The Home Page

Your home page serves as the digital front door to your business and plays a crucial role in making a strong first impression on visitors. SoftSlate Cloud Platform offers multiple flexible approaches for creating an effective home page that meets your specific business needs and showcases your products or services in the most compelling way.

The Home Page as a Content Page

Default Setup For new installations, SCP automatically creates a basic home page configured as a content page. This provides an immediate starting point that you can customize to match your business needs. You can find and edit this page in the main Content Pages grid:

Customizing Your Content-Based Home Page Click into the home page record to begin adding your own content, images, and other elements. This approach is ideal for businesses that want to feature company information, mission statements, or welcome messages, as well as rich content like videos, testimonials, or detailed descriptions.

For comprehensive guidance on creating and customizing content pages, please visit our Content Pages and Content Blocks documentation.

The Home Page as a Category Page

Product-Focused Home Pages If your business model centers around showcasing products directly on the home page, configuring it as a category page can be extremely effective. This approach allows you to:

• Feature specific products prominently on your home page

• Assign products directly to the home page category

• Leverage all category page features including product grids, filtering, and sorting

Setting Up a Category-Based Home Page To configure your home page as a category page:

1. Create a new category with the special code _home (note the underscore prefix)

2. The system automatically recognizes this specific code and treats the category as your home page for navigation purposes

3. Configure the category just like any other category page, assigning products and content as needed

For detailed instructions on category setup and management, please refer to our Categories and the Category Tree documentation.

Priority System for Home Page Display SCP uses a logical priority system to determine which home page to display:

1. First priority: Category with code _home

2. Second priority: Content page with code _home (the default installation)

3. Fallback: Basic system-generated home page if neither of the above exists

Displaying the Category Tree's Top-Level Categories on the Home Page

Enhanced Navigation Options Whether your home page is configured as a content page or category page, you can enhance visitor navigation by displaying your site's top-level categories directly on the home page. This feature essentially replaces the standard subpages or subcategories display with your main category navigation.

Enabling Category Display To activate this feature:

1. Navigate to the Advanced Display Settings screen in your administrator interface

2. Set the "Display Categories on Home Screen" setting to "true"

3. Your home page will now showcase your top-level categories, giving visitors immediate access to your main product areas

Flexible Functionality If you choose not to enable this feature, your home page will use the standard functionality:

• Content pages: Display any assigned subpages

• Category pages: Display assigned subcategories

This flexibility allows you to create the exact home page experience that best serves your customers and business objectives.