Nick Says

Magento 1.4.1.1 Events Cheat Sheet

Nick — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 22:25:26 +0000

I’ve updated the events cheat sheet for Magento version 1.4.1.1.

Custom Magento Module Log

Nick — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:31:17 +0000

PHP errors and messages from other modules can clutter up your tail -f when debugging, and sometimes it’s just nice to have separate logs to the main system.

Set up your own log adapter with:

$my_log = Mage::getModel('core/log_adapter', 'my_module.log');

and log away!

$my_log->log($message);

Extra points for wrapping it up in a class:

class Nick_Module_Model_Log {
  protected $_adapter;
 
  public __construct() {
    $this->_adapter = Mage::getModel('core/log_adapter', 'my_module.log');
  }
 
  // It's public incase we want to use ->debug(), ->info(), and friends
  public function getAdapter() {
    return $this->_adapter;
  }
 
  public function log($message) {
    $this->getAdapter()->log($message);
  }
}
 
$my_log = Mage::getSingleton('nick/log');
$my_log->log("Logging away!");

Auto-populate Magento Checkout Fields

Nick — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:21:22 +0000

It’s annoying having the fill out the account details whenever you’re debugging the Magento checkout, so why not have JavaScript do it for you? Here’s a handy bookmarklet to get you on your way.

Magento: Auto-populate Checkout

Drag it to your bookmark toolbar and click it whenever you’re on a Magento checkout page to auto populate the form!

Enabling Magento Maintenance Mode

Nick — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:58:00 +0000

Magento 1.4 introduced a method for quickly enabling maintenance mode on a running store. To enabled maintenance mode simply create a file called maintenance.flag file in your Magento root.

The maintenance mode template is found in the errors/default/503.phtml. Integration with the “Allowed IPs” in the developer section of the configuration section would be nice but, of course, there is a way you can hack it. Without this hack maintenance mode is enabled for everyone, even if you have an admin session.

A Developer’s Guide to using the Magento Cache

Nick — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:27:52 +0000

As you’ll undoubtedly know Magento supports caching. Most of us will find that one out after 20 minutes of refreshing, checking our code, refreshing, only to find that caching was still enabled! But as a developer, how can we make use of this, obviously, in-built feature?

All of the caching functions are available through Mage_Core_Model_Cache which we’ll call as a singleton:

$cache = Mage::getSingleton('core/cache');

This gives us access to whatever caching mechanism we have set up be it apc, memcached, xcache, or just a simple file. Instructions for setting up memcached are shipped with Magento in the app/etc/local.xml.additional file.

The $cache object has four methods we are interested in:

save($value, $key, $tags = array(), $lifeTime=null)
load($key)
remove($key)
clean($tags = array()


These methods will allow us to manipulate the values that we have in the cache cleanly and with ease.
Storing Values

We'll start with storing a value.

$cache->save(date("r"), "nick_date", array("nicks_cache"), 10);
$cache->save("hello world - " . time(), "nick_helloworld", array("nicks_cache"), 60*60);

With the above example I have instructed the cache to store the value of the current date with the key nick_date.  We'll be able to refer to this date using the key at a later date.  I've also stored the phrase hello world - 601992000 (for the given timestamp) with the key nick_helloworld.
We'll ignore the tag nicks_cache for the time being, but you will notice an integer lifeTime value associated with both cache entries.  This is the amount of time, in seconds, that the value will exist in cache before being deleted.  By setting this value to null, or omitting the argument, the value will remain in cache until removed.
Retrieving Values

To fetch the value of a key from cache, we simply use:

$cache->load("nick_date");

If the value does not exist in cache then false will be returned.
Removing Values

To remove individual values from the cache, we use:

$cache->remove("nick_date");

You'll notice that I've also applied the nicks_cache tag to the cache entries I initially stored.  By applying a tag to a set of values I am able to refer to them all at a later for mass removal.  We do this by:

$cache->flush("nicks_cache");

This will delete all cache entries with the tag nicks_cache.



Disable Redirect to Checkout when Adding to Cart
Nick — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 14:16:34 +0000
Sometimes it’s nice to be able to keep the customer on their original page when they add something to the checkout.  The default Magento functionality is to redirect a user to their cart page once a product as been successfully added to their cart.
There’s an option in System » Configuration » Checkout » Shopping Cart » “After Adding a Product Redirect to Shopping Cart” that disables this.



Updated Magento Events Cheat Sheet
Nick — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 13:49:10 +0000
I’ve updated the Magento Events Cheat Sheet for version 1.4.1.0.



CSS Boolean Selectors
Nick — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 10:11:13 +0000
Just a short one.
Have you been in the situation where you’d like to be able to enable a style only when both classes are defined for an element?  For example:

>
     class="level-0">Home>
     class="level-0">Electronics>
     class="level-1">Televisual Boxes>
     class="level-1 over">Kettles>
     class="level-0">Furniture>
     class="level-0">Clearance>
>

We’ll ignore the fact that we could have used the :hover pseudo-class, and that we could have used an additional 
 to define the level-1 items.
Logical AND (&&)

We can invoke a specific over CSS class on only the level-1 items with the following:

li.level-1.over {
    background-color: red;
}

Keeping adding additional class by chaining with the .className syntax.
Logical OR (||)

Of course, to OR the classes you simply comma-separate them:

li.class1, li.class2 {
    background-color: green;
}

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2144751/combining-two-or-more-css-selectors-with-a-boolean-condition



Manually Building Magento PEAR Packages
Nick — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:10:48 +0000
The internal Magento package builder is all very well and good for getting your basic package.xml generated, and defining your file lists, but it is cumbersome to use and can’t be integrated into a build process very easily.
Magento extends the PEAR tool to provide a mp (make package) function which replaces the package and package-validate commands.  Here’s how to build your package.
You’ll notice that I refer to the pear program as ./pear throughout this article.  This is because we’re using Magento’s version, with the Magento Team’s modifications applied.  The ./pear is found in the root of your Magento installation.
Generating your package.xml
The first time around I like to use the Magento package builder in the Magento admin area.  You’ll find this in System » Magento Connect » Package Extensions.  Once you’re done you can hit Save save your settings for this package for the next time you want to build from this interface, making all of the fields populate from the Load local Package menu item.
The fields will be saved as ${your_package_name}.xml in the $MAGE_ROOT/var/pear/ directory.
To generate your package.xml you’ll need to hit the Save data and Create Package button.  The package.xml can be found in $MAGE_ROOT/var/pear/ also.
Building your Package
This is the easy step.  Simply navigate to the root of your Magento installation, copy the package.xml there and run pear, like so:

cp var/pear/package.xml .
./pear mp package.xml

You’ll then get a success message and your package is ready to roll.
Installing your Package
If you don’t have a PEAR server setup then you can install the package by simply specifying the file name when calling ./pear install, as follows:

./pear install My_Package-0.9.0.tgz

Potential Pitfalls

./pear mp package.xml does not generate a valid tgz archive.
I wasn’t getting any errors during package creation, but once I had uploaded to my PEAR server and attempted to install I was getting these funky messages.
[nrj@clifford heirloom]$ ./pear install -f meanbee/My_Package
downloading My_Package-0.9.0.tgz ...
Starting to download My_Package-0.9.0.tgz (2,132,243 bytes)
....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................done: 2,132,243 bytes
Could not get contents of package "/magento/root/downloader/pearlib/download/My_Package-0.9.0.tgz". Invalid tgz file.
Download of "meanbee/My_Package" succeeded, but it is not a valid package archive
Error: cannot download "meanbee/My_Package"
Download failed
install failed

I tested the archive that was created by simply untaring which produced various complaints about base64 headers and there was a lot of Skipping to next header.
This is a bug with the Archive_Tar package hosted at the official PEAR Repository.  There is already a working patch submitted, but it has not yet made it’s way into any release.  We can apply the patch manually by downloading the patch and patching the Tar.php file in downloader/pearlib/php/Archive/ by running:

patch Tar.php downloaded.patch






Unsupported protocol from PECL client
Nick — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 18:38:00 +0000
I was getting the error message pecl.php.net is using a unsupported protocal – This should never happen. while trying to install the MongoDB extension for PHP.
Well it did happen.  Here’s how to fix.

Simply run:

pear update-channels

Job done.  I wonder how everyone else deals with these tiny, but useful, posts on their own blog.  Seems a waste to have it at the top of the screen on the front page.
Source