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Kelly:
Generally speaking, XOOPS offers you a frame to show your modules, so for instance many sites, including Xoops.org, have the News module defined to show in the top page. You can, of course, set XOOPS so it shows different stuff in the top page. If you choose newBB, you'll see the Forums in the top page, and so on.
As to what content appears in that top page, it depends on two things: the nature of the module AND the blocks definitions. For instance, the News module by default shows the latest news in a chronological reverse order; the newBB module shows the names and descriptions of the forums available; Members shows a form to search for a member. These are the things that show when you select News newBB or Members as the startup module.
But here in Xoops.org you see also Forum headers and more stuff in the top page, right? Well, you do that just configuring blocks to appear in the top page. For instance, for the forums you can choose to show a block with the latest discussions, or with the more active ones; for the Downloads module, you can show in the top page a block with the Top Downloads, or the Recent downloads (addition), and so on.
All in all, select the module you want to be central to your site, and define it to show as the startup module. Then dress it with more content selecting diverse blocks to wrap up the page. Each of these blocks have to be configured to appear only in the startup page, and of course you need to make sure anonymous users can see them.
Cheers.