A good way to set up the home page...

Hi,

I am working on creating a store to sell scrapbooks for my wife. I am new to zencart but figuring it out quite well thanks to these forums. Anyways, I was thinking on the home page, it would be a good place just to tell a little bit about what she does, and to show examples of work she has done. So since every item is unique, once it sells it won't be replaced by something exactly the same. So it would be a good idea to have a portfolio of some of the work. Maybe put a link to a page that has some thumbnails of previous work. What is the best way to do this? I can use the editor to write the page (I know basic HTML), would it be a good idea to point to another page that has the same layout of the store (with the header, columns, etc) so it still feels like they are in the store? In other words just have the thumbnails in the middle section and then click on them for the big picture. What is the best way to have a gallery like this? I have used Frontpage before. I can write something in that and just paste it in the text editor of the main page? Or would I be better off using some sort of photo gallery I can host on my site? What do you guys suggest?

I have used Frontpage before. I can write something in that and just paste it in the text editor of the main page? Or would I be better off using some sort of photo gallery I can host on my site? What do you guys suggest?
FrontPage generates the sloppiest code around!!!

Try using ezpages for this and you can setup a chapter system or a single page your choice....link to it for a sidebox or a link in the ezpages header and or footer.

Edit the main_page.php from the admin > tools > defines pages editor to make the statements that you want and you can also include the link there to ezpages.

If later you have thousands of these you may investigate a gallery app for this

Ok I tried playin around with ez pages. Would I just make a a table with columns and insert images in it to keep them in columns? I tried that, but how can I make them thumbnails? Ideally, it would be nice to have a thumbnail entitled with the name of the book, then you click that and it goes to a page showing every page in that book. Either with thumbnails, or a slideshow of them. Would a gallery work best for that, or can I still do it this way. It varies because some items may have just one or two pictures, where some have 20 in the complete book.

Use html and define the container for the pic

What is a good HTML editor that I can use for this? Something easy that is WYSIWYG where I can insert pictures from their location on the server, make thumbnails, etc.?

I do not use a WYSISWYG editor??

But I have seen many that use DreamWeaver(expensive) or NVU (free), but I think that each adds some extraneous code and why I do not use them

Can't speak for NVU as I've not used it, but I do use Dreamweaver, in code view for PHP scripts, but in Design view (WYSIWYG) when I'm working on layouts whose structure is mostly HTML. Used properly it can be much faster than typing all the tags and doesn't need to add spurious code if you have the right settings.