Featured products on main page

This is not my first time working with Zen cart but it has been a couple of years. I have a site that I am redesigning that needs to have just the featured products on the front (index) page. But I want the featured products to appear more like they do on products pages with the larger picture and the the name and price bolder with the product description off to the right. I have been playing with the controls but can't seem to find the right spot or combination of toggles to make this happen. I know that anything is possible in Zen Cart, if you don't mind digging around a little to find the solution.

Also, I have the search in the right place (right hand side) but It also appears under categories? I can't seem to remove that. And finally ... Although I get my categories to appear in a horizontal tab across the top , they will not appear in my left sidebox to save my life.

Any help with some or all of this would be appreciated. My page as it sits now is here:

http://galleryvstudio.com/store/

Just curious, how are you displaying the featured products on that page i.e. through the admin->configuration->Index Listing, or are you using another method?

If you used that method, another method that might work to get a lot of customization potential would be to edit the includes/languages/english/html_includes/define_main_page.php and add something like

<?php require($template->get_template_dir('tpl_featured_products_default.php',DIR_WS_TEMPLATE, $current_page_base,'templates'). '/tpl_featured_products_default.php'); ?>

As far as the search under the categories is concerned, did you install some custom module? I would look under includes/templates/template_default/sideboxes/tpl_categories.php or includes/templates/CUSTOM/sideboxes/tpl_categories.php and see if you can edit out any search box material in the php code that might be making it display.

Thanks for the response. I am using the admin > config > index to display just the features on the home page. I am not against messing with the code direct, but on this particular rebuild I am trying to stay as out of the code as much as possible ... and using the override system religiously when I do. This is something I did not do in the past and it bit me in the backside when it came time to update. Is there a way to make those changes using just the admin or am I going ot be code diving?

The site is based on the "Red Passion" template that I found on the ZC theme test drive page. The theme itself seems pretty stable and direct but I have not looked closely at the code. I will look at the tpl files you suggested and see if there is anything in there that can be tweaked.

You wouldn't need to bypass the overrides using this method. You could edit includes/languages/english/html_includes/define_main_page.php and save it to includes/languages/english/html_includes/YOUR_CUSTOM_FOLDER

I've also learned the importance of using the custom folder as I got myself bitten by upgrading and ignoring all the warnings that an upgrade would override anything not in a custom folder :lamo:

The Red Passion template doesn't seem to hold the key to that problem, that search box seems to be embedded in the categories display odd indeed.

I'm afraid that the suggestion of inserting the featured products page template won't work. You would end up with the means to display the featured products, but would have bypassed actually looking them up in the database and preparing them for display. Most likely what you would see would the message telling you that "More featured products will be added soon. Please check back later." Even if you can see featured products in the listing box on the page!

The way to change the box layout is by editing the includes/modules/featured_products.php, shortly after line 50 where the html for each product is constructed and added to the $list_box_contents array.

OK, I have looked at the code in featured_products.php and I am afraid that my fingers are trying to cash checks that my brain can't back. I am pretty good at cut and paste or even reading and making small jumps to what is going on in php, but really digging is beyond my skill set. So what I am hearing from both of you is I need to hire somebody to jump in and alter the code for me, because I cannot get it to display visually as it appears in the actual featured products (or products) pages on the index page without a substantial change in the code?

Shouldn't I be able to apply the style sheets that control these products and features, pages to what is happening on the index page? (not that I have any idea what container on the index page is loading .... :-/

I have spent a while digging around and I have managed to fix a couple of the problems I encountered before. I had some corrupted code for my category side box, I replaced it and it fixed both my search box problem and the category listings. Yahoo! Now all I have left is the featured products on the main page. What I am trying to accomplish is a simple and clean home page that looks simular to this:

http://osc2.template-help.com/zencart_15247/index.php

Yes I realize that this is one of "those" nasty TM templates, and yes I did read the huge thread concerning this outfit. Thus why I am constructing something myself (if possible.)

My actual "featured products" page (the one you go to when you hit the link, looks close -- if I could enlarge the pictures (which I believe I can via the admin) and move the description to load to the right of the picture.

http://galleryvstudio.com/store/index.php?main_page=featured_products

However, in an ideal world I would rather have just the page header "featured products" the picture, the product name and price and the description. if they were separated buy a ruled line, that would be cool too.

Since this index page acts differently than the Featured products page and it is put together differently; It seems to be pulling info from other areas and assembling that info on the page, I am not sure this is possible for me to "make it work" tweaking the featured_products.php page seems to effect the featured products page but not the index page that displays "featured products" (does that make any sense?) I thought I might be able to just hard code the XHTML (not one of my strong suits) but I can not find where this would be located.

If it is possible or if anybody has any ideas please let me know. If it is not possible (simply) but can be coded by somebody who knows what they are doing, can you all suggest somebody who could do it?

The Featured Products page sorter and multiple add products to cart button can be switched off in the Admin.

You can also determine which fields are displayed, whether to the left of right and in which order e.g. turning off weight in the Admin, moving the quantity box to the right column. Except for product description which is hardcoded to appear in a row underneath all the other information.

This can be changed by editing tpl_modules_products_featured_listing.php, which is closer to cutting and pasting than the code for the listing box.