Different Sidebox Catergory List on Different Pages

Hello All:
I am new to Zen Cart and PHP. I know enough about HTML to be dangerous.:blush:

I could sure use some help. I’ve been all over the forum and can’t find anything to answer my problem. Maybe I’m overlooking something.

I would like to set up a store selling Pet Products along with other things. But for the sake of keeping this simple, let’s just work with Dogs and Cats.

I’ve come across many websites that have a sidebox category list on their main page and when you use a link it takes you to a new page with a different category list.

I would like to know how to set this up.
If anybody could give simple instructions a newbie could follow I would most appreciate it.

A couple of example site are:
http://www.petsupplies.com/
http://shinypetstore.com/index.php?main_page=index
http://www.dickblick.com/categories/papers/

Thanks to all in advance

PS: I just love ZC and hope to get better at using it!

The first site you cited is just displaying the subcatgories in the category selected on the second page. That could be done in Zencart, I'm sure, but there's no current mod available that I'm aware of that provides that function.

Sideboxes can be loaded on specific pages, see: http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?251-i-want-to-display-some-of-my-sideboxes-on-my-front-page-only-and-suppress-them-from-all-other-pages

So you might be able to create a bunch of different sideboxes for specific categories and products. The above tutorial is asking "if this is home page", there are threads in this forum for "if this is category 5", "if this is product 10", "if this product is in category 5" etc.

That's quite a laborious method for something relatively simple though. An alternative would be to have a large category sidebox with clear dividers -- there are mods for sorting and styling a category sidebox, or you could create your own.