Inchoo s magento posts

September 8th, 2009
www.besthosting4magento.com Published by: inchoo

Inchoo's Magento Posts
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Inchoo is an ecommerce design and development
company specialized in building Magento online stores.

Boost the speed of your Magento
One of the drawbacks of Magento is currently its speed if
default configuration is used. There are certain ways of making
it run faster. The best one is to enable GZip compression by
changing .htaccess file a little. You just need to uncomment
part of the code. In my case, the speed increase was exactly
235%.

Add custom structural block / reference
in Magento | Inchoo
If you already performed some Magento research, you will
know that it is built on a fully modular model that gives
great scalability and flexibility for your store. While creating
a theme, you are provided with many content blocks that you
can place in structural blocks. If you are not sure what they
are, please read Designer’s Guide to Magento first. Magento
provides few structural blocks by default and many content Step 1: Name the structural block
blocks. This article tells what needs to be in place to create new
Open the file layout/page.xml in your active theme folder.
structural block.
Inside you will find lines like:
What are structural blocks? <block type="core/text_list" name="left" as="left"/>
They are the parent blocks of content blocks and serve to <block type="core/text_list" name="content" as="content"/>
<block type="core/text_list" name="right" as="right"/>
position its content blocks within a store page context. Take
a look at the image below. These structural blocks exist in the Let’s mimic this and add a new line somewhere inside the same
forms of the header area, left column area, right column…etc. block tag.
which serve to create the visual structure for a store page. Our
goal is to create a new structural block called “newreference”. <block type="core/text_list" name="newreference" as="newrefe

Good. Now we told Magento that new structural block exists
with the name “newreference”. Magento still doesn’t know
what to do with it.
Step 2: Tell Magento where to place it
We now need to point Magento where it should output this
new structural block. Let’s go to template/page folder in our
active theme folder. You will notice different layouts there.
Let’s assume we want the new structural block to appear only
on pages that use 2-column layout with right sidebar. In that
case we should open 2columns-right.phtml file.

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September 8th, 2009 Published by: inchoo
Let’s assume we wish the “newreference” block to be placed TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_datetime`;
below 2 columns, but above the footer. In this case, our TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_int`;
updated file could look like this: TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity_varchar`;

TRUNCATE `sales_order_int`;
<div class="middle-container">
TRUNCATE `sales_order_text`;
<div class="middle col-2-right-layout">< ?php getChildHtml('breadcrumbs') ?>
TRUNCATE `sales_order_varchar`;

TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote`;
<div id="main" class="col-main">
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address`;
< ?php getChildHtml('global_messages') ?>
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_address_item`;

TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item`;

TRUNCATE `sales_flat_quote_item_option`;
< ?php getChildHtml('content') ?>
TRUNCATE `sales_flat_order_item`;
</div>
TRUNCATE `sendfriend_log`;

TRUNCATE `tag`;
TRUNCATE `tag_relation`;

TRUNCATE `tag_summary`;
<div class="col-right side-col">< ?php getChildHtml('right') ?></div>
TRUNCATE `wishlist`;
</div>
TRUNCATE `log_quote`;
<div>< ?php getChildHtml('newreference') ?></div>
TRUNCATE `report_event`;
</div>

ALTER TABLE `sales_order` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;

Step 3: Populating structural block
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
We have the block properly placed, but unfortunately nothing
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
is new on the frontsite. Let’s populate the new block with ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
something. We will put new products block there as an ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
example. Go to appropriate layout XML file and add this block ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
to appropriate place. ALTER TABLE `sales_order_entity_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_order_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
<reference name="newreference"> ALTER TABLE `sales_order_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
<block type="catalog/product_new" name="home.product.new" ALTER TABLE `sales_order_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
template="catalog/product/new.phtml" />
</reference> ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_address_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1
That’s it. I hope it will help someone
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
There are 15 comments ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_quote_item_option` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sales_flat_order_item` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `sendfriend_log` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
How to delete orders in Magento? | ALTER TABLE `tag` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `tag_relation` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
Inchoo ALTER TABLE `tag_summary` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `wishlist` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `log_quote` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
You got a Magento project to develop, you created a Magento
ALTER TABLE `report_event` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
theme, you placed initial products and categories and you
also placed some test orders to see if Shipping and Payment -- reset customers
methods work as expected. Everything seems to be cool and TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity`;
the client wishes to launch the site. You launch it. When you TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_decimal`;
enter the administration for the first time after the launch, you TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_int`;
will see all your test orders there. You know those should be TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_text`;
deleted. But how? TRUNCATE `customer_address_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity`;
If you try to delete orders in the backend, you will find out TRUNCATE `customer_entity_datetime`;
that you can only set the status to “cancelled” and the order is TRUNCATE `customer_entity_decimal`;
still there. Unfortunately, Magento doesn’t enable us to delete TRUNCATE `customer_entity_int`;
those via administration, so you will not see any “Delete order” TRUNCATE `customer_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `customer_entity_varchar`;
button. This can be quite frustrating both to developers and
TRUNCATE `log_customer`;
the merchants. People coming from an SAP world find the TRUNCATE `log_visitor`;
inability to delete to have some merit but there should be a TRUNCATE `log_visitor_info`;
status that removes the sales count from the reports i.e. sales,
inventory, etc. ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_datetime` AUTO_INCREMEN
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0; ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT
ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
TRUNCATE `sales_order`; ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_datetime`; ALTER TABLE `customer_address_entity_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT
TRUNCATE `sales_order_decimal`; ALTER TABLE `customer_entity` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
TRUNCATE `sales_order_entity`; ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_datetime` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;

ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_decimal` AUTO_INCREMENT=1; ?>
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_int` AUTO_INCREMENT=1;
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_text` AUTO_INCREMENT=1; < ?php if (!empty($result)): ?>
ALTER TABLE `customer_entity_varchar` AUTO_INCREMENT=1; <table id="relatedProductsList">
ALTER TABLE `log_customer` AUTO_INCREMENT=1; < ?php foreach ($result as $item): ?>
ALTER TABLE `log_visitor` AUTO_INCREMENT=1; <tr class="productInfo">
ALTER TABLE `log_visitor_info` AUTO_INCREMENT=1; <td><a href="<?php echo $storeUrl ?>/< ?php echo $item->url_
<td>< ?php _e('Starting at') ?> $ < ?php echo floatval($item
-- Reset all ID counters </tr>
TRUNCATE èav_entity_store`; < ?php endforeach; ?>
ALTER TABLE èav_entity_store` AUTO_INCREMENT=1; </table>
< ?php endif; ?>
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;
Hope some of you find this useful. Especially those who refuse
After you have it executed, the test orders will not be in the to use Web Services for connecting different systems.
database any more. Keep in mind that this will delete ALL
orders, in the database. So, you should execute this queries Download connect2MAGE WordPress plugin.
immediately after launch. There are 6 comments

connect2MAGE | WordPress plugin for Custom checkout cart - How to send
easy Magento database connection email after successful checkout in
Hi everyone. I wrote this little plugin while working on one Magento | Inchoo
of our projects. If you know your way around WordPress
then you know what $wpdb variable stands for. Imagine the Recently I have been working on a custom checkout page for
following scenario. You have WordPress installation on one one of our clients in Sweden. I had some trouble figuring out
database, Magento on another. You know your way around how to send default Magento order email with all of the order
SQL. You can always make new object based on WPDB class info. After an hour or so of studying Magento core code, here
inside your template files giving it database access parameters, is the solution on how to send email after successful order has
or you can use this plugin and use $MAGEDB the same way been made.
you use $wpdb. Not sure how useful this alone will be for you, so I’ll throw a
Below is a little example of using $MAGEDB to connect to little advice along the way. When trying to figure how to reuse
Magento database and retrieve some products by reading id’s Magento code, separate some time to study the Model classes
from custom field of some post inside your WordPress. with more detail. Then “tapping into” and reusing some of
them should be far more easier.
Place this code inside one of your templates, like single.php.
< ?php
Latest News RSS box in Magento using
global $MAGEDB;
$MAGEDB->show_errors(true);
Zend_Feed_Rss | Inchoo
You would like to have a eCommerce power of Magento, but
/** BASIC SETUP */
also have a blog to empower your business? In this case,
//$storeUrl = 'http://server/shop/index.php/'; you probably know that Magento doesn’t have some article
$storeUrl = get_option('connect2MAGE_StoreUrl'); manager in the box. Many clients seek for supplementary
solution like Wordpress to accomplish this goal. Ok, so you
//$urlExt = '.html';
created a blog on same or different domain and you would
$urlExt = get_option('connect2MAGE_UrlExt');
like those articles to appear somewhere in Magento (probably
/** END OF BASIC SETUP */ sidebar). This article will explain how to do it.
Let’s create a
$entityIds = get_post_custom_values(get_option('connect2MAGE_CustomFieldName'));
file called latest_news.phtml
in app/design/frontend/default/[your_theme]/template/
$result = array(); callouts/latest_news.phtml
Now we will create a PHP block that will display the list
if(!empty($entityIds)) of articles from RSS feed. We will use Inchoo RSS for
{
$entityIds = $entityIds[0];
demonstration purposes. In your scenario, replace it with your
$sql = "SELECT è`.*, `_table_price`.`value` AS `price`, own valid RSS URL.
IFNULL(_table_visibility.value, _table_visibility_default.va
$result = $MAGEDB->get_results($sql);
var_dump($result); < ?php $channel = new Zend_Feed_Rss('http://feeds.feedburner
}
<div class="block block-latest-news">
else <div class="block-title">
{ <h2>< ?php echo $this->__('Latest News') ?></h2>
</div>
echo '<p class="relatedProductInfo">No related products available...</p>';
} <div class="block-content">


<ol id="graybox-latest-news"> • use the http://somestore.domain/catalogsearch/
< ?php foreach ($channel as $item): ?> partnumber as a link
<li><a href="<?php echo $item->link; ?>">< ?php echo $item->title; ?></a></li>
< ?php endforeach; ?> • show only custom_partnumber field on the search form
</ol>
</div> First, we have to see where does the /advanced come from.
</div>
Lets open our template folder at
Step 2 appdesignfrontenddefaultdefaulttemplate
Now, we should decide where to place it. I assume you already catalogsearch
know how Magento blocks and references work. Let’s assume
there you will see the /advanced folder. Make a copy of that
you would like to place it in right column by default for whole
entire folder, in the same location, and name it to something
catalog. In this case open your app/design/frontend/default/
like /custom.
[your_theme]/layout/catalog.xml file and under “default” tag
update “right” reference with something similar. Now your /custom folder should have 2 files: form.phtml and
result.phtml.
That’s it. You should be able to see the list of articles from RSS
feed with the URLs. Hope this will help someone. Next in line is the /layout folder in our template. You need
to open catalogsearch.xml file. Go to line 64. Do you see the

Advanced search in Magento and how to
<catalogsearch_advanced_index> tag there. Make the copy of
it (including all of the content it hold with the closing tag also).
use it in your own way Put the copy of that entire small chunk of code right below.
Now rename all of the occurrences of “advanced” to “custom”
It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been working on there like on code below:
Magento quite actively last two months. I noticed this negative
<catalogsearch_custom_index>
trend in my blogging; more I know about Magento, the less
<!– Mage_Catalogsearch –>
I write about it. Some things just look so easy now, and they
start to feel like something I should not write about. Anyhow….
<reference name=”root”>
time to share some wisdom with community
Our current client uses somewhat specific (don’t they all) store <action
set. When I say specific, i don’t imply anything bad about it. method=”setTemplate”><template>page/2columns-
One of the stand up features at this clients site is the advanced right.phtml</template></action>
search functionality. One of the coolest features of the built in
advanced search is the possibility to search based on attributes </reference>
assigned to a product.
<reference name=”head”>
To do the search by attributes, your attributes must have that
option turned on when created (or later, when editing an
<action method=”addItem”><type>js_css</
attribute). In our case we had a client that wanted something
type><name>calendar/calendar-win2k-1.css</
like
name><params/><!–<if/
http://somestore.domain/catalogsearch/partnumber ><condition>can_load_calendar_js</condition>–></
or action>

http://somestore.domain/catalogsearch/brand <action method=”addItem”><type>js</
instead of the default one type><name>calendar/calendar.js</name><!–<params/
http://somestore.domain/catalogsearch/advanced ><if/><condition>can_load_calendar_js</condition>–
with all of the searchable fields on form. ></action>

Some of you might say why not use the default and call it a day. <action method=”addItem”><type>js</
Well, default one does not get very user friendly when large type><name>calendar/lang/calendar-en.js</name><!–
number of custom added searchable attributes are added in <params/><if/><condition>can_load_calendar_js</
Magento admin interface. Then the frontend search form gets condition>–></action>
cluttered and users are easily to get confused.
So in our example we would like to use the advanced search <action method=”addItem”><type>js</
and all of it’s behaviour and logic but to use it on somewhat type><name>calendar/calendar-setup.js</name><!–
special link and to hide unnecessary fields. Therefore, our <params/><if/><condition>can_load_calendar_js</
custom pages he would have only one input field on form and condition>–></action>
the submit button. How do we set this up? Well, all of the logic
and functionality is already there. </reference>
What we need is to:
<reference name=”content”>


<block type=”catalogsearch/custom_form” This might not be the best method of reusing already written
name=”catalogsearch_custom_form” code, however I hope it’s any eye opener to somewhat more
template=”catalogsearch/custom/form.phtml”/> elegant aproach.
Enyoj.
</reference>
There are 14 comments
</catalogsearch_custom_index>
Do the same for <catalogsearch_advanced_result> tag. Related products
Now go to the appcodecoreMageCatalogSearchBlock
There are three types of product relations in Magento:
folder. And make a copy of /Advanced folder naming
Up-sells, Related Products, and Cross-sell Products. When
it /Custom. Open /Custom/Form.php and replace
viewing a product, Upsells for this product are items that your
class name Mage_CatalogSearch_Block_Advanced_Form
customers would ideally buy instead of the product they’re
with Mage_CatalogSearch_Block_Custom_Form, then
viewing. They might be better quality, produce a higher profit
open /Custom/Result.php and replace class
margin, be more popular, etc. These appear on the product
name Mage_CatalogSearch_Block_Advanced_Result with
info page. Related products appear in the product info page
Mage_CatalogSearch_Block_Custom_Result.
as well, in the right column. Related products are meant to
Inside Form.php there is getModel() function. DO NOT be purchased in addition to the item the customer is viewing.
replace the Mage::getSingleton(’catalogsearch/advanced’); Finally, Cross-sell items appear in the shopping cart. When
with Mage::getSingleton(’catalogsearch/custom’);. The point a customer navigates to the shopping cart (this can happen
is to use the default advanced search logic here. Same goes for automatically after adding a product, or not), the cross-sells
getSearchModel() function inside Result.php file. block displays a selection of items marked as cross-sells to the
Next in line, controllers. We need to make items already in the cart. They’re a bit like impulse buys – like
the copy of AdvancedController.php and name it magazines and candy at the cash registers in grocery stores.
CustomController.php, then open it and replace the
class name Mage_CatalogSearch_AdvancedController with
Upsells
Mage_CatalogSearch_CustomController. This is the example of the Up-sell. Ideally, the visitor is
supposed to analyze those products as they should be relevant
Inside this CustomController.php there is a function
to the one that is just loaded.
called resultAction(). You need to replace the ( …
Mage::getSingleton(’catalogsearch/advanced’) … ) string
‘catalogsearch/advanced’ with ‘catalogsearch/custom’. This is
the one telling the browser what page to open.
Now if you open your url link in browser with /index.php/
catalogsearch/custom instead of /index.php/catalogsearch/
advanced you will see the same form there.
And for the final task… As we said at the start, the point of all
this is to 1) get more custom link in url and 2) display only one
custom searchable attribute field in form. Therefore, for the
last step we need to go to the templatecatalogsearchcustom
folder and open form.phtml file.
Inside that file, there is one foreach loop that goes like
<?php foreach ($this->getSearchableAttributes() as
$_attribute): ?> File upload in Magento
All we need to do now is to place one if() condition
Now, Magento already have frontend and admin part of file
right below it. If your custom attribute name (code) is
upload option implemented in themes. Since backend part is
“my_custom_attribute” then your if() condition might look
still missing, understand that this still doesn’t work, however,
something like
if you’re interested how it looks, read on ..
<?php foreach ($this->getSearchableAttributes() as
We are coding module of similar functionality for one of our
$_attribute): ?>
clients as we speak, but we have our fingers crossed to see this
<?php if($_code == ‘my_custom_attribute’): ?>
option in next Magento version!
…
<?php endif; ?>
<?php endforeach; ?>
And you are done. Now you have somewhat more custom url,
and only one custom field displayed on that url.



Inchoo TV – Magento channel Mage::getSingleton(’catalog/session) on view.phtml file we
would retrieve an array with some useful data in it. Do
not get confused with me mentioning the view.phmtl file,
it’s just he file i like to use to test the code. Using
Mage::getSingleton(’core/session) would retrieve us some
more data. You get the picture. Test, test, test… What’s great
about the whole thing is that naming in Magento is perfectly

Making use of Magento getSingleton
logical so most of the time you will probably find stuff you need
in few minutes or so.
method
In one of my previous articles I showed you how to use Figuring out Magento object context
getModel and getData methods in Magento. Although we
One of the problems working under the hood of the Magento
should not put those to methods at the same level, since I’d say
CMS is determining the context of $this. If you are about
the getModel is a bit more higher. Higher in sense, you first
to do any advanced stuff with your template, besides layout
use the geModel to create the instance of object then you use
changes, you need to get familiar with Magento’s objects
getData to retrieve the data from that instance. I have said it
(classes).
before, and I’m saying it again; Magento is a great peace of
full OOP power of PHP. It’s architecture is something not yet Let’s have a look at the /app/design/frontend/default/
widely seen in CMS solutions. default/template/catalog/product/view.phtml file. If you
open this file and execute var_dump($this) your browser will
One of the architectural goodies of Magento is it’s Singleton
return empty page after a short period of delay. By page I mean
design pattern. In short, Singleton design pattern ensures a
on the product view page; the one you see when you click on
class has only one instance. Therefore one should provide a
Magetno product. Experienced users will open PHP error log
global point of access to that single instance of a class.
and notice the error message caused by var_dump(). Error
So why would you want to limit yourself to only one instance? message:
Let’s say you have an application that utilizes database PHP Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 134217728 bytes
connection. Why would you create multiple instance of the exhausted (tried to allocate 121374721 bytes)
same database connection object? What if you had references
I like using print_r() and var_dump(), mostly because so far
to an object in multiple places in your application? Wouldn’t
I had no positive experience using fancy debug or any other
you like to avoid the overhead of creating a new instance of
debugger with systems like Magento.
that object for each reference? Then there is the case where
you might want to pass the object’s state from one reference Why is PHP throwing errors then? If you google out the
to another rather than always starting from an initial state. error PHP has thrown at you, you’ll see that PHP 5.2
has memory limit. Follow the link http://www.php.net/
Inside the Mage.php file of Magento system there is a
manual/en/ini.core.php#ini.memory-limit to see how and
getSingleton method (function if you prefer). Since it’s
what exactly.
footprint is rather small, I’ll copy paste the code for you to see
it. Google search gave me some useful results trying to solve my
problems. I found Krumo at http://krumo.sourceforge.net/.
First, notice the word static. In PHP and in other OOP
It’s a PHP debugging tool, replacement for print_r() and
languages keyword static stands for something like “this can
var_dump(). After setting up Krumo and running it on
be called on non objects, directly from class”. Now let me show
Magento it gave me exactly what I wanted. It gave me the
you the footprint of the getModel method.
object type of the dumped file; in this case it gave me object
Do you notice the parameters inside the brackets? They are the type of $this.
same for both of theme. Where am I getting with this? Well,
If you’re using an IDE studio with code completion support
I already showed you how to figure out the list of all of the
like NuSphere PhpED, ZendStudio or NetBeans and you
available parameters in one of my previous articles on my site.
decide to do something like $this-> you won’t get any methods
So all we need to do at this point is, play with those parameters
listed. I haven’t yet seen the IDE that can perform this kind of
using getSingleton() method and observe the results.
smart logic and figure out the context of $this by it self.
Most important thing you need to remember is that using
What you can do is use the information obtained
getSingleton you are calling already instantiated object. So if
by krumo::dump($this). Performing krumo::dump($this)
you get the empty array as a result, it means the object is
on /app/design/frontend/default/default/template/catalog/
empty. Only the blueprint is there, but nothing is loaded in it.
product/view.phtml file will return object type,
We had the similar case using getModel(’catalog/product‘)
Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View.
on some pages. If we done var_dump or print_r we could
saw the return array was empty. Then we had to use the load Now if you do
method to load some data into our newly instantiated object. Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View::
What I’m trying to say, you need to play with it your IDE supporting code completion will give you
to get the feeling. Some models will return data rich a drop down of all the available methods, let’s say
objects some will return empty arrays. If we were to do canEmailToFriend();

Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View::canEmailToFriend(); What is “Best Value” filed?
Now all you need to do is to replace
When you go to Category page in Magento administration, you
Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View with $this like
will see “Category Products” tab. From there, you will see the
$this->canEmailToFriend(); list of products that are associated to this category. The last
And you’re done. All of this may look like “why do I need this”. column in “Position”. That is how “Best Value” is determined.
What you need it a smart IDE, one that can figure out the So, best value is not something that is dynamically calculated.
context of $this by it self and call the methods accordingly. No You can tailor it to your likings.
IDE currently does that, if I’m not missing on something. For
now I see no better solution to retrieve the object context of
$this across all those Magento files.
If you need some help setting up Krumo with Magento
you can read my other, somewhat detailed article on
activecodeline.com.
Hope this was useful for you.

Get product review info (independent) of
review page
Here at Inchoo, we are working on a private project, that
should see daylight any time soon. One of the requirements How to change default Sort Order
we had is to show product review info on pages independent The file you need to look at is: /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/
of product review page. Let’s say you wish to show review info Block/Product/List/Toolbar.php Since we’ll modify it, make a
on home page for some of the products. After few weeks with copy to /app/code/local/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List/
working with Magento, one learns how to use the model stuff Toolbar.php
directly from view files. Although this might not be the “right”
way, it’s most definitely the fastest way (and I doubt most of One there, you will notice this code at the beginning of the file:
your clients would prefer any other , especially if it’s some $this->_availableOrder = array(
minor modification). 'position' => $this->__('Best Value'),
'name' => $this->__('Name'),
'price' => $this->__('Price')
Simple random banner rotator in );

Magento using static blocks Default order takes the first value available. So, all you have to
do is to either:
This is my first post here and I’ll write about my first challenge
regarding Magento since I came to work at Inchoo. • reorder it if you want to have a selection in the Toolbar or
Please note that you are not restricted only to images, you • set only one value of choice if you will remove the
could use text, video or whatever you want here, but I’ll focus selection from the toolbar
on images with links as title says.
In order to show this block, you should be familiar with I hope this will help somebody.
Magento layouts.
Since that is out of scope for this article, I’ll show you how to
put it below the content on cms pages.
Couple of days ago we launched a new Magento project:

Changing default category sort order in
Pebblehill Designs. This site utilizes Magento features and
turns it into a very powerful online catalog. You won’t notice
Magento the Shopping Cart or checkout process yet. Even without
those, this site shows exactly what Pebblehill has to offer: the
Category toolbar has many options. By default is shows how most popular styles of custom upholstered furniture.
many items are in the category, you can choose how many
You can customize the furniture collection to express your
products you wish to be displayed per page, you can change
own unique style made with the highest quality materials and
the listing type (List or Grid) and you may choose Sort Order.
craftsmanship available.
This “Sort Order” can be confusing. The default “Sort Order”
is “Best Value”. What does it mean? How is the Best value Pebble Hill Designs’ parsons chairs are “American made” with
determined? Can we change the default sort order? pride in Georgia. The quality speaks for itself. Your products
are pre-assembled and ready for use when you receive them.


The love and the passion for beautiful home interiors
translates into a high-quality product with a sophisticated
style manufactured in the USA. Pebblehill Designs has
assembled some of the most popular styles of custom
upholstered furniture to offer to our customers. All styles are
available in every fabric shown or you can provide your own
fabric. You can customize the furniture collection to express
your own unique style made with the highest quality materials
and craftsmanship available.

Magento part of the site can be viewed if you click at Shop by
Vehicle or Shop by Brand tabs from the main menu, but you
will notice that some blocks seamlessly integrate between two
solutions.

We developed this site as the Surgeworks team. The design
was created by one of out top designers, Rafael Torales. We
hope you enjoy it and feel free to post your comments.

The Best Shopping Cart :: Trend analysis
of osCommerce, Magento, ZenCart and
CRE Loaded | Inchoo
If you try to ask this question on some forum or newsgroup,
you will surely get many replies. Everyone will present you
his favorite. My first developed online store was created with
TeraFlex PLUS, another Magento + standard osCommerce platform. After three or four projects,
I started to work with CRE Loaded and used it frequently for
Wordpress duo years. Although it was also an osCommerce fork, it had many
After we launched TeraFlex Suspensions website few months advantages. I switched to Magento™ early this year and this
ago, we created a new similar website for Teraflex PLUS. is my final choice.
Although the name is similar, this is not the same company. Google™ Trends is a great tool to check some platforms
The primary goal of this site is to help Jeep owners to upgrade popularity by comparing it to the competition. For my short
their pets with parts and accessories for any type of adventure. analysis, I compared:
The secondary goal is to create a Jeep enthusiast community
in Utah, USA and surroundings. The site is powered by
Wordpress and Magento combination.
Magento is a superb Shopping Cart, but it lacks some of the
CMS features. Wordpress is a superb CMS, but it fails to
provide the needs for the eCommerce goals. The combination
of these can create a very powerful website. We present you
TeraFlex PLUS : Jeep Adventure Outfitters
http://www.teraflexplus.com/

As you can see, osCommerce still remains the most popular
eCommerce platform. However, you can notice that this


popularity is fading. ZenCart is stable for the past two years. also tutorial about this on Magento Wiki. However i don’t like
And my previous favorite, CRE Loaded (much better solution approach of duplicating and overriding Mage files from /local,
than ZenCart in my opinion), is very low. Its popularity is also if it can be avoided, so i decided to write this small and useful
fading even after their team put great effort into a new website example of adding or overriding default Magento settings
and identity. through separated config files. And yes, Magento values can
be overridden this way. Default layouts config can be found
Now, take a look at blue line. My prediction is that sometime
in app/code/core/Mage/Cms/etc/config.xml along with used
in Q1 2009, Magento will become most popular eCommerce
xml code structure, so check it out. Thank you for listening!
platform. It will surely kick osCommerce off the throne where
that fat duck was sitting for many years. It was about time.
Drupal to Magento integration, simple
First of all, let me inform you that this article is for those of link tweak with multilingual site
you who are just starting with Magento. If you are a Magento
expert, you will probably know this. Consider it just a reminder I see my coworker and friend Željko Prša made a nice little post
for those who use Magento for first time. There are three on Adding a new language in Magento so I figure I’ll jump with
common mistakes that most people do when they try to use a little Drupal to Magento integration trick concerning link
Magento for first time, so read this article and you won’t be issues and multilingual sites. Here is a piece of code you can
one of them.:) use in your Drupal templates to do the proper switching from
Drupal site to Magento while keeping the selected language of
• More experienced PHP developers will first read site. Note, this tweak assumes you have the desired language
Magento Designers Guide before they try to style setup on both Drupal and Magento side.
Magento, but others won’t and that’s the mistake This part goes to some of your Drupal theme file
number two. Since Magento has great theme fallback
system there is really no need to touch default theme. ...
Although easiest way to make new theme for new global $language ;
Magento is top copy the whole theme to a new folder, $lname = ($language->language == null) ? 'en' : $language->l
$storeView = null;
don’t do that. Copy only the files you will need: from / if($lname == 'de') { $storeView = '?___store=german&amp;
design/frontend/default/default/ directory to /design/ ??>
frontend/default/YOUR_NEW_THEME directory. Do
the same thing with /skin/frontend/default/default/ </p><p style="text-align: left;"><a id="main_menu_shop" href
...
Congratulations, you have your own theme just like
that. All that left is to apply new theme (System- Note the $storeView variable; GET ___store holds the value
>Configuration->Design) and you are ready to do with of code name of the view you assigned in Magento, while GET
your theme files whatever you want. ___from_store variable is used as helper to Magento inner
workings. You can basically omit the other one. Your links to
• Third mistake is modifying Magento core files. What files
Shop from Drupal to Magento should now activate the proper
are core ones? All what is in app/code/core folder. If you
language, the same one you have active on Drupal side.
have a need to modify some of those ones, you just need
to duplicate that file in the same directory path to app/ There are 1 comments
code/local. For example, if you need to modify the file
app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/Block/Success.php
Adding a new language in Magento
copy it to As anything in Magento adding a new language is something
that requires a certain procedure which we will explain right
app/code/local/Mage/Checkout/Block/Success.php now and for future reference.
and leave the core file intact. This way your Magento will • 3. Now go to: Configuration -> Current Configuration
be more bullet-proof to future updates. Scope (Select your language from the dropdown) and on
the right side under “Locale options” choose the desired
language.
Custom CMS page layout in Magento |
Inchoo
That’s it, now when you go to the frontend of the site, you’ll
notice a dropdown menu allowing the language switching.
Last week I had a request to add new custom layout
for few cms pages in one Magento shop. It’s really
useful for different static pages of your shop. First create
Access denied in Magento admin
extension with only config file in it: app/code/local/Inchoo/ Some of you may encountered this problem. You install new
AdditionalCmsPageLayouts/etc/config.xml Magento extension through downloader, try to access its
Add your page/custom-static-page-1.phtml template file (or configuration settings and Magento throws “Access denied”
page at you. Although you’re administrator of the system.
copy some default one for start) and you’re done There is




If you worked with osCommerce, Zen Cart, CRE Loaded or any
similar eCommerce platform before, you might find Magento
database structure quite confusing when you see it for the first
time. I advise you not to rush too much figuring out what
is what by glancing through database. Try to spend first few
hours getting familiar with some background. For purposes
of flexibility, the Magento database heavily utilizes an Entity-
Attribute-Value (EAV) data model. As is often the case, the
cost of flexibility is complexity. Is there something in Magento
that is simple from developers point of view?
Data manipulation in Magento is often more knowledge
demanding than that typical use of traditional relational
So what happened here? Magento just doesn’t have stored tables. Therefore, an understanding of EAV principles and
privileges for this new extension. how they have been modeled into Magento it is HIGHLY
First just try to logout and login again. If that doesn’t work, recommended before making changes to the Magento
you need to reset admin privileges. data or the Magento schema (Wikipedia: Entity-attribute-
value_model). Varien has simplified the identification of EAV
Navigate to System->Permissions->Roles and click
related tables with consistent naming conventions. Core EAV
Administrators role.
tables are prefixed with “EAV_”. Diagrams in this post contain
a section labeled “EAV” which displays Magento’s core EAV
tables and thier relationships to non-EAV tables.

Check your Role Resources settings just in case, Resource
Access dropdown should be already set to All for Database diagrams and documents found in this post are
administrators. intended to mirror the database schema as defined by Varien.
Table relationships depicted in the diagrams represent only
those relationships explicitly defined as Foreign Keys in the
Magento database. Additional informal/undiagrammed table
relationships may also exist, so when modifying the schema
or directly manipulating data it is important to identify and
evaluate possible changes to these tables as well (and the
tables they relate to, and the tables they relate to…).
The author of Database Diagram is Gordon Goodwin, IT
Consultant. You can see his info in the PDF.

Magento + .Net Framework, simple order
preview app
Without changing anything just click “Save Role” button, so
For those of you who are into kinky stuff I made a simple,
that Magento re-saves all permissions.
more of a proof of concept, application that sits in Widnows
You should be able to access your new extension now without taskbar and shows the order info in balloon popup. Took me
problems. little more than half of hour to get this working. Almost forgot
how great C# is

Magento has this great feature, rss feed for orders. You
can access it via link http://myshopsite/rss/order/new. It
requires authentication, so you need to provide Magento user
and pass to access this link. Idea I wanted to play around
was how to get this info in my windows app. It’s really, really
simple. Below is the screenshot of this little app for you to see
what I’m talking about.

Technically, we create a simple products and after that a
grouped products. When we edit the grouped product, we will
associate simple products to it.It works very fine, but some of
you might have issue if a simple product has custom options.
If that’s the case, and if costum options are set as required
And here is the application it self simpleorderpreview and full (default way), the simple product will not be associative to the
source code (Visual Studio 2008 Express C#, entire solution grouped product. Let’s see what needs to be changed in that
project) acmnewproducts. case.

When you un-archive files from simpleorderpreview there is On Magento site, there is a nice tutorial how to create a
only one thing you need to do prior to running .exe file. You grouped product. Please read it first to become familiar with
need to open ACMNewProducts.exe.config and set username, the process. If you don’t have to assign simple products with
password and url of your own Magento shop. That’s it. Now custom options to a grouped product, that tutorial will be
you can run the app. enough.

One click on Magento icon inside the taskbar executes
show order process, while double cliking the icon closes the
application.
I will not go into the details in this post on how this works.
Basicaly it’s simple XML parser. Most important part is the
HTTP authentification, which you can see in code source code.
Hope you find this usefull, something to play with.

Associate simple product with custom
Manually create Google Sitemap in
options in grouped product in Magento |
Magento | Inchoo
Inchoo
Most of you probably know this, but let’s define what the
Does the title sound complicated? Grouped Products display sitemaps are. Sitemaps are a simple way for site creators to
several products on one page. For example – if you’re selling give search engines the information about pages on their site
chef’s knives and you have the same knife in four sizes, you can that are available for public. Basically, those are just 1 or more
make a grouped product to display all four sizes. Customers XML files that lists URLs for a site along with additional meta
can select the size(s) they want and add to cart from this page. informatio about each URL (like last update, how often it
Another example would be a themed bedroom set – you can changes, its importance relevant to other pages). With this in
create a grouped product and sell the sheets, comforter, and mind, search engines can be more clever while crawling the
pillow cases all from the same page. site. Click here see how sitemap of this site looks like.
You will hear the term Google Sitemap a lot, but XML Schema
for the Sitemap protocol is not related only to Google at all. It
can be used in many places, but the most important ones are
Google Webmaster Tools and Yahoo! Site Explorer.



How do we create Google Sitemap in Magento? One of the things that caught my eye and made me
wonder about the consequences is the Observer and override
1. Sitemap File Configuration functionality that probably most of the serious custom made
Magento modules will utilize. Utilizing Observers enables you
First we need to create sitemap file in Magento. This is
to observe and execute some action inside the “customer work
basically pointer to tell Magento where to create sitemap file
flow” or even some admin stuff. Such functionality is heavily
and how to name it. Log in to Magento Administration and go
known is systems like WordPress and it’s called “hooks”.
to:
Besides hooking, another useful an very powerful feature
Catalog -> Google Sitemap
which is actually related more to the OOP concept itself is the
Check to see if the sitemap file is already present. Lets overriding. Personally i find the combination of observers and
assume we wish to create sitemap in the URL: http:// overrides to be the coolest and most powerful stuff in Magento
www.yourstore.com/sitemap/sitemap.xml module development.
To do it successfully,
So where is the issue? As of time of this writing, the
1. FTP to the server latest Magento version is 1.3.1. Let’s look at the previous
“major” release prior to that one, version 1.2.1.2. Here is
2. create sitemap folder a prepareForCart method signature from app/code/core/
3. chmod the folder to 777 Mage/Catalog/Model/Product/Type/Abstract.php (line 239,
Magento version 1.2.1.2):
On some servers, previous steps will not be required, but it is
Notice the difference? Although this might not look like
better to create the file first so that Magento can edit it.
“that big of a deal” suppose you had implemented override
Let’s go to Magento administration now and click on “Add functionality like
Sitemap” button. Just insert the default values.
In the above code, we override the prepareForCart method to
After this step, we just told Magento where to create sitemap to some custom stuff for us. This peace of code would work
file. It is not yet created. perfectly fine in version 1.2.1.2, but when client decides to
upgrade the shop to 1.3.1 or newer he would get the error like
2. Configure Sitemap
To me, stuff like this is a serious downside towards building
Sitemap can be configured from the interface System ->
advanced modules. Changing core files and core functionality
Configuration -> Catalog->Google Sitemap. If you are not sure
can have serious impact on custom made modules each
what does it all mean, check XML Tag definitions section from
Magento upgrade. Therefore, one should keep an eye open
“Sitemaps XML format” document.
on what modules he will throw into the shop. Personally I
3. Create Sitemap Manually consider online stores very serious and have strong feelings
about each store owner having somewhat of dedicated
Looks like Magento folks were thinking that sitemap should developer that will be in charge even for stuff like adding new
only be created by a cron job. Yes, it can be done that way modules.
also. Be sure to read Wiki article How to Set Up a Cron Job
to get familiar with it. If you are looking for manual creation, Just consider the financial loss for a store owner of any more
quit your search for “Create Sitemap” button. You will not find serious web shop if he decides to download the and install
it. But there is a workaround. You can enter manual URL to module himself just to realize that for incompatibility reasons
execute sitemap creation: this new module made his shop fully nonfunctional.
http://www.yourstore.com/index.php/admin/sitemap/
generate/sitemap_id/[ID of Sitemap from step 1] How to transfer large Magento database
Of course, replace the content with square brackets with actual from live to development server and
Sitemap ID.
other way round
I have been involved in Magento development for almost a
year now. God knows I had (and still have) my moments of
Observer pitfalls of building serious pain with it . If you are in professional, everyday, PHP
modules in Magento development that focuses mainly on Magento then your life
probably isn’t all flowers and bees. Magento is extremely rich
Unlike good old WordPress that “every kid in the block” knows eCommerce platform, but its main downside IMHO is its size
how to create a plugin for, Magento is a whole new system. It and code complexity. If you download Magento via SVN, you
requires extensive knowledge of OOP, ORM’s, MVC, and few will sound find out it has around 11 600 and more files. This
other stuff. This is why not “every kid in the block” can write a is no small figure. Transferring that much of files over the
module for Magento, and this is why I love it. However, unlike FTP can be a real night mare. Luckily we have SSH and tar
WordPress, Drupal and other community driven systems out command to handle this really neat.
there who keep in mind backward compatibility things with
But what about database. Today I worked on database with
Magento things are a bit different.
more than 20 000 products in store and with extremely
large number of categories. What seemed like easy database

transfer from live site to local developer machine to do a test Affiliates for all, are modules I consider loosely related to core.
and fix on few issues tunerd out to be an issue for itself. They are in one or another way connected to Magento but they
Without further delay, here is my favorite tool to handle all are self standing, independent, applications.
database related work from now on: Navicat. Installation of Affiliate module is a trivial task. It mostly
Among my favorite features is the Data transfer. Directly comes down to extracting downloaded archive file to a web
moving one database to another among different MySQL accessible directory (to your server, hosting) and configuring
servers works like a charm. I find yourself strangled among the config.inc file. (For security reasons, try renaming
often database recommended action I suggests you test the the config.inc to config.inc.php, plus changing the /lib/
trial version of this tool. bootstrap.php on line 23 to include config.inc.php). After
importing affiliates.sql into the database our installation is
Here are some screenshots of Navicat Data transfer in Action.
done.
To configure Magento part, one needs to copy required files
form /carts directory of Affiliate module and then (turn off
Cache) go to System > Configuration and set the required
options. After that you can go back to your Affiliate For
All application, upload some banners and set their url links
to point to your Magento shop. When you test banner the
links (click on one of them to get you to Magento store,
then Magento store url should have a little GET variable
in url like ?ref=someNum). Now when you do the entire
checkout process, order info gets recorded to Affiliate For All
application.
If you wish to play with Affiliate For All without installing it,
you can check out the demo (just use “Admin” both for user
and password).

New Magento theme tutorial | Inchoo
There are many new Magento stores that are published
each day. If you are with Magento for a longer time, you
will also notice that many of those look similar to default
or modern Magento theme. Creating an totally unique and
custom one can be a difficult process, easpecially taking into
consideration number of different interfaces we have. This is
why many Magento developers choose to use the CSS from
one of mendioned Magento themes that come with default
installation and style those up. This is not a bad choice at all
as it speeds up the process and those default themes are very
good. But, for those of you who wish to make an extra effort,
we suggest that you to take a look at Magento Blank Theme for
a head start.
Before you get to this point, be sure to read Magento
Designer’s Guide, where the Magento design terminology is
explained in this PDF document.
Blank Theme is a sample skeleton theme for Magento designer
and a perfect way to start a new one. Let’s be honest, we will
rarely want to develop a totally new layout. We wish the header
on the top, footer on the bottom. We wish to have 1, 2 or 3
There are 4 comments columns, we wish to have boxes. Blank Theme does just that:
provides a layout, but without any heavy styling. This makes

Affiliates for all – Magento integration
it excellent base ground for a new Magento project. It doesn’t
come with default installation, so you will have to use Magento
Recently one of our clients needed and info on Affiliate module Connect to get it.
for Magento. When it comes to Magento, word “module” is http://www.magentocommerce.com/extension/518/blank-
loosely related. Sure, every module needs config files in order theme
to report it’s “connection” to Magento core. Modules like this,


Magento community member Ross gave a good review
comment:
Create a Color Switcher in Magento
This is a great theme to use for wire-framing or as a base Magento comes packed with a lot of options. But no matter
for developing a custom theme! It looks like a lot of work has how many options you put into some product you can never
gone in to slimming down the HTML and CSS, which makes cover all of them. One of such options (for now) is a color
it much easier to work with compared to the default theme. switcher in Magento. To be more precise, an image switcher
I particularly appreciate the well structured and commented based on color selection.
CSS. The only things I would want different at this stage is
Recently I’ve made a screencast on my site on this subject,
for the ‘callouts’ to be taken out (and removal of associated
with somewhat different title. The idea is to have a dropdown
media images), and for this theme to be included in the main
box from which you choose a color and based on the color
Magento download (I would even like it to be the ‘default’). 5
selection product image changes. All of this is to be based on
stars from me!
some simple javascript (in my case, jQuery).
Take a sneak peak of how does product info page looks line
Before we continue, you might want to see color switcher in
with no styling, but in finished layout. I’m sure that the CSS
action. We used this solution on our Kapitol Reef project.
wizards will find this invaluable.
First you need to upload some images to your product and
give them some meaningful names like Red, Blue, Green
depending on your product color. When I say give them
name, I mean on label values. Same goes for creating custom
attribute. You create a dropdown selection box and create the
same amount of dropdown options as you have images, giving
them the same name Red, Green, Blue… and so on. Here are
some images for you to see what I’m talking about:


Magento product view page analysis |
Inchoo
One of the most edited file in Magento is the template file
View.phtml file. Reason for this is that a lot of clients would
like to rearrange it differently on their online stores. Here is
the analysis of that file and the list of all the methods it uses.
One thing to keep in mind, this document shows you the
View.phtml block file and shows you it’s inherited methods.
All of the Magento block files have the similar inheritance
principle. Therefore to find out the available methods all you
need to do is open up the extended (inherited) classes.
If you are using some smart IDE solution like NetBeans 6.5
with PHP code completion support, you can simply do the
Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View-> and press the Ctrl +
Space to get the dropdown list of all the available methods.
If that’s not the case, then you will how to do the things the
manual way.


After this is done we go to the code part. There are three things After some additional styling you can get some impressive
you need to do here. results for this. Hope you find it useful.
Upload the jQuery and save it into the /js/jquery/jquery.js. You can see complete screencast at:
One important note on jQuery; for some reason I had to use http://activecodeline.com/wp-content/uploads/videos/
jQuery 1.2.3 to get this example working. Latest version 1.2.6 MagentoProductColorChooser.swf
(as of time of this writing) did not work. You can see the exact
error it gave me on my screencast. There are 28 comments
Now you need to modify /template/page/html/head.phtml

Magento’s Onepage Checkout in a
file to include the jQuery script (or any other if you can code
the same logic into it) and write down few lines of JS to
do the switching (you can download my version of file here
head.phtml)
nutshell
And finaly, you need to modify the /template/catalog/ For the last two days I’ve been working on a custom checkout
product/view/media.phtml file to grab all of the product page for one of our clients. Basicaly a page can be shown
images and dump them into some div. Here is my sample in Magento using simple Core_Template type. Basically all
(media.phtml) so just copy paste the code. code is set inside the .phtml file so it can be shown on every
possible page or block, meaning it’s object independent, no
And some additional screenshots for you to see final result
inheritance. Something you can call from with your layout files
like
To complete my work, I had two mayor requirements. One
was to manage my way around programmable adding a simple
products to cart, plus their quantity and other was to do
checkout with items in cart. Checkout was to be made with
predefined payment method as well as shipping method. After
reviewing a lot of Magento’s code involved in checkout process
and process of adding products to cart and so on I’ve put
together what I see as the most short example one can use to
do a checkout with such predefined conditions.
If you have such special requirements for your site below is the
code that you can place on whatever file you wish and include
it yout tempalte as block type core/template.
Where ubmitCustomCheckout is the name of the submit
button or submit input field. To extract addresses you can use
something like

Magento official documentation
download
We were among a few of the studios to receive the early release
of the Magento documentation before it’s official release date.
We broke the embargo ’cause we just didn’t have the heart
to keep it to our selves, we all now how painful it is to work
without it.


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