I don't have an answer to your question, but would like to ask you for some help. PLEASE use a subject title that identifies what the post is about. "Question" is pretty much a given eh?

Hmmm... I think you would have to hack your _main file to do what you want. Basically you set a value in your back office for number of posts per page and it applies (almost) everywhere. The exception is the full archive list, but going to any given link from that page will then use the number of posts you set in the back office. The hackage would have to identify that you are on the main page and then temporarily set the limit to 1. Then in your back office you set the limit to 9999999 or whatever the biggest number you can have in there. Unfortunately I don't have any hackage handy for you to check out in that direction.

As to locking the thread, it wasn't me but it makes sense to lock it. You pretty much said you got the answer to your questions right?

Hrm, when you change the amount of posts displayed where does it save that variable to?

if you did something like (and excuse the lack of real code) "if I'm on a full blog page then $posts = 1" the variable is only saved for the duration of that page load. In other words, your back office setting will take hold the next time a page is loaded. That way someone sees one post when they first visit your blog, but they choose a category link and get whatever number you have in your admin-settings tab.

Disclaimer (which I should make my sig file): I think therefore I screw up frequently.

Oh and thanks for changing the name of the thread!

although : 'unlimited'... you realy want a page to keep loading forever ?
the number of posts will grow overtime, don't they ?