When you are developing for Magento, it is often helpful to see the contents of a Model. A model is a pretty complex object, so when you want to inspect the contents of the model, you generally don’t want to see all of it’s properties – all you’re really wanting to see is the contents of the _data property, which is the array that contains all of the attributes/fields that have been retrieved from the database.

Typically, when inspecting a model, I’ve used one of the following methods:

$model = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load(1);
 
# Method #1: This dumps all of the model's property's, including the _data property.
# This results in a lot of superfluous code that I don't need to see.
var_dump($model);
 
# Method #2: This only logs the data in the _data property.  The problem is, if the _data property contains
# any other models, all of the properties of those models will be dumped
var_dump($model->getData());

I recently came across the ->dump() method that is implemented in the Varien_Object class. This method recurses into the _data property of a model and returns an array of the values in the _data property, including the _data properties of the child classes. Here’s the example code:

# Method #3
var_dump($model->debug());

Note: The Varien_Object class is a class from which MANY classes in Magento extend. Most notably, all blocks and all data models extend Varien_Object. If you’ve never looked at the Varien_Object class, I’d recommend scanning/reading through the methods in that class. If you’re too lazy to read through the methods, but want to see what the debug() method does, I’ve included it at the bottom of this post.

Here are three screenshots exemplifying the difference between the different methods (note: the beautifully formatted var_dump output is a feature of the xdebug php extension):

Method 1:

Method 1 - var_dump

Method 2:

Method 2 - getData

Method 3:

Method 3 - debug

In case you’re curious to see how the debug() method works, here’s the code from the Varien_Object class:

    /**
     * Present object data as string in debug mode
     *
     * @param mixed $data
     * @param array $objects
     * @return string
     */
    public function debug($data=null, &$objects=array())
    {
        if (is_null($data)) {
            $hash = spl_object_hash($this);
            if (!empty($objects[$hash])) {
                return '*** RECURSION ***';
            }
            $objects[$hash] = true;
            $data = $this->getData();
        }
        $debug = array();
        foreach ($data as $key=>$value) {
            if (is_scalar($value)) {
                $debug[$key] = $value;
            } elseif (is_array($value)) {
                $debug[$key] = $this->debug($value, $objects);
            } elseif ($value instanceof Varien_Object) {
                $debug[$key.' ('.get_class($value).')'] = $value->debug(null, $objects);
            }
        }
        return $debug;
    }

I hope this quick tip helps you program with models more effectively! If you have any questions, feel free to post comments below.

Magento’s default error and exception handlers provide more information than the default php handlers, as they print out a basic backtrace (example) as opposed to just printing out the file and line number of the error but there are many times when Magento’s handlers just don’t cut it; times when you need to see the fully expanded variables that get passed to the functions/methods in the backtrace.

In the Initial Magento Setup Development Tips blog post, I wrote about how Xdebug overrides the default php error handler with a detailed, customizable error backtrace. I explained how to modify Magento’s core code so that php errors get handled by Xdebug, not Magento’s default error handler.

In this blog post, I’m going to explain how to modify Magento so that exceptions get handled by Xdebug, not Magento’s default exception handler.

The Mage::run() method is the method that gets the entire Magento request cycle started, so it makes sense that this is where the exceptions get handled:

    /**
     * Front end main entry point
     *
     * @param string $code
     * @param string $type
     * @param string|array $options
     */
    public static function run($code = '', $type = 'store', $options=array())
    {
        try {
            Varien_Profiler::start('mage');
            self::setRoot();
            self::$_app = new Mage_Core_Model_App();
            self::$_events = new Varien_Event_Collection();
            self::$_config = new Mage_Core_Model_Config();
            self::$_app->run(array(
                'scope_code' => $code,
                'scope_type' => $type,
                'options'    => $options,
            ));
            Varien_Profiler::stop('mage');
        } catch (Mage_Core_Model_Session_Exception $e) {
            header('Location: ' . self::getBaseUrl());
            die();
        } catch (Mage_Core_Model_Store_Exception $e) {
            require_once(self::getBaseDir() . DS . 'errors' . DS . '404.php');
            die();
        } catch (Exception $e) {
            if (self::isInstalled() || self::$_isDownloader) {
                self::printException($e);
                exit();
            }
            try {
                self::dispatchEvent('mage_run_exception', array('exception' => $e));
                if (!headers_sent()) {
                    header('Location:' . self::getUrl('install'));
                } else {
                    self::printException($e);
                }
            } catch (Exception $ne) {
                self::printException($ne, $e->getMessage());
            }
        }
    }

The problem with the above code is that any exceptions that get thrown by any Magento code get handled by the Mage::printException() method. What we need to do is run the essential code without wrapping it in any try/catch blocks if the developer mode is enabled from the index.php. This will result in all exceptions being handled by the Xdebug exception handler. Here is the resulting code:

    /**
     * Front end main entry point
     *
     * @param string $code
     * @param string $type
     * @param string|array $options
     */
    public static function run($code = '', $type = 'store', $options=array())
    {
        if(!self::getIsDeveloperMode()){
            try {
                Varien_Profiler::start('mage');
                self::setRoot();
                self::$_app = new Mage_Core_Model_App();
                self::$_events = new Varien_Event_Collection();
                self::$_config = new Mage_Core_Model_Config();
                self::$_app->run(array(
                    'scope_code' => $code,
                    'scope_type' => $type,
                    'options'    => $options,
                ));
                Varien_Profiler::stop('mage');
            } catch (Mage_Core_Model_Session_Exception $e) {
                header('Location: ' . self::getBaseUrl());
                die();
            } catch (Mage_Core_Model_Store_Exception $e) {
                require_once(self::getBaseDir() . DS . 'errors' . DS . '404.php');
                die();
            } catch (Exception $e) {
                if (self::isInstalled() || self::$_isDownloader) {
                    self::printException($e);
                    exit();
                }
                try {
                    self::dispatchEvent('mage_run_exception', array('exception' => $e));
                    if (!headers_sent()) {
                        header('Location:' . self::getUrl('install'));
                    } else {
                        self::printException($e);
                    }
                } catch (Exception $ne) {
                    self::printException($ne, $e->getMessage());
                }
            }
        } else { // If we're running in developer mode, we want all exceptions to be handled by the php|xdebug error handler
            Varien_Profiler::start('mage');
            self::setRoot();
            self::$_app = new Mage_Core_Model_App();
            self::$_events = new Varien_Event_Collection();
            self::$_config = new Mage_Core_Model_Config();
            self::$_app->run(array(
                'scope_code' => $code,
                'scope_type' => $type,
                'options'    => $options,
            ));
            Varien_Profiler::stop('mage');
        }
    }

This code allows Xdebug’s exception handler to do its magic, resulting in fully detailed exception backtraces like this:

Hopefully this little trick allows you to code Magento more effectively!

We recently had a client who needed to be able to manage inventory for configurable products in Magento. Since configurable products are intended to merely group simple products together, the ability to track inventory for configurable products is not something that is possible in a vanilla Magento install.

I dug into the Magento codebase to better understand how inventory is managed for the different product types in Magento. As you could probably guess, the CatalogInventory module handles all of Magento’s inventory management. In side of the /app/code/core/Mage/CatalogInventory/etc/config.xml file, you’ll find the following section of xml contained in the global tag:

<catalog>
<product>
        <type>
            <simple>
                <is_qty>1</is_qty>
            </simple>
            <virtual>
                <is_qty>1</is_qty>
            </virtual>
            <configurable>
                <stock_indexer>cataloginventory/indexer_stock_configurable</stock_indexer>
            </configurable>
            <grouped>
                <stock_indexer>cataloginventory/indexer_stock_grouped</stock_indexer>
            </grouped>
        </type>
    </product>
</catalog>

This section of xml is used by Mage_CatalogInventory_Helper_Data::getIsQtyTypeIds method to determine if a certain product type “qualifies” for inventory tracking. It is also used to indicate if there is a custom resource model that needs to be used to calculate the stock availability for a certain product type.

The beautiful thing about the way Magento handles the configuration xml is that we can create xml nodes that mirror the structure of the above xml in a config.xml file in a custom module – this allows us to change pretty much any configuration value without having to touch any of the config.xml files of core Magento modules. Magento will then merge the xml nodes from both config.xml files. Since custom modules are loaded after core modules, any nodes that override default Magento nodes will take precedence.

I created a small module that enables inventory tracking for configurable products. The following sections in Magento are overridden by this module:

• app/code/core/Mage/CatalogInventory/Model/Observer.php (lines 365 – 405)
• app/code/core/Mage/CatalogInventory/etc/config.xml (line 202)
• app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/catalog/product/tab/inventory.phtml (line 55)

You can download this module here. All you need to do to install the module is to copy the app folder into your Magento install folder. Note:

• There are two different ways of tracking inventory for configurable products. Read the comments in the app/code/local/CLS/ConfigurableInventory/etc/config.xml file for details.
• This module is built for Magento 1.4.0.1. It’ll likely work on older versions of Magento, but I’ve only tested it on 1.4.0.1

UPDATE (5/12/10): After working with this test module on a dev site, it looks like the $item->getProduct() method call on line 21 in the CLS_ConfigurableInventory_Model_CatalogInventory_Observer class actually isn’t returning a product model for all order items. This is something that I’ll be debugging once we actually implement this test code in a project. I’ll try to post an update here when we do that.

I’d love to hear from any of you that end up implementing this code on your site.

If you have ever written Javascript for Magento, you have probably been frustrated by the fact that Magento merges all of its JS files before outputting them to the frontend. This makes debugging difficult for a few of reasons:

• It makes it more difficult to see if your JS file is even being loaded
• When Firebug (or your JS debugger of choice) logs errors to the console, it’s impossible to match up the line numbers Firebug reports with the line numbers in the file
• If you want to use Firebug’s debugging or profiling tools, you’re greatly impaired by having all the JS in one file.

A few months ago, one of our developers stumbled across the ability to disable the JS merging in Magento: Go to System > Preferences > Developer > Javascript Settings tab > Set “Merge JavaScript Files” to “No”.

I hope this helps in your Magento Javascript debugging!

There are many times when working with the Magento frontend that I get very ambiguous error message. Here is a screenshot of the type of error I’m talking about:

I usually just search the entire codebase for the error message code, locate the place where the exception is getting caught, and then temporarily modify the code to Mage::log() the following data: $e->getMessage(), $e->getTraceAsString(), etc…

I just came across an exception handler in the Mage_Checkout_MultishippingController class that passed the generic exception message as well as the Exception class itself to Mage::getSingleton(’checkout/session’)->addException(). Here’s the code (from line 219 of the containing file):

        catch (Exception $e) {
            Mage::getSingleton('checkout/session')->addException(
                $e,
                Mage::helper('checkout')->__('Data saving problem')
            );
            $this->_redirect('*/*/addresses');
        }

I dug into the Mage::getSingleton(’checkout/session’)->addException() class and realized that it logged the exception code to the var/logs/exception.log file (it only logs the exception if logging is enabled in System > Preferences > Developer). This means that instead of locating and hacking up core files to see exceptions that are thrown, in a lot of cases, you can just monitor the contents of the exception.log file.

If you’re developing on a Mac machine, you can monitor the contents of the exception.log file using the Console app. If you’re on a Linux box, you can use “tail -f var/log/exception.log” to monitor the contents of this file.

Hopefully this helps you in your debugging efforts!

To follow up on our post about editing Magento’s top links, I thought I might as well write an article about editing the footer links while I’m at it.  I’d recommend reading our post about using a local.xml file before getting started on this post.  This post might not make much sense until you read it. [NOTE: This specific example assumes you are using the blank theme. Layout handles may differ from theme to theme.]

In local.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
    <default>
        <reference name="footer_links">
            <!-- Add custom links. Pretty self-explanatory.
            Dig into app/code/core/Mage/Page/Block/Template/Links.php for more info -->
            <action method="addLink" translate="label title">
                <label>About Us</label>
                <url>about</url>  <!-- can use a full url if not using urlParams below -->
                <title>About Us</title>
                <prepare>true</prepare> <!-- set true if adding base url param -->
                <urlParams helper="core/url/getHomeUrl"/> <!-- base url - thanks @Russ! -->
                <position>1</position>
                <liParams/>
                <aParams>class="top-link-about-us"</aParams>
                <beforeText></beforeText>
                <afterText></afterText>
            </action>
 
            <!-- Remove 'Site Map' Link - Default Position: 10
            Original link adding in catalog.xml -->
            <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url helper="catalog/map/getCategoryUrl" /></action>
 
            <!-- Remove 'Search Terms' Link - Default Position: 20
            Original link adding in catalogsearch.xml-->
            <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url helper="catalogsearch/getSearchTermUrl" /></action>
 
            <!-- Remove 'Advanced Search' - Default Position: 30
            Original link adding in catalogsearch.xml-->
            <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url helper="catalogsearch/getAdvancedSearchUrl" /></action>
 
            <!-- Remove 'Contact Us' link - Original link in contacts.xml
            <!-- Best bet to go to Magento's Admin > System > Configuration > (left sidebar) Contacts
            > Contact Us Enabled = NO -->
            <!-- You can pass the full url, which is a hassle if you have dev and stage sites -->
            <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url>http://YOUR_SITE.com/contacts/</url></action>
            <!-- see comments below for making a custom helper to remove contacts link
            no matter what your base url is  -->
	</reference>
 
        <!-- By default, Magento sets a static footer block. Find it in the admin under
        CMS > Static Blocks.
	<reference name="footer">
            <!-- Remove Magento's default static block and use the 'addLink' method above
            to add your custom and inline links.  I use the 'unsetChild' method as often as
            possible as opposed using the more final <remove name="cms_footer_links"/>
            just in case I want to add the block somewhere else -->
            <action method="unsetChild"><name>cms_footer_links</name></action>
 
            <!-- Remove all the other Magento links - "Site Map, Search Terms, Advanced Search, and
            Contact Us" -->
            <action method="unsetChild"><name>footer_links</name></action> <!-- Magento 1.4.x -->
	</reference>
</default>
</layout>

If all else fails, you can edit template/page/template/links.phtml. However, if you can make all your changes in local.xml, your life will be so much easier when it comes to upgrading Magento and making future edits.

You might need to read the post about using a local.xml file before this post makes much sense.

We offer all our clients a completely customized design from scratch, which means changing anything – including those annoying defaulted top links.  This post will show you how to edit your top links (without editing core layout files which may change when you update Magento) by utilizing a local.xml file. You can even add your own custom links without touching any template files! [NOTE: This specific example assumes you are using the blank theme. Layout handles may differ from theme to theme.]

ADDITION: Check out the blog post about editing Magento’s footer links

In local.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
    <default>
        <reference name="root">
            <reference name="top.links">
                <!-- Add custom links. Pretty self-explanatory.
                Dig into app/code/core/Mage/Page/Block/Template/Links.php for more info -->
                <action method="addLink" translate="label title">
                    <label>About Us</label>
                    <url>about</url>  <!-- can use full url also -->
                    <title>About Us</title>
                    <prepare>true</prepare> <!-- set true if adding base url param -->
                    <urlParams helper="core/url/getHomeUrl"/> <!-- base url - thanks @Russ! -->
                    <position>1</position>
                    <liParams/>
                    <aParams>class="top-link-about-us"</aParams>
                    <beforeText></beforeText>
                    <afterText></afterText>
                </action>
 
                <!-- Removes 'My Account' link - Default position: 10 -->
                <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url helper="customer/getAccountUrl"/></action>
 
                <!-- Removes 'Wishlist' link - Default position: 20 -->
                <!-- for Magento 1.3.x -->
                <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url helper="wishlist/"/></action>
 
                <!-- for Magento 1.4.x -->
                <remove name="wishlist_link"/>
 
                <!-- Removes 'My Cart' AND 'Checkout' links
                Default position: 40 and 50 respectively -->
                <remove name="checkout_cart_link"/>
 
                <!-- To re-add 'My Cart' or 'Checkout' after removing both -->
                <block type="checkout/links" name="checkout_cart_link_custom">
                    <action method="addCartLink"></action>
                    <action method="addCheckoutLink"></action>
                </block>
            </reference>
        </reference>
    </default>
 
    <customer_logged_out>
        <!-- Removes 'Log In' link - Default position: 60 -->
        <reference name="top.links">
            <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url helper="customer/getLoginUrl"/></action>
        </reference>
    </customer_logged_out>
 
    <customer_logged_in>
        <!-- Removes 'Log Out' link - Default position: 60 -->
        <reference name="top.links">
            <action method="removeLinkByUrl"><url helper="customer/getLogoutUrl"/></action>
        </reference>
    </customer_logged_in>
 
</layout>

If you absolutely cannot find a way to customize your top links using these methods, you can edit the /template/page/template/links.phtml

In this article, I’m going to be covering what I believe to be a very effective way of modifying the layout of any Magento theme.

For several of the first Magento themes I built, I copied the layout files from the default or blank theme into the custom theme layout folder. I would then modify the layout files directly, editing or commenting out content in files like: catalog.xml, page.xml, checkout.xml, etc… I never liked editing these files directly, as I knew that when it came time to upgrade to a newer version of Magento that had upgraded the layout files, I’d have to merge the changes into the new layout files.

One day, I was digging through the Magento code relating to layout files and discovered a bit of code that made me realize that it was possible to just place a local.xml file in my custom theme’s layout folder and have it loaded automatically by Magento. (this code is on line 283 in /app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Layout/Update.php in the fetchFileLayoutUpdates() method).

Due to Magento’s brilliant tags, it’s possible to do just about anything you want without having to edit any of the default layout files.

Before delving into the code, let’s look at the advantages/disadvantages of this method:

Advantages

• Allows you to upgrade themes without having to merge in changes
• All custom layout changes are centralized, allowing developers to more easily make changes to custom theme elements

Disadvantages

• At first, it’s slower to use this method than hacking up the standard layout files directly
• You will have one more place to look where the site might be pulling code (template phtmls, standard layout files, admin layout updates, AND local.xml)

Here is the slimmed down, commented local.xml from one of our recent projects:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
 
<default>
 
	<reference name="head">
		<!-- Magento looks in /skin/frontend/<INTERFACE>/<THEME>/js/buyprinting.js
		for this file -->
		<action method="addItem"><type>skin_js</type><name>js/buyprinting.js</name></action>
 
		<!-- This removes the item that was set in the page.xml file -->
		<action method="removeItem"><type>skin_js</type><name>js/iehover-fix.js</name></action>
 
		<!-- Magento looks in /js/prototype/element.storage.js for this file -->
		<action method="addJs"><name>prototype/element.storage.js</name></action>
 
		<action method="addCss">
<stylesheet>css/buyprinting.css</stylesheet></action>
	</reference>
 
	<reference name="header">
        <!-- This adds a CMS block that can be called from the template file
        associated with the header block. -->
		<block type="cms/block" name="cms_quick_help">
			<action method="setBlockId"><block_id>quick_help</block_id></action>
		</block>
 
        <!-- The remove tag removes the blocks with the specified name from the layout -->
		<remove name="top.menu"/>
		<remove name="store_language"/>
		<remove name="breadcrumbs"/>
	</reference>
 
	<reference name="top.nav">
		<remove name="catalog.topnav"/>
	</reference>
 
	<reference name="left">
		<remove name="left.newsletter"/>
		<remove name="left.permanent.callout"/>
		<remove name="catalogsearch.leftnav"/>
 
        <!-- When you use the remove tag, it removes any blocks with the specified name from
            the entire layout, regardless of the context. So, if I remove right.newsletter in
            the <default> context and that name is used in say the <catalog_product_view> context,
            then both blocks will be removed.  Because remove operates on the global context,
            you can only remove an element once.  Since <remove name="right.newsletter" /> is
            being called in catalogsearch.xml, we have to unset it, or else we'll get an error.
 
            The line below only unsets the block from the parent's context, not the global
            layout context -->
		<action method="unsetChild"><name>right.newsletter</name></action>
	</reference>
 
	<reference name="right">
        <!-- Some blocks have to be removed using remove, others via unsetChild.
            I've not spent the time digging into the code to figure out why -->
		<remove name="right.permanent.callout"/>
		<remove name="catalog.compare.sidebar"/>
		<remove name="left.reports.product.viewed"/>
		<action method="unsetChild"><name>sale.reorder.sidebar</name></action>
		<action method="unsetChild"><name>wishlist_sidebar</name></action>
		<action method="unsetChild"><name>right.reports.product.viewed</name></action>
		<remove name="cart_sidebar"/>
	</reference>
 
</default>
 
<!-- CATALOG PAGES -->
	<catalog_product_view><!-- 2columns-right -->
		<reference name="root">
			<action method="setTemplate"><template>page/2columns-left.phtml</template></action>
		</reference>
		<reference name="content">
			<reference name="product.info">
				<block type="cms/block" name="cms_product_info_tabs">
					<action method="setBlockId"><block_id>product_info_tabs</block_id></action>
				</block>
				<block type="catalog/product_view" name="product.clone_prices" as="prices" template="catalog/product/view/price_clone.phtml"/>
				<action method="unsetChild"><name>tierprices</name></action>
				<action method="unsetChild"><name>addto</name></action>
				<remove name="addto"/>
				<reference name="product.info.options.wrapper.bottom">
					<action method="unsetChild"><name>product.tierprices</name></action>
				</reference>
			</reference>
		</reference>
	</catalog_product_view>
 
</layout>

I hope with article has given you some direction as to how you can improve you Magento theming skills. If you have any additional tips/comments on coding layouts, please suggest them in the comments section.

One fairly unknown feature of Magento collections is that you actually don’t have to call ->load() on a collection before being able to access the items in the collection. So you can do this:

$orders = Mage::getResourceModel('sales/order_collection')->addAttributeToSelect('*');
# The load method is not necessary, as iterating through a collection automatically loads it, if it hasn't already been loaded.
# $orders->load();
foreach($orders as $order){
    echo 'Order Id: ' . $order->getId() . "\n";
}

The base Varien_Data_Collection class implements the IteratorAggregate (http://php.net/manual/en/class.iteratoraggregate.php) interface which extends the Traversable (http://www.php.net/manual/en/class.traversable.php) interface. When a class extends the Traversable interface, it guarantees that that class can be iterated through using foreach(). When foreach is called on a collection, it calls the getIterator() method in the Varien_Data_Collection class and uses the value returned from that method as the value that the foreach iterates through. This is the getIterator() method:

    public function getIterator()
    {
        $this->load();
        return new ArrayIterator($this->_items);
    }

This auto-loading functionality works for both EAV and flat-table collections.

As you can see, a collection ensures that it is loaded before running through a foreach loop. Note: collections can only be loaded once per instantiation. If you want to reload a collection, you have to call the clear() method, and then reset the select and filters before calling the load() method again.

Knowing that collections function in this way allows you to write code without explicit calls to load(). This ultimately should result in more flexible code. You can have a method in a block that loads a collection. That collection can then either be called by a template file and iterated through, or you can have another method that loads the collection from the first method, and then adds additional selects/filters to it. This practice of not explicitly calling the load() results in more flexible and reusable code.

In Magento, it’s very easy to save all the data in a model by running $model->save();. (Note: In this blog post, model refers to an EAV model, not a flat resource model) This saves all the attributes for the model to their respective attribute tables. There are times when saving the value of just one of the model attributes is desirable. A couple cases where you’d want to do this:

• You’ve been passed a model from an event, and you aren’t sure if the data in that model can be safely saved.
• You are saving many models and want to make your save operations as efficient as possible

Here is how you’d save just one attribute of a product model:

$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load(1);
$product->setName('Some Random Name');
$product->getResource()->saveAttribute($product, 'name');

Note: this script works on Magento CE 1.3.2.4 and 1.4.0.* but does not work in the Magento Enterprise Edition

As a Magento development company, we have a number of designers, developers, and project managers that need admin access to the sites that we build. As opposed to using one global admin account for our entire team, we believe it to be a much better practice to assign individual admin accounts to each team member who is going to be working on a project.

One of our developers, Matt Johnson, has developed a script to allow us to easily add an admin user to a Magento installation. Each member on our team that needs Magento admin access has a sql file that adds their admin account to Magento. When we start a new project, we run the sql script for the members of our team that are going to need access to the server. I hope you’ll find this snippet useful.

/* This is an example SQL script.
You should replace all the UPPERCASED variables.
The <USERNAME> variable can only be alphanumeric characters, and probably underscores (haven't tested)
 
You can either generate a password hash using the PHP code below,
or you can grab a password hash from the admin_user table from an
existing Magento install for which you know the admin password.
*/
 
/* Use the following PHP script to generate a salted password hash. You can also use a straight md5 hash, but it's much more easily brute-forced
<?php $password = 'PASSWORD'; $salt = 'GF'; echo $hash = md5($salt.$password).':'.$salt; ?>
*/
 
insert into admin_user
select
(select max(user_id) + 1 from admin_user) user_id,
'FIRST NAME' first_name,
'LAST NAME' last_name,
'EMAIL' email,
'USERNAME' username,
'HASH EXAMPLE: 178f29c8e4c6c801db90cd171e3b2b53:in' password, /* You can replace this value with an md5 hash */
now() created,
NULL modified,
NULL logdate,
0 lognum,
0 reload_acl_flag,
1 is_active,
(select max(extra) from admin_user where extra is not null) extra;
 
insert into admin_role
select
(select max(role_id) + 1 from admin_role) role_id,
(select role_id from admin_role where role_name = 'Administrators') parent_id,
2 tree_level,
0 sort_order,
'U' role_type,
(select user_id from admin_user where username = 'USERNAME') user_id,
'USERNAME' role_name

When doing frontend development with Magento, there are many times when I want to turn on template/block hints for just one page load. I don’t like having to wait on the Magento admin to load up the System > Configuration > Developer page, switch to Website view, and then turn on template/path hints. I have written a couple of MySQL snippets that allow me to enable/disable hints with one query.

I wrote the scripts so that for clean Magento installs, they will insert the necessary records into the core_config_data table. For Magento installs that have had the hints enabled/disabled, the record will already be present in the config table, so the script will just update that record.

Enable template/block hints for the first* website

-- Enable template hints
SET @template_hints = 1;
INSERT INTO `core_config_data` ( `scope`, `scope_id`, `path`, `value`) VALUES ('websites','1','dev/debug/template_hints', @template_hints) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `value`=@template_hints;
-- Enable block hints
SET @template_hints_blocks = 1;
INSERT INTO `core_config_data` ( `scope`, `scope_id`, `path`, `value`) VALUES ('websites','1','dev/debug/template_hints_blocks', @template_hints_blocks) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `value`=@template_hints_blocks;

Disable template/block hints for the first* website

-- Enable template hints
SET @template_hints = 0;
INSERT INTO `core_config_data` ( `scope`, `scope_id`, `path`, `value`) VALUES ('websites','1','dev/debug/template_hints', @template_hints) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `value`=@template_hints;
-- Enable block hints
SET @template_hints_blocks = 0;
INSERT INTO `core_config_data` ( `scope`, `scope_id`, `path`, `value`) VALUES ('websites','1','dev/debug/template_hints_blocks', @template_hints_blocks) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `value`=@template_hints_blocks;

As I covered in this post, it is possible to turn on hints at a global level, which activates hints for all website and for the admin panel. This is useful if you’re making customizations to the admin panel, or if you have multiple websites for which you’re wanting to activate/deactivate hints at the same time. The following two snippets modify hints at a global level:

Enable template/block hints for the admin panel and ALL websites

-- Enable template hints
SET @template_hints = 1;
INSERT INTO `core_config_data` ( `scope`, `scope_id`, `path`, `value`) VALUES ('default','0','dev/debug/template_hints', @template_hints) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `value`=@template_hints;
-- Enable block hints
SET @template_hints_blocks = 1;
INSERT INTO `core_config_data` ( `scope`, `scope_id`, `path`, `value`) VALUES ('default','0','dev/debug/template_hints_blocks', @template_hints_blocks) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `value`=@template_hints_blocks;

Disable template/block hints for the admin panel and ALL websites

-- Enable template hints
SET @template_hints = 0;
INSERT INTO `core_config_data` ( `scope`, `scope_id`, `path`, `value`) VALUES ('default','0','dev/debug/template_hints', @template_hints) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `value`=@template_hints;
-- Enable block hints
SET @template_hints_blocks = 0;
INSERT INTO `core_config_data` ( `scope`, `scope_id`, `path`, `value`) VALUES ('default','0','dev/debug/template_hints_blocks', @template_hints_blocks) ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE `value`=@template_hints_blocks;

* If you have multiple websites, you’ll need to update the ‘1′ value set for the website field to reflect the ID of your website. If you have multiple websites, you can just turn on hints globally using the last two SQL snippets.

Over the past year and a half of developing Magento sites, our development team has created a standard set of modifications/tweaks that we make to every Magento installation.

1. Automatically turn on developer mode based on domain.

We have a stage site setup for all of our projects at stage..com. We also develop projects locally at either .dev or .local (based on developer preference). This snippet of code will only enable error reporting and Magento’s developer mode on stage or local domains.

Insert the following code after “require_once $mageFilename;” in index.php

# If the domain is ***.dev, ***.local or stage.**** then run site in developer mode and turn on error reporting
if(in_array(substr($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'], -4), array('.dev', 'ocal') )
  || strstr($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'], 'stage.')
){
	Mage::setIsDeveloperMode(true);
	ini_set('display_errors', 1);
}

2. Enable logging

Magento has a built-in logging method that allows you to log any variable type to a log file. This is very helpful when building Magento modules, as you can easily inspect data structures, without having to open a debugging session to inspect the variables in local scope. By default, logging is turned off in Magento. To enable logging, go to the “Developer” tab on the “System > Configuration” page. Change the “Enabled” select list under the “Log Settings” section to “Yes” and then save the page.

You can log variables to the Magento log using the following code: Mage::log($variable); By default, logs are stored in var/log/system.log

Here are some example usages of Mage::log()

# Log data from a Model
$model = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load(1);
Mage::log($model->getData());
 
# Log data from a Collection
$collection = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product_collection')->addAttributeToSelect('*')->load();
Mage::log($collection->getItems());
 
# Log data from array
$array = array('bar' => 'foo', 1, 2,);
Mage::log($array);

If you’re developing on a Mac, I’d recommend opening the system.log file with the Console app. If you’re on a *nix based machine, you “tail” the latest contents of the log file using the following bash command:
tail -f

/var/system.log

3. Enhance error backtraces

All of our developers use xdebug as a part of their Apache configuration. Xdebug has two main benefits: (1) It allows us to use PDT to debug PHP applications. (2) It overrides the default PHP error messages with detailed, fully customizable error backtraces. You can see an example backtrace below:

This is what that error would look like without xdebug:

Magento has built-in error and exception handling. Since errors are being handled by Magento, we have to modify a core file to make Magento let PHP/xdebug handle the displaying of the messages.

In a future blog post, will cover how to make Magento let xdebug handle exceptions

In app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/App.php, replace the setErrorHandler() method with the setErrorHandler() method below:

    public function setErrorHandler($handler)
    {
        // HACK: Magento should only handle errors if developer mode is off
	if(!Mage::getIsDeveloperMode())
        	set_error_handler($handler);
	// END HACK
        return $this;
    }

Modifying core Magento files is never recommended, but if Magento gets upgraded and this change gets overridden, there won’t be an issue, since it’s not critical for the site to function.

4. Enhance exception backtraces

In this Enabling Xdebug’s Exception Handler in Magento blog post you can read about how to modify Magento to let Xdebug handle exceptions.

Summary

Hopefully these few tips will help you in your Magento development.  If you have any general tips for Magento development, I’d love to hear about them.

We recently had a client who needed to shorten the default Magento Increment ID length from the default 9 characters (eg 100000000) to 6 characters.  This can be accomplished by modifying the “increment_pad_length” in the “eav_entity_type” for whatever entity you’re wanting to modify.  Here is a screenshot of the resulting table:

If you’re wanting to change the number from which Magento starts counting orders/invoices/shipments, or wanting to change the prefix for those entities, check out this great post by Timothy at Elias: http://eliasinteractive.com/blog/magento-ecommerce-how-to-reset-all-test-order-information-and-set-unique-prefix-for-orders-invoices-shipments-and-credit-memos/

Our Objective

If you need to make adjustments to the adminhtml theme files (template, layout, or skin), you have two options for accomplishing this.

Here’s an example of what we would want to accomplish:
Files in
/app/design/adminhtml/default/custom_admin_theme/
need to override files in:
/app/design/adminhtml/default/default/

Likewise, files in
/skin/adminhtml/default/custom_admin_theme/
need to override files in:
/skin/adminhtml/default/default/

The following two options accomplish this functionality:

Option 1 – “Admin Theme” module

Ivan Weiler from Inchoo has created a module that allows you to specify your own custom theme using the same config page you use to specify custom frontend themes. You can download this module here (note: this module is currently in Alpha, so you’ll need to modify the setting of your downloader before being able to download it). Here is a screenshot of this module in action:

Option 2 – Add XML to your module’s config file

If you don’t want to install a module just to enable this functionality, you can add the following XML code inside the tag inside the config.xml file of any of your active modules. Alternatively, you can add this XML to your /app/etc/local.xml file. I prefer this option, due to its simplicity and the fact that the store administrator will have no need to update the adminhtml theme from the admin panel.

<config>
...
    <stores>
        <admin>
            <!-- custom admin theme -->
            <design>
                <theme>
                    <default>custom_admin_theme</default>
                </theme>
            </design>
        </admin>
    </stores>	
...
</config>

The code above overrides the XML from the /app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/etc/config.xml lines 410-422

410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422

    <stores>
        <admin>
            <!-- default admin design package and theme -->
            <design>
                <package>
                    <name>default</name>
                </package>
                <theme>
                    <default>default</default>
                </theme>
            </design>
        </admin>
    </stores>

Anyone that has developed a theme in Magento knows how helpful template/block hints are. They help quickly identify which files are being loaded for a specific page.

Magento’s admin panel uses the exact same design pattern as the frontend (layouts + blocks + templates). If you’ve ever done any modifications to the Magento admin panel, you’ve probably tried to turn on template/block hints for the admin panel. The only problem is, Magento doesn’t have built-in support for this. I did some digging around and found out how to enable this feature in the admin panel.

Step 1 – Connect to database

Using your favorite database administration tool, connect to your Magento database. These are tools I’ve used and recommend: Navicat ($129), MySQL Query Browser (Free), Sequel Pro (Mac Only – Free), or phpMyAdmin (free).

Step 2 – Enter values into ‘core_config_data’ table

Run the following query on the Magento database:

INSERT INTO core_config_data (scope, scope_id, path, value)
VALUES ('default', 0, 'dev/debug/template_hints', 1),
('default', 0, 'dev/debug/template_hints_blocks', 1);

Step 3 – Test in admin panel

Once you make this addition to the core_config_data database, template/block hints should show up in the admin panel. Here is a screenshot of the CMS Page with hints turned on:

Magento Admin - Hints Turned On

Disabling Hints

When you’ve finished development want to turn off template hints in the admin panel, open the core_config_data table and change the ‘value’ column of the two row you inserted to “0″.

Why does this work?

For those of you who are like me and want to know the “why” as well as the “how”, I’m going to go over why this works. Here is the Magento code that checks to see if template/blocks hints are enabled:

File: /app/code/core/Mage/Core/Block/Template.php (Magento 1.3.2)

109
110
111
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public function getShowTemplateHints()
{
    if (is_null(self::$_showTemplateHints)) {
        self::$_showTemplateHints = Mage::getStoreConfig('dev/debug/template_hints')
            && Mage::helper('core')->isDevAllowed();
        self::$_showTemplateHintsBlocks = Mage::getStoreConfig('dev/debug/template_hints_blocks')
            && Mage::helper('core')->isDevAllowed();
    }
    return self::$_showTemplateHints;
}

The “Mage::getStoreConfig” method checks for config values that are set in the current scope (ie, default, website, store, store view). In the admin panel, only values set in the “Default Scope” are loaded.

Magento only allows you to turn on hints when you’re in the configuration scope of a Website or Store View. This means that when the code above tries to load the configuration, it returns “null” because that config value isn’t set in the “Default Config” scope. Running the MySQL query above adds the hint config values to the “Default Config” scope. Here is a screenshot showing the settings for turning on the hints – notice that the “Main Website” configuration scope is selected.

Magento Config Scope Selection

Conclusion

I hope this helps you in your development of Magento modules that integrate with the admin panel. I considering writing a module to enable the hints to be turned on in the “Default Scope”, but decided against it, due to the simplicity of the method outlined in this post.