I've been looking over the Zope website, and basically like the idea that each page should have its own folder, with a single 'index_html' in the root directory that handles a uniform design for the rest of the site.

But, its not perfect. For instance, I want my first page to be a splash page that doesn't conform to this uniform pattern, and I don't nessecarily want the rest of the site to be based off of a sub-directory.

Why don't you just not include standart_html_(header/footer) in you root index_html? cheers, oliver