Is it possible to make a Category page the homepage in magento?

Question

I would like to display a catergory page as my homepage rather than a CMS page as it seems to be difficult to get a CMS page to properly display items.

I have gone to

Url rewrite Management

and created a url-rewrite for a category

Then gone to

System|Configuration|Web|Default Pages|

and changed

Default Web URL

to my new url-rewrite from cms but I get a 404 error when I go to the root of my site. Is there a way to redirect the root to a category rather than a CMS page?

Answer 1

Here is an easier way to do it. Find out first the ID of the category. Then you go to "System > Configuration > Web > Default Pages" and enter the following for the "Default web url" option: catalog/category/view/id/50 (where 50 is the id of the category).

Note, in version 1.3.2.4 there is a bug in one of the core files. So if you use that see this fix first: http://www.magentocommerce.com/bug-tracking/issue?issue=6168

Answer 2

You can just add this to any CMS page (substitute the category ID that you want to display - you can find that in Admin->Catalog->Manage categories):

 {{block type="catalog/product_list" category_id="8" template="catalog/product/list.phtml"}}