Hi all... a complete noob here... and need help... :)

Hi everyone! Just registered to this place, hoping to receive enough help so I can finally open up my site SimuScape!

Some background;

Many years ago I discovered the joy of playing games such as Transport Tycoon, SimCity, Civilization and the sort. And not long after that I also discovered the joy in making custom content for these games, something that game me some reputation online. Only problem was that I couldn't offer my files in an convinient way - other than posting at official sites. However, a friend pointed me to Frontpage, and considering I lack any talent what-so-ever when it comes to coding, this turned out to be a descent solution. And so I was able to open up my very first fanpage, Gothia.

Well, time goes by and internet develops. But not my website of course, due to lack of knowledge. And finally I had to close it down. A couple of years later I had received soo many e-mails about people wanting to download my stuff, so I decided to try to get a new site up and running. But what can you do if you lack all the necessary knowledge? I got myself a domain, www.simuscape.com, and a host, and then I started to search for a suitable solution. I found OCPortal, providing somewhat the thing I needed.

Unfortunately, almost a year ago my lifepartner passed away from cancer and the time that followed I couldn't bring myself to do anything constructive, let alone creating a website. But a few weeks ago I decided to continue on my project, trying to set my mind to something else. And here I am...

My site, SimuScape, aims to provide custom graphics for games such as Transport Tycoon, The Sims, SimCity and the sort - both mine and contributed. Even though most gamers today seems more interested in 3d games, I sense that there are a lot of people out there still interested in playing and working with the good old 2d, (2.5d), graphics. And I for one have 1000's of custom graphics to put online, as a resource for future references, current gameplaying and so on... My knowledge hasn't improved though, so I still have to rely on whatever help I can receive from this community…

I read some of the sticky posts and noticed that I needed to "open up" my site so anyone helping me got a chance to have a closer look at it. And it's now opened - although requiring "log-in", but whatever you choose can easily be deleted when all this is done and over with!

Below is attached an image of my current front side, and how it is supposed to look - in parts anyways…

While I suck at coding, I can at least draw, so all the graphics, (header and stuff), is made by me. And as can tell I love a dark theme, spiced up with few bright colors…

Now to my initial questions, (referred to the same letter in yellow on the screen);

A) Zone Menu

I have gotten that far as to understand what I needed to change to get the color of choice, but I would like to replace those zone menu links with buttons instead. And rather than having the "dotted" underline letting me know where I am, I'd like to have a button for each link that is also highlighted when moused over - a highlight that is "on" for that particular zone, replacing the dotted underline…

How do I do this? Oh, and do note I'm quite stupid so explain properly…

B) Frontpage Image

When starting I had this "News Block" in place in between the two side blocks, but I quickly found out I could change things by using the Zone Editor. While the News Block is still in place, I, at the moment, have an image linked from my Photobucket account, and while it looks good on my computer, I noticed that when testing my site on a 2nd computer with a smaller screen resolution, (mine is 1280x960), it doesn't look good anymore. In a smaller screen resolution in Firefox, the image, (size 887X500), will push the right side panel away from the window, and it won't be accessible by the user. In IE the image is pushed down below the sidepanels instead, and THAT looks even more stupid…

What I want to ackomplish is the following;

I have checked online for the most common screen resolutions up to date, and have found that 1024x is the most common one, followed by 1280x - the latter being my own resolution. Should I go for a fixed width to get this "front" with my image to look the same no matter screen resolution and browser? Or is it possible to have the mid-section fixed only? I noticed that while my image was either pushed down, or pushed the right side panel away, the News Block beneath never stretched away in the same manor.

What to do, and more importantly; How To Do?

I also want this "image area" to have random images showing up, clickable and taking visitors to a specific place on my site… How To Do That? Another alternative would be to have the image only half the size, but with a text area next to it - making up for the same size as the image shown in the screen…

Keep in mind that I DO NOT want any "boxes" surrounding the image/images. It needs to look exactly as the screen shows…

C) Side Panels

As with the Zone Menues described in A), I want to replace the Side panel menu descriptions, (i.e. features, content, community etc…), with an image instead, and have the usual text links below intact. How Do I Do That?

Oh, and one more thing; I'm using Firebug, but it's not always clear were to check for specific codes in the .css files… Firebug refer to a specific row, but that doesn't match whatever I look for when checking my .css-files… I can't seem to follow all OCP tutorials either, because the codes doesn't seem to match a 100%… But again, I am stupid so…

Anyways, thanks in advance for any help I can receive… a LOT of people are waiting for SimuScape! They just don't know it yet!