Top categories are NOT TOP

Why does ZC read my TOP categories as subcategories??? This doesn't make any sense to me.

When adding Categories/Products in the admin, everything is fine. But, when setting configurations for showing the various TOP categories, ZC reads them as subcats. This is very confusing. Is there something I am missing??

Exactly which settings are you having problems with?

A link to your site may help us explain...

Ah yes... apologies.. a link would help (slap to the zenning head)...

https://www.dolceboutique.com/shop

This is a very simple and small store. Basically set up with:
Categories and then Products in each of those categories. For example:

CATEGORY: Lampe Fuels>
Products: Golden Fields
Dancing in the Rain
etc...

CATEGORY: Room Perfumes>
Products: Celebration Spice
Carnation
etc...

CATEGORY: Candles>
Flower Shop
Vanilla Orange
etc....

Ok, in my Admin, I have the 3 CATEGORIES set up. This looks fine.
Within each cat, I have the various products (as shown above). This all looks fine too.

However... when I go to "Show Top Categories on Main Page" and have it set to "1" (on), the TOP Categories do not show up on the main page.

After a week of searching through these posts (on dial up.. ug) and trying to get help, I just started clicking everything I could in the Admin configs... and the config that FINALLY got my TOP category images to show up was to go in to "Product Listings" and set the "Show SUBCATEGORY Images" to on.

This is very confusing as I technically don't have any "SubCategories". I simply have categories and then products in the categories.

What am I doing wrong here?

thanks,
avi

This is an effect of the multipurpose code... The same code is in operation whether you are displaying all the top category images before any are selected, or all the subs of one particular top cat. The top cats are effectively subs of "Top" (which you will see in your admin >Catalog > Categories/Products index page "go to" box).