How-to make front page different than rest of site

[keith021773]

Hello all.

Here is my noob question..   I have searched, found some info on what I wanted, just not enough to get me going.

I would love to have a main page like TP here does.  I have seen a couple of sites where the main page looks, well, like a main page to a site. 

From using the search here I have found out that I need to create an article and have it set as featured and then turn all blocs off.   Here's the delimma for me.   I don't have an artistic bone in my body.   LOL    I'm not asking for someone to do it for me, just how do you make it look so smooth and everything looks good together?   LOL    If someone wants to give me a general layout that would be great so I can play around with it.

This isn't really a TP support question, more of just a question in general.    But I will go by the posting guidelines and put in my info.   

Link to my site: http://www.daddyplace.com
SMF version: SMF ver. 1.1.4
TP version: TP ver. 0.9.8
Theme name and version: Daddyplace Theme
Mods installed: Too many to list.   But I will if it is important to the question.
Related Error messages: None.

Thanks for all the support that you guys have given me..   I truly appreciate it!

[G6Cad]

The frontpage on this site is php coded single article showing on frontpage with out panels, blocks and other contet.
So just a single php article with custom code.

[IchBin]

My suggestion, is to find a site that you like their frontpage and see if you can duplicate the look. Once you get the hang of using HTML/CSS and graphics, it really is just a little artistic ability mixed in with a bit of HTML/CSS code.

Keep your HTML as basic as possible. Using the appropriate tag where possible. For example, using a < p > tag where a paragraph of text is displayed. Using a list to display a list of links etc. etc. Just a basic layout like TP's frontpage can consist of minimal coding really.

Code Select Expand

<div>
    <div>image here</div>
    <h3>title of paragraph here</h3>
    <p>paragraph text here</p>
    <p>another paragraph</p>
</div>

You then add all the CSS to the tags that is necessary to format it the way you need.