Thanks for taking a few minutes to help me with this, here's the issue:
Last year we realized we have WAY too many categories to look good on a page but considerably less named brands. So, we switched out the manufacturers for "brand names" and on the home.tpl page where we found categories.tpl we replaced it with the [if] statements for the manufacturers.tpl
Below is the edit I've done to the home.tpl page on our test store but for some reason we keep seeing the categories but not the manufacturers ... even when I took the whole [if] statement for the categories out of the file. And I'm stumped as to why. Perhaps I need to edit another page that I'm not thinking of? I don't think I handled the code wrong but maybe? I tried cleanup.php thinking it was the cache but no good there either... so yea, I could use a clue.
The code I replaced is in red and the code that I replaced it with is in green.
Any advice would be GREATLY appreciated.
Code:
{*
$Id: home.tpl,v 1.100 2008/12/11 08:02:53 max Exp $
vim: set ts=2 sw=2 sts=2 et:
*}
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="{$default_charset|default:"iso-8859-1"}"?>
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
{config_load file="$skin_config"}
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
{include file="customer/service_head.tpl"}
<!--[if lt IE 7]>
<script src="{$SkinDir}/customer/iefix.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body{if $body_onload ne ''} onload="javascript
: {$body_onload}"{/if} class="{if $main ne "catalog" || $current_category.category ne ""}normal-page{else}welcome-page{/if}{foreach from=$container_classes item=c} {$c}{/foreach}">
<div id="page-container">
<div id="page-container2">
<div id="content-container">
<div id="content-container2">
<div id="center">
<div id="center-main">
<!-- central space -->
{include file="customer/noscript.tpl"}
{if $gcheckout_enabled && $main ne "cart" && $main ne "checkout" && $main ne "anonymous_checkout" && $main ne "order_message"}
{include file="modules/Google_Checkout/gcheckout_top_button.tpl"}
{/if}
{include file="customer/dialog_message.tpl"}
{if $page_title && ($main ne "catalog" || $current_category.category ne "")}
<h1 class="page-title">{$page_title|escape}</h1>
{/if}
{if $active_modules.Special_Offers && ($main ne "catalog" || $current_category.category ne "")}
{include file="modules/Special_Offers/customer/new_offers_message.tpl"}
{/if}
{include file="customer/home_main.tpl"}
<!-- /central space -->
</div>
</div>
{if $main ne "catalog" || $current_category.category ne ""}
<div id="left-bar">
{* if $categories && ($active_modules.Fancy_Categories || $config.General.root_categories eq "Y" || $subcategories) *}
{* include file="customer/categories.tpl" *}
{* /if *}
{if $active_modules.Manufacturers ne "" and $config.Manufacturers.manufacturers_menu eq "Y"}
{include file="modules/Manufacturers/menu_manufacturers.tpl" }
{/if}
{if $active_modules.SnS_connector && $config.SnS_connector.sns_display_button eq 'Y'}
{include file="modules/SnS_connector/button.tpl"}
{/if}
{include file="customer/menu_cart.tpl" }
{if $active_modules.Feature_Comparison && $comparison_products ne ''}
{include file="modules/Feature_Comparison/product_list.tpl" }
{/if}
{include file="customer/special.tpl"}
{if $active_modules.Survey && $menu_surveys}
{foreach from=$menu_surveys item=menu_survey}
{include file="modules/Survey/menu_survey.tpl"}
{/foreach}
{/if}
{include file="customer/help/menu.tpl"}
{include file="customer/news.tpl"}
{if $active_modules.Interneka}
{include file="modules/Interneka/menu_interneka.tpl" }
{/if}
</div>
{/if}
</div>
</div>
<div class="clearing"> </div>
<div id="header">
{include file="customer/head.tpl"}
</div>
<div id="footer">
{if $active_modules.Users_online}
{include file="modules/Users_online/menu_users_online.tpl"}
{/if}
{include file="customer/bottom.tpl"}
</div>
{if $active_modules.SnS_connector}
{include file="modules/SnS_connector/header.tpl"}
{/if}
{if $active_modules.Google_Analytics && $config.Google_Analytics.ganalytics_code}
{include file="modules/Google_Analytics/ga_code.tpl"}
{/if}
</div>
</div>
</body>
</html>