How to create custom page

I have created a new page called 'Coming Soon' via System/Design/Layout, I have left the default store setting and given the route common/comingsoon. I then add the HTML Content > Coming Soon module that I previously created.

But when I view the page /index.php?route=common/comingsoon my HTML content shows but under neath this I get the default The page you requested cannot be found!

How do I correctly add new pages ?

You are only making a layout not a page. If you want that layout to be your homepage then you need to go to layouts in admin and change the route for the home layout to your one.

If you haven't you need to add the layout in your admin System > Design > Layouts click insert if you want to make a new layout and then under route put the name of the tpl file you have created without the .tpl bit

If you want to make the coming soon a page the you need to go to (in your admin) Catalog > Information and Click on insert

Make your page call it Coming soon and under the design Tab choose your Layout to be coming soon

So any new page I want to create must have a .tpl file in the say common folder for example. Like a vqmod does ?

I have you may be looking at this a bit to hard

If you want to make 1 custom page you can go to catalog > Information Click insert

In here you use the editor to creat your page. If you want it to have its own custom layout e.g different sidebar from the rest of your site. Then you need to start playing with the layout section.

I would ignore my previous post

Yes I created a page there and the pages shows ok, but has the heading which is not needed, and it also shows a link obviously in the information ection that i now have in the top right of the information pages, again which is not needed.

What I was wanting to have is a basic HTML page that I can format like the information page and have a link to this new page in the top menu bar. But I would like to be able to edit this page in the admin area and not via ftp and a new file say comingsoon.html that I would need to edit and upload via ftp each time i edit it.

What is this coming soon page going to be used for?

Create a layout called coming soon and in the route put "information/information"
Create a category called Coming soon and in the design tab put the category layout to coming soon
Then you can edit it the same as editing a category?

yes I understand this part, but doing this causes the new page to show up in the information links, which I do not want. I was hoping to create a new page and have this page linked in the menu bar.

Make it as a category then you should be able to link it to the top. Not an information Page

Yes this is what I done in the first place and it showed my custom page, but also the default text to say there are no items in that category! Which I did not want.

Is where no way to create custom pages and have a link for it in the top menu bar ?