Question

I want to change my category page layout to 2columns-left.phtml. The default is a 3 column layout. I only want to set the category page layout to 2columns-left.phtml. The rest should keep the default page layout (3 columns). How can I do this?

Answer 1

You can do this for categories individually under the Design tab. You can do this for all categories by adding a local.xml to your custom theme’s layout folder which contains the following:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout>

    <my_category_root_template>
        <reference name="root">
            <tpl>page/2columns-left.phtml</tpl>
        </reference>
    <my_category_root_template>

    <catalog_category_layered>
        <update handle="my_category_root_template" />
    </catalog_category_layered>

    <catalog_category_layered_nochildren>
        <update handle="my_category_root_template" />
    </catalog_category_layered_nochildren>

    <catalog_category_default>
        <update handle="my_category_root_template" />
    </catalog_category_default>

    <!-- EDIT: forgot about search results page -->
    <catalogsearch_advanced_result>
        <update handle="my_category_root_template" />
    </catalogsearch_advanced_result>

<layout>

For further info, Magebase has a great Layout XML primer, and Alan Storm wrote the book on it.