index file help

hey, I'm working on making a simple http and ftp server to share files and stuff from my cable connection here at the house. Its running apache on win xp, now if there is a folder with out an index file it generates one automatically. Now how do I customize this to change the background and how stuff looks and add links or what not? Do I have to do a server side script? or is there a way i can use java scripts or some sort of code in a html file? I'm kind of new, please help.