Magento: Some important functions

Here I will show you some important functions/methods in Magento that will make your development easy.

Get the path of your magento page.

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echo $this->getUrl('mypage');

Get the path of the image in your skin folder.

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echo $this->getSkinUrl('images/yourimage.gif');

Get the product link.

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echo $this->getProductData()->getProductUrl();

Get the product name.

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echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getProductData()->getName());

Call a static block in .phtml file.

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echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('cms/block')->setBlockId('YOURBLOCKID')->toHtml();

Get Image url of current category.

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echo $this->getCurrentCategory()->getImageUrl();

Check whether the current category is Top category.

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echo $this->IsTopCategory();

Get description of current category.

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echo $this->getCurrentCategory()->getDescription();

Display products list page (list.phtml).

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echo $this->getProductListHtml();

Display CMS block page.

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echo $this->getCmsBlockHtml();

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Magento: Checking customer/admin is logged in or not

The most important part in magento development is to check whether customer is logged in or not in the system. So that you can show specific features and extra privileges to your customers. There are many things that are restricted to the guests, while members can see the special privilege things.

Also if the customer is not logged in, we can show a link like “Log in”; while for logged in customers, we can show link like “Log out”, “My account”, etc. This is already present in Magento, but we may want to add more features to our customers. So here is the code where you can check customer is logged in or not.

This will check whether the customer is logged in the magento system or not.

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$session=Mage::getSingleton('customer/session', array('name'=>'frontend') );

if ($session->isLoggedIn()) {
    echo "Welcome, ".$session->getCustomer()->getName();
} else {
    echo "Not logged in";
}

This will check whether admin is logged in or not in a magento site.

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$adminsession = Mage::getSingleton('admin/session', array('name'=>'adminhtml'));

if($adminsession->isLoggedIn()) {
    echo "Welcome Admin";
} else {
    echo "Not logged in";
}

Magento get file paths and URLs

Get URL paths of your magento folder structure – Absolute URL Path

Mage::getBaseUrl() => Gets base url path e.g. http://my.website.com/

Mage::getBaseUrl(‘media’) => Gets MEDIA folder path e.g. http://my.website.com/media/

Mage::getBaseUrl(‘js’) => Gets JS folder path e.g. http://my.website.com/js/

Mage::getBaseUrl(‘skin’) => Gets SKIN folder path e.g. http://my.website.com/skin/

Get DIRECTORY paths (physical location of your folders on the server) – Relative URL Path

Mage::getBaseDir() => Gives you your Magento installation folder / root folder e.g. /home/kalpesh/workspace/magento

Mage::getBaseDir(‘app’) => Gives you your Magento’s APP directory file location e.g. /home/kalpesh/workspace/magento/app

Mage::getBaseDir(‘design’) => Gives you your Magento’s DESIGN directory file location e.g. /home/kalpesh/workspace/magento/design

Mage::getBaseDir(‘media’) => Gives MEDIA directory file path

Mage::getBaseDir(‘code’) => Gives CODE directory file path

Mage::getBaseDir(‘lib’) => Gives LIB directory file path

Get Current URL – whole URL path

Mage::helper(‘core/url’)->getCurrentUrl()

InkFruit.com – launched in Magento

After so much of hard work and less time to complete, finally we launched our old core PHP website in Magento.

At beginning, the task was the tough nut to crack, but then it was more interesting and honestly we loved it.

Magento is really far more different and complex than other frameworks, cms and commerce softwares.
It has got the power to make a giant eCommerce website but beware, it is also too slow and resouce-hungry.
It has everything you want during development, you just need to know from where and how to get and use it.

There were many things we learned through the process.

It has everything the magento website can have, from core module rewrites to EAV module.

Plenty of customization but no changes in core!

It was really a great experience and things in Magento are far more clear to us now.

Override/Rewrite Magento core blocks and controllers

After spending many hours in rewriting block and controller of Magento core module, I finally came up with a solution.
Here I am going to rewrite block: Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Sales/Shipment/Grid.php
and controller: Mage/Adminhtml/controllers/Sales/ShipmentController.php

First you will need to make a xml file for your new module at app/etc/modules directory
CompanyName_Adminhtml.xml

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
    <modules>
        <CompanyName_Adminhtml>
            <active>true</active>
            <codePool>local</codePool>
        </CompanyName_Adminhtml>
    </modules>
</config>

Then, make folders in your app/code/local directory as follows:
– CompanyName
-> Block
—> Sales
—-> Shipment
——> Grid.php
-> controllers
—> Sales
—-> ShipmentController.php
-> etc
—> config.xml

In etc/config.xml, your code should look like below:

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
    <modules>
        <CompanyName_Adminhtml>
            <version>0.1.0</version>
        </CompanyName_Adminhtml>
    </modules>

    <global>
    <blocks>
        <adminhtml>
            <rewrite>
                <sales_shipment_grid>CompanyName_Adminhtml_Block_Sales_Shipment_Grid</sales_shipment_grid>
            </rewrite>
        </adminhtml>
    </blocks>

    <routers>
            <adminhtml>
           <rewrite>
                  <sales_shipment>
                      <from><![CDATA[#^/admin/sales_shipment/$#]]></from>
                      <to>/admin/sales_shipment/</to>
                  </sales_shipment>
            </rewrite>
       </adminhtml>
        </routers>
   </global>

    <admin>
        <routers>
            <adminhtml>
                <args>
                    <modules>
                        <CompanyName_Adminhtml before="Mage_Adminhtml">CompanyName_Adminhtml</CompanyName_Adminhtml>
                    </modules>
                </args>
            </adminhtml>
        </routers>
    </admin>

</config>

In ShipmentController.php, you should start like this:

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require_once("Mage/Adminhtml/controllers/Sales/ShipmentController.php");
class CompanyName_Adminhtml_Sales_ShipmentController extends Mage_Adminhtml_Sales_ShipmentController
{
  //controller methods goes here..
}

require_once is necessary as magento is not going to load controllers as it does for blocks and models

In block Grid.php, start the file like below:

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class CompanyName_Adminhtml_Block_Sales_Shipment_Grid extends Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Grid
{
  // block methods goes here..
}

That’s it! Now you should get your local Grid.php and ShipmentController.php loading instead of core’s.