by Jim » Fri Jul 26, 2013 10:02 pm
The various templates use different setting from the backoffice setting and some may or may not be used.
On the home page the products are in a table with the style loop_prod and the css sets that to a width of 100% so it will use all available space and does not use the page width setting from the Page > Layout screen.
Note that the width of product boxes will be affected by things such as image size, number and length of product options. quantity pricing tables etc. so those items on the page may be making it wider than expected.
The option "Products on Top" is a relic of the days when the templates were all coded in C and did not use the custom template language. It was use with a "Loop Items" type scenario where the "items" could be either a page link or a product link and they (page and product) could be interspersed as they were stored in the database. With the introduction of the custom template language the Loop Links and Loop Products tags were added so you could separate the two types of items by putting in the individual tags where you wanted the items to appear. So the Products on Top became obsolete since the template defined the order. I think it would still work if you use the tag [-- loop items --] [-- items --] [-- end_loop items --] but most people wouldn't want the products and page links interspersed on a page.
As for the footer some template will not display the footer if the bottom navigation is in use. You can get more details on how the ShopSite templates use various features at http://www.shopsite.com/templates/cookbook/builtintemplates.shtml and links off of that page. The burst theme is found at http://www.shopsite.com/templates/cookbook/builtintemplates-burst.shtml