Make sure the file permissions are set correctly.

(0777 might be too generous, but we don’t have time to figure these things out for sure).

This happened to me today. Turns out my IDE (NuSphere’s PhpEd, an excellent PHP IDE by the way) has a setting for default folder/file permissions when creating new files. Insufficient file permissions were manifesting themselves as “Invalid block type …” errors. I’m sure it could be responsible for other quirkiness when doing custom work.

Or when one of your eyes starts twitching.

*sigh*

As with most payment gateways, the steps involved are a matter of:

1. Gathering the appropriate information (provided by the gateway service)
2. Enter the information into the Magento Admin Panel
3. Activate the payment module

Full procedure

Fortunately, I stumbled upon one possible solution.  The method doesn’t involve creating a full-blown module, rather, just a few database modifications using phpMyAdmin.

Summarized, the process comes down to:

1. Create a new row in the eav_attribute table, one that mimics a category’s meta-description attribute with everything being the same except for a unique identifier and a label.
2. Create a new row in the eav_entity_attribute table, to provide a sort order for your newly created attribute, following in the format footsteps of the existing rows.

For the fully detailed procedure, see Create Custom Category Attributes with phpMyAdmin

Basically, the procedure involves going into the database, finding the appropriate row that contains the password, and assigning the new password using MD5.

With Text attributes such as Name and Description, you can do something like:

$product->setName( 'My Sweet Shirt' );
$product->setDescription( 'This shirt will make you look good, thus impressing girls.' );

Unfortunately, this won’t work for attributes whose values are predefined.  Instead of cursing Magento, think of it as a data-integrity/validation measure.

Anyway, assuming you already have a $product object, our overall process will be to:

1. Load an attribute object for the attribute you want to work on
2. Load the collection of that attribute’s values
3. Make your choices (different for Dropdown and Multiselect)
4. Save the product

1. Load an attribute object for the attribute you want to work on

$attribute = Mage::getModel('eav/entity_attribute');
$attribute->loadByCode( 4, 'color' );

2. Load the collection of that attribute’s values

$values = array();
$valuesCollection = Mage::getResourceModel('eav/entity_attribute_option_collection')
	->setAttributeFilter( $attribute->getId() )
	->setStoreFilter( Mage_Core_Model_App::ADMIN_STORE_ID, false)
	->load();
 
foreach ($valuesCollection as $item) {
	$values[$item->getValue()] = $item->getId();
}

3. Make your choice – DROPDOWN

$product->setColor( $values['Blue'] ); // just do whatever you need to code 'Blue' instead of hard-coding it

3. Make your choices – MULTISELECT

$product->addData( array(
	'color' => $values['Blue'] .','. $values['Red'] .','. $values['Black']  // just putting together a comma-separated list of values
) );

4. Save the product

$product->save();

This builds off the solution posted by member “icvu” here: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/main.php/viewthread/69925/ — specifically the addData() part.

Thanks, and have fun setting attribute values.

var $actionBy = 'ACTION_BY_CONTACT';

in cc_class.php (provided via the “PHP Sample Forms” zip file). By default, this value is:

var $actionBy = 'ACTION_BY_CUSTOMER'

instead, which does not trigger the welcome email.

• Rebuild Catalog Index

  Mage::getSingleton('catalog/index')->rebuild();

• Rebuild Flat Catalog Product

  Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product_flat_indexer')->rebuild();

• Inventory Stock

  Mage::getSingleton('cataloginventory/stock_status')->rebuild();

For more cache refreshes, such as:

• Catalog Rewrites
• Layered Navigation Indices
• Product Image
• Search Index

… please refer to the source of this knowledge http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/43238/#t156277

“For a start you could text-align: center the ul inside the #ul_container_div and display: inline the li instead of floating them left.”

#ul_container_div{ width:100%; text-align:center; }
#ul_container_div li { display: inline;  }

Source of knowledge: http://archivist.incutio.com/viewlist/css-discuss/59041

When viewing in Internet Explorer 6 and experiencing the “strange-repeated-text” problem, try applying this CSS to the element containing the text that gets repeated:

float: none;
clear: both;

Knowledge from: http://uxdev.blogspot.com/2008/10/phantom-text-in-ie6.html

<meta content='IE=EmulateIE7' http-equiv='X-UA-Compatible'/>

I think this has the effect of enabling “Compatibility Mode” that the user would normally have to turn on.

As a side note, the specific reason I used this was to make a Google Friend Connect widget render properly — there are plenty of posts on the web about those widgets not working in IE8.

getSkinUrl() does more than just generate the proper URL, it also verifies that the file exists.  If it doesn’t find the file within the store’s /yourtheme folder, it will revert to /default.

The problem was that The page I was developing had an <img> in it with the “src” attribute set blank.  When the document was fully loaded, javascript was in place to dynamically assign the “src”.  This worked perfectly fine in the pre-server-side-logic stage of development so it was an easy decision to begin debugging server-side logic.

The double execute happens when Firefox sees <img src=”" />.  Not knowing what source to assign, it sends a request (the second request) to the current path (again) for the image.  Therein lies the problem.  It’s interesting to note that Firefox is not to blame, as it’s following HTML specification.

• Dynamic product data in Marketing Campaign Landing Pages
• Dynamic Information such as Recently Viewed Items into Content Pages
• Promotional images to position in different blocks, side columns and other locations throughout the storefront
• Interactive elements and action blocks (external review systems, video chats, voting and subscription forms)
• Alternative navigation elements (tag clouds, catalog image sliders)
• Create interactive and dynamic flash elements easily configured and embedded within content pages for enhanced user experience

Originally posted on the official Magento Blog.  Continue reading for more on:

• What are Widgets?
• How to Develop a Widget
• Terminology
• Widget Examples in Magento CE 1.4, EE 1.6

Widget ideas anyone?  What should I work on?

Clear shopping cart

foreach( Mage::getSingleton('checkout/session')->getQuote()->getItemsCollection() as $item ){
    Mage::getSingleton('checkout/cart')->removeItem( $item->getId() )->save();
}

Clear entire session

Mage::getSingleton(‘checkout/session’)->clear();

Happy coding!

We are going to:

1. Hide Step 1
2. Tell Magento that Step 1 was “completed” as Guest
3. Have Step 2 appear as Step 1

Here goes:

1. Hiding Step 1 – Login/Register

Open /app/design/frontend/<your_company>/<your_company>/template/checkout/onepage.phtml

Find:

<li id="opc-<?php echo $_stepId ?>" {...}

And replace it with:

<li <?php echo $i==1 ? 'style="display:none;"' : '' ?> id="opc-<?php echo $_stepId ?>"  {...}

2. Set Step 1 to equal Guest

Open /app/design/frontend/<your_company>/<your_company>/template/checkout/onepage/login.phtml

Basically, comment everything out and insert:

<input type="hidden" name="checkout_method" id="login:guest" value="guest" checked="checked" />
<script type="text/javascript">
Event.observe(window, 'load', function() {
checkout.setMethod();
});
</script>

3. Make Step 2 look like Step 1

Open /app/design/frontend/<your_company>/<your_company>/template/checkout/onepage.phtml

Find:

$i=0; foreach($this->getSteps() as $_stepId => $_stepInfo):

And replace it with:

$i=-1; foreach($this->getSteps() as $_stepId => $_stepInfo):

Finally, in the same file, change this snippet that we added in step 1:

echo $i==1

to:

echo $i===0

And there you have it. Credit goes to poster imagebox on this particular Magento how-to thread

Fortunately, removing test data is as easy as running SQL queries:

Clear customers:

TRUNCATE TABLE `customer_entity`

Clear orders:

TRUNCATE TABLE `sales_order`

Clear searches:

TRUNCATE TABLE `catalogsearch_query`

Clear tags:

TRUNCATE TABLE `tag`
TRUNCATE TABLE `tag_relation`

You might have expected to meddle with other tables, like all the `sales_order_*` or `customer_entity_*` tables. However, thanks to the database’s various constraints, any related rows are automatically deleted thus preventing orphan data.

One would expect that there should be a price matrix that might look like:

But if you only have simple products:

Black + 1″ = $1.00
Black + 3″ = $1.40
White + 1″ = $1.05
White + 2″ = $1.25
Chrome + 3″ = $1.55
Chrome + 4″ = $1.75

… then you don’t need the full matrix.  Even if you did need the full matrix, how do you set up simple/configurable product pricing in Magento?

Solution:

This Simple Configurable Products extension by Matt Dean.  From the extension page:

This extension changes the way that the pricing of configurable products works in Magento. With this extension enabled, a configurable product’s own price is never used. Instead, the price used is that of the appropriate associated simple product.

This gives site owners direct control to set the price of every configuration of a product, while still giving users the flexibility they usually get with configurable products. (There’s no more having to set rules such as: +20% for blue, -£10 for small, +15% for leather. You just price the underlying small-blue-leather product at £199.99 and that’s what the user pays.)

You still have to create the configurable products and set certain attributes to be the configurable ones ( e.g. “Color” and “Size” in the previous example ).  Set the prices of simple products (no need to set the price of configurable products), and the extension takes care of the rest.  In the front-end, users will still be specifying Color and Size, and prices will change accordingly.

Happy pricing!