Always Expand ONE Sidebox Category

Hi All,

I've tried a number of mods but have yet to find one that does what I need - I would like to expand ONE sidebox category so that the FIRST LEVEL of subcategories are always displayed.

If you visit http://www.coastlinesales.com/coastline/index.php?cPath=12

That is how I would like the listing to ALWAYS appear, except of course when someone selects a category it will expand appropriately.

From the mods I have tried, it seems to be an all or nothing approach, and the hideCategories mod does not work for sideboxes.

One idea I have come up with is to create another custom sidebox that replicates the way the categories sidebox works but with conditionals in place to achieve the layout that I want. But, if I were to go this route, I could probably just hack up the tpl_categories.php to do the same thing... right?

Basically what I'm looking for is some direction on how to go about achieveing this effect by altering the existing PHP. I'm not asking the Devs to write the code for me, but perhaps you can offer some insight as to where I should begin the changes?

Here I am searching for a mod, a hack, ANYTHING to accomplish this seemingly impossible task, and what do you know - it's native to ZC!!!!

This workaround is great, and I found it in another post:

You know what.. I just did it the cheat way.. and did my admin settings under Configuration--> Layout Settings as follows:

Categories - Always Show on Main Page: 1
Main Page - Opens with Category: 2_3_4_5_6_0

It works fine like that.

I am still curious about that splash page though

So I just set 'Main Page - Opens with Category' to the one category I want expanded and VOILA - problem solved! SUCCESS

Well this solution wasn't exactly perfect as it turns out - it only keeps the category expanded ON THE HOME PAGE.

However, this is encouraging because if there is a setting that flags the category for expansion on the homepage, then there should be a way to modify this, add a condition, or whatever to keep the category expanded on other pages as well.

Can anyone direct me as to where the 'Categories - Always Show on Main Page' piece of code occurs? I'd like to try and come up with a mod to allow this on all pages, and will be sure to report back with anything I come up with...