direction that you suggested. That totally makes sense and would be easier than how I was thinking it out. I hate to even explain the conveluded idea that I had with pointing my servers to the "home" page URL instead of the index.php etc etc etc.

Donal, that is also a great idea and would work! Basically moving the categories down a level subcategories of the new category. I could actually call the category "SHOP" so that Shop would be the category header on my left column. I can just remove the "category" verbage from the php coding. And thank you sooooo much for giving me an example to go see!!!

Beyre, yes I thought of that too with the SEO and the flash on the front page. I will totally have to rely on the meta tags. I think my client is actually going to do a large video for the homepage. They are going more for aesthetics. Thanks for letting me know. Maybe they will work in a paragraph or I can submit the store page to google with a top paragraph for search engines to grab.

Thanks Donal and Beyre so much! If I didn't figure this out, I was going to go for a Plan B of creating my SHOP page just as an HTML ez-page and just build a table with a top banner and pics to represent each of the four categories and link to their respective pages. It would be labor intensive to always update those images of the categories manually, but it would work. LOL

Thanks again so much!!!

[Hopmeister2000]

I have a very similar issue, where I have designed a flash intro that is named index.html

http://www.zolaoapparel.com/index.html (Flash Intro)

I have then renamed the index.php to storefront.php but all the links for the items still look like....

http://www.zolaoapparel.com/index.php?main_page=index,,,,

How can I change it to.....

http:/www.zolaoapparel.com/storefront.php?main_page=index,,,,,

when you click on a category, item , etc..

I was able to find an FAQ on how to change the home link to
http:/www.zolaoapparel.com/storefront.php but not the categories, etc..

index.html and storefornt.php are in the root directory. If I remove the flash intro and change storefront.php back to index.php everything work fine. I am still fine tuning and turning items off.

Thanks for helping a newbee!

[Donal]

index.html and storefornt.php are in the root directory. If I remove the flash intro and change storefront.php back to index.php everything work fine. I am still fine tuning and turning items off.

Thanks for helping a newbee!

Beyre's suggestion would work for you, leave index html in the root and move the store into a sub directory and as he says pay attention to your seo


btw just a thought, personally I find flash intros annoying unless there is a good reason for it :) just a thought

[DivaVocals]

See if this post helps:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137816

and here's where you can see this solution in action..
http:// hairisle . com

a variation of this same solution was used here:
http:// anomalyrecords . net

Home Page Search Terms:
Is there a link for "Shop Home" (Not Main Index)?
Home page different from shop page
home page
splash page
opening page
landing page
Display categories top level on a custom page... How?
Add top level categories to another page
Insert top level categories

[markalpine]

I’m a bit of a newbie but here’s how I fixed this issue.

I used easy pages and created my home page, I named it home page.

Then I copied the link for this page and created a file in the top level of my site called, index.html

In this page I placed nothing but an html redirect script in the head tags that points to the home page I created with easy pages.

Example:

<meta http-equiv="refresh"content="0;URL= index.php?main_page=page&id=8">

Hope this helps….