[kpriest]

Thanks funkydunk - I think I followed what you are saying. I created this file:
customer/content.php which just has these lines in it:

require "../smarty.php";
require "../config.php";
@include "./https.php";
require "./auth.php";
require "../include/categories.php";

require "../include/help.php";

$smarty->assign("main","content");
$smarty->assign("location",$location);
$smarty->assign("section",$section);
$smarty->display("customer/home.tpl");

I am sure I left some unnecessary includes in there

Then my links to the static content look like this example:

content.php?section=aboutus

...and in the home_main.tpl file, I added this:

{elseif $main eq "content"}
{include file="content/index.tpl"}

...and the index.tpl file, which I copied from the help folder as you suggested, I have this:

{if $section eq "aboutus"}
{include file="content/customerinfo/aboutus.html"}

...and the aboutus.html file has been stripped of the HEAD and BODY tags and just includes the content (can I still use {$ImagesDir} in this file?)

I tested it and it was working fine, then suddenly after I made a simple change to the aboutus.html file, I now get this error:

Warning: Smarty error: unable to read template resource: "content/customerinfo/aboutus.html" in /home/hemisync/public_html/shop/Smarty-2.3.0/Smarty.class.php on line 589

I double-checked permissions and when I try to edit the file online from the debug console link, the aboutus.html page shows up blank in the editing field. I re-uploaded it from my local copy - still no go.

...AND this still seems like a convoluted way of doing this and I am not seeing how then creating a "section" variable for each static page is any less tedious than just using home.php and then setting the $main variable to specify an individual static page in the home_main.tpl - Did I miss something? Or is this just a cleaner way of doing the same thing without cluttering up the home_main.tpl with an endless string of elsif $main
strings?

Keep in mind, I am a neophyte with PHP and X-Cart, but am fairly good at hacking my way through things and understanding how it works, but the X-Cart app is so split up into so many pieces, it is extremely difficult to keep the big picture in my head I was hoping it would get easier as I work through these issues, but not much. Now my hope is that once I get this site setup, I won't have to mess with it again!

If it wasn't for this forum and your input specifically, I woulda given up on this product long ago!