Web Development

Jul 19, 2011

As with most things in Magento the configuration of tax is extremely thorough and flexible – but you do have to think a little bit to set it all up, here is a quick guide to doing just that. Configuration First take a look at the System->Configuration options for VAT under the sales section. Here we have loads of options for how the tax should be applied to order and defaults to use before we actually know where the customer is ordering from or delivering to.

Jun 3, 2011

I recently found that having worked out how to place a cateogry of products on the homepage of my Magento site I wanted to specify the order that those products were listed in. Mainly this was because I was hiding the standard Magento toolbars, so the customer could not do this themselves. The first place I started looking was the system configuration menu, see below. This seemed like a promising place to start with the dropdown for “Product Listing Sort by”.

Apr 8, 2011

I have been writing a magento based site for a client and they have a few requirements for their despatch system that I had not seen before. One of them is to set a flag in their dispatch system indicating the payment method chosen by the customer (seems sensible, I just haven’t had to do it before). Anyway, turns out as it often is with Magento, that this is a really simple thing to do, once you find the information.

Feb 25, 2011

It is very helpful to create a single translation file for your magento template to include any words or phrases that you add to the basic templates. Simply create an empty module (create a folder under app/code/local/[yourcompany]/[yourmodule]) and then add a subfolder etc and create a config.xml which should contain the following. <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <config> <modules> <translations> <version>1.0.0</version> </translations> </modules> <frontend> <translate> <modules> <translations> <files> <default>swn_translations.csv</default> </files> </translations> </modules> </translate> </frontend> <adminhtml> <translate> <modules> <translations> <files> <default>swn_translations.csv</default> </files> </translations> </modules> </translate> </adminhtml> </config> Make sure your module is enabled (see [Creating your own module][1]).

Feb 22, 2011

Several options here depending on exactly what you need. Currency can be handled at website, Store or Store level and if multiple currencies are set “as allowed” then the currency changer will show up. By default this appears in the left sidebar and is added in using the directory layout file (why directory?). To move this to the header, comment out the directory bit and move it to the page layout file – inside the header block.

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.

Dec 9, 2010

The Barras Car Centre website required that they could upload details of new and used cars and display them, as well as provide a feed of the information for other third party sites. It seemed a good candidate for a simple Ruby on Rails website, which was up and running really quickly and to everyone’s satisfaction. Take a look at the screenshots below, or take a look at the Barras Car Centre website.