Well I managed to come up with a fairly elegant solution.
I went with a static page so that my client could modify the static element of the page. I then placed an if statement in skin1/customer/main/"pages.tpl" to test if we're on the page (pageid=9 in my case) and then handle the dynamic listing of main categories. The code to do the dynamic listing was borrowed from skin1/customer/main/"subcategories.tpl". Here is that code that i modified and inserted into pages.tpl:
Code:
{** AC_Mod for root catalog page **}
{if ($smarty.get.pageid eq "9")}
<span class="bigred">Pharmacopia Catalog</span>
[img]{$ImagesDir}/aaCustomInterface/a_Spacer.GIF[/img]
{$page_content}
[img]{$ImagesDir}/aaCustomInterface/a_Spacer.GIF[/img]
{capture name=dialog}
{if $active_modules.Fancy_Categories ne ""}
{include file="`$fancycategories_config.modules_path`/fancy_categories.tpl"}
{else}
{if $config.General.root_categories eq "Y"}
<TABLE border="0" cellspacing="5" width="100%">
{section name=cat_num loop=$categories}
{if $categories[cat_num].category ne "Medical Conditions"}
<TR>
<TD align="left" width="95%"><FONT class="ItemsList">
{$categories[cat_num].category}</FONT>
</TD>
<TD align="right" nowrap><FONT class="Text">
{if $config.Appearance.count_products eq "Y"}
{if $categories[cat_num].product_count}{ $categories[cat_num].product_count} {$lng.lbl_products}
{elseif $categories[cat_num].subcategory_count}{ $categories[cat_num].subcategory_count } {$lng.lbl_categories|lower}
{/if}
{/if}</FONT></TD>
</TR>
{/if}
{/section}
</TABLE>
{/if}
{/if}
{/capture}
{include file="dialog.tpl" title="Main Categories" content=$smarty.capture.dialog extra="width=100%"}
In this paragraph we can briefly introduce the Phytomedicinal column to the right and describe how to use it. We can also tell them about the search and the advanced search.
{/if}
The modification of the pasted subcategory code involved taking out the column that shows cat/product thumbnails (you could leave that in), an if statement to not list a cat entitled "Medical Conditions", and MOST importantly substituting all references for sub cats to cats. That was the key that you should do and made it work like a charm.
Fixing the breadcrumbs (location.tpl) to start with my main category page was easy - just refer to this post:
http://forum.x-cart.com/viewtopic.php?t=24008&highlight=main+catalog+catal ogue
To view the final root categories page on my site go to:
http://amazonmedicine.com/xcart/pages.php?pageid=9
I hope this helps someone
