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For an aspiring Magento developer or a struggling magneto developer this article is dedicated to the sleepless nights you have spent on working on Magento ecommerce development.

• Always follow The official Twitter account from Magento Commerce by Varien from Los Angeles, California.
  
  
• How to extend an existing class to add new functionality to satisfy a specific requirement in Magento:
  
  Ans: There are 4 basic steps in the process:
  
  • Create a PHP file for the extended class in the /local code repository
  • Create an XML file to let Magento know about this extended class
  • Create a PHP template to utilize the output of the extended class
  • Modify the XML layout files to bring in the new template
    
    
• For a magento developer that wants to display subcategories in the main body of a category page rather than them being restricted solely to the navigation bar.
  
  

Ans:        * 1. Upload this page to your installation at:

               *              /app/design/frontend/[INTERFACE]/[THEME]/template/catalog/navigation/custom-category.phtml

               *

               * 2. Enter the following code in a static block:

               *                             {{block type="catalog/navigation" name="catalog.navigation" template="catalog/navigation/custom-category.phtml"}}

               *

               * 3. Select the static block as the content source for the categories you require

               *

               * 4. Create new CSS styles as required

               *

               **/

?>

<?php $_categories=$this->getCurrentChildCategories() ?>

<?php if($_categories->count()): ?>

<ul class="category-links">       

               <?php foreach ($_categories as $_category): ?>

        <?php if($_category->getIsActive()): ?>

        <li class="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_category->getUrlKey()) ?>">

           <a href="<?php echo $this->getCategoryUrl($_category) ?>">

              <?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_category->getName()) ?>

           </a>

        </li>

        <?php endif; ?>

    <?php endforeach ?>

</ul>

<? endif; ?>

• A custom module that will allow user to browse products by attribute options and categories.

Ans: app/code/local/MageDev/Filter - location of filter module files

app/code/local/MageDev/Filter/etc - config data

app/code/local/MageDev/Filter/controllers - custom controllers

app/code/local/Block - here goes blocks logic

app/code/local/Helper - general functionality

• For setting redirection anywhere in Magento code.

 Ans: Mage::app()->getResponse()->setRedirect(Mage::getUrl('customer/account/login'));

• 
  

  For Writing custom write custom query

Ans: 

01 <?php

02 // For Read

03

04 // fetch read database connection that is used in Mage_Core module

05 $read= Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getConnection('core_read');

06 $value=$read->query("SE...");

07 $row = $value->fetch();

08

09 print_r($row); // As Array

10

11 // For Write

12

13 // fetch write database connection that is used in Mage_Core module

14 $write = Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getConnection('core_write');

15

16 // now $write is an instance of Zend_Db_Adapter_Abstract

17 $write->query("insert into tablename values ('aaa','bbb','ccc')");

18

19 ?>

 I strongly suggest all the Magento developers that you keep this article a hush hush!

Labels: developer, Development, Magento