Ok, let's separate this into two component
situations:
1) finding the top 5 links in any category,
and listing those below the category on either the main page (home.html only) or on all the sub-category links (home.html and category.html)
2) finding the top 5 (or first 5) sub categories in each category and listing those under the category/subcategory link.
Option 1 allows you to promote the top links, option 2 allows you to give people an idea of what lays below each of the upper level categories.
A fancier option for #2 would have a field in the category defition that marks it as 'displayed' so it would be displayed under it's immediate upper level category. That gives the webmaster control of which categories get displayed. If the 'display'ed link was actually selected, you could also display the "new/updated" banner next to each of the sub-sections.
There is an Option #3 which is really only getting the cool-links to display on the home page in a list as "Top N Links"
situations:
1) finding the top 5 links in any category,
and listing those below the category on either the main page (home.html only) or on all the sub-category links (home.html and category.html)
2) finding the top 5 (or first 5) sub categories in each category and listing those under the category/subcategory link.
Option 1 allows you to promote the top links, option 2 allows you to give people an idea of what lays below each of the upper level categories.
A fancier option for #2 would have a field in the category defition that marks it as 'displayed' so it would be displayed under it's immediate upper level category. That gives the webmaster control of which categories get displayed. If the 'display'ed link was actually selected, you could also display the "new/updated" banner next to each of the sub-sections.
There is an Option #3 which is really only getting the cool-links to display on the home page in a list as "Top N Links"
