Magento Development

Feb 15, 2011

This is vital since there is no way to test email templates. To test I recommend unsubscribing all subscribers, testing and then re-subscribing them. Painful, but at least with this fix you can stop everyone getting emails. Edit the file app/code/core/Mage/Newsletter/Model/Subscriber.php and comment out any line with ->send in it.

Feb 9, 2011

Create a module and add a method that you call periodically and throw the following code in. To get started [create your own magento module][1] and then you can use the code below to read a CSV file and set properties on the magento products. // prepare to load products $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product'); // read CSV file and load each product and update quantity $row = 1; if (($handle = fopen("stockfile.csv", "r")) !== FALSE) { while (($data = fgetcsv($handle, 1000, ",")) !== FALSE) { $sku = $data[0]; $qty = (int)$data[1]; // try and load the SKU $p = $product->loadByAttribute('sku',$sku); if ($p) { // get product's stock data such quantity, in_stock etc $productId = $p->getIdBySku($sku); $stockItem = Mage::getModel('cataloginventory/stock_item')->loadByProduct($productId); $stockItemId = $stockItem->getId(); $stock = array(); // then set product's stock data to update if (!$stockItemId) { $stockItem->setData('product_id', $product->getId()); $stockItem->setData('stock_id', 1); } else { $stock = $stockItem->getData(); } $stockItem->setData('qty', $qty); if ($qty > 0) { $stockItem->setData('is_in_stock', 1); } else { $stockItem->setData('is_in_stock', 0); } $stockItem->setData('manage_stock', 1); $stockItem->setData('use_config_manage_stock', 1); // call save() method to save your product with updated data try{ $stockItem->save(); $product->save($p); } catch (Exception $ex) { // handle the error here!!

Feb 7, 2011

You often want to be able to just write some PHP against your magento system to export, or update bits of data. In the module config file, under the etc folder you need to add a crontab element as a child of the main config element. <crontab> <jobs> <stockupdate_updater> <schedule><cron_expr>*/30 * * * *</cron_expr></schedule> <run><model>stockupdate/updater::import_stock</model></run> </stockupdate_updater> </jobs> </crontab>

Feb 6, 2011

Create a folder here /app/code/local/[organization_name]/[module_name] You need an etc folder with config.xml in it containing something like the below. In this case it is expecting at least a Model folder with a php file (with any name) that defines a class with a matching name plus the name of the file it is in. <?xml version="1.0"?> <config> <global> <models> <stockupdate> <class>Swn_StockUpdate_Model</class> </stockupdate> </models> </global> </config> This would match a class in a file Model/Updater.php with the following class.

Feb 3, 2011

I’m starting to work on more and more Magento websites and there are so many little gotchas and configuration settings I thought I would start compiling a list of things to make sure I check while I do the development. I’ll keep adding to this as I fall victim to the “features” of Magento, if anyone else has any pointers then please comment below! Newsletter Bug Creating your own module

Feb 3, 2011

Magento newsletters templates don’t work. When you Queue the newsletter the body of the email isn’t brought through from the template. To fix this you need to copy the following your file into your local code and make a small change. Copy… /app/code/local/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Newsletter/Queue/Edit To… /app/code/local/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Newsletter/Queue/Edit And then change the code that sets the value of the editor field for the newsletter message to get the template text and not the template text preprocessed.

Oct 31, 2010

For this website the real key was enabling customers to engage via social media and to create a place where pipe smokers could discuss their hobby. Due in part to the way in which smoking in public is becoming less tolerated but also due to the banning of advertising through so many traditional channels the internet and especially social media was an avenue our clients were very keen to utilise. While they had run a success e-commerce website for a number of years they were not happy with their current site, or the technology it was built with and we were able to suggest Magento as a cutting-edge alternative.

Oct 7, 2010

I’m currently working on a module for a magento site that exports orders as they are made on the site. If anyone is trying to do the same then this list of properties may prove useful. I’m simply repeating it here because it took me so long to find and because magento themselves don’t seem to provide a reference and nor is it anywhere in the actual source code! Anyway