Magento

If any of you work on E-stores, you probably have come across, or developed a store using Magento. Magento is a powerful php e-store, which is flexible, configurable, fairly easy to style and nice to work with. The other thing I really like about Magento is the community. It is rare that you run into an issue in Magento which you can't fix with a quick Google. There are plenty of forums and websites devoted to Magento help. Seeing as how I have now developed a few Magento sites, this time around  decided to document the problems one will typically run into. I have layed some of this out, and with luck, it will help someone out.

Remove Components (hide em)
System > Cofiguration > Advanced and disable ex:  Mage_Newsletter


Change Layout
Open the \app\design\frontend\nameofProj\default\layout\catalog.xml
find:

<block type="page/html" name="root" output="toHtml" template="current Template">

to

<block type="page/html" name="root" output="toHtml" template="page/2columns-right.phtml">

eg: one-column.phtml


File Locations



Product View Template
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\product\view.phtml


Image Maginifcation for product
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\product\view\media.phtml



Varients Code Location
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\product\view\options\wrapper.phtml


Bottom of product Code Location
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\product\view\options\bottom.phtml 



Menu for Categories
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\navigation\top.phtml


-simply add list items here with custom links which may not be in the categories by default
<?php echo $_menu ?>
<li id="storeHome" class="level0 nave-1 level-top first parent">
        <a class="level-top" href="/index.php">
                <span>HOME</span>
        </a>
</li>


Header of Site
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\page\html\header.phtml
/*This is where you can change the logo, modify the top links etc*/


Footer of Site
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\page\html\footer.phtml
-comment out <?php echo $this->getCopyright() ?> replace with your own code etc


Grid/List view Code
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\product\list.phtml
-This is where you can chane image sizes and which details are shown on the home page




toolbar for pages
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\product\list\toolbar.phtml


page numbers in pagination  - you can change your divider ~line 94
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\page\html\pager.phtml


breadcrumbs 
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\page\html\breadcrumbs.phtml
/*change formatting of breadcrumbs*/


Login Page

\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\customer\form\login.phtml

Register
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\customer\form\register.phtml

Shopping Cart
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\checkout\cart.phtml

Dashboard
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\customer\account\dashboard.phtml

Sub Categories Page
\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\category\view.phtml

Tricks

Use JQuery on pages:

<script type="text/javascript" src="/pathTo/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
   //<![CDATA[
jQuery.noConflict();
var $j = jQuery.noConflict(); //alias jquery with j$
$j(function(){
$j('button.button span span').html(""); /*can be used to hide span text and fix some bugs if using images*/
});
//]]>
   </script>

Links to Sitemap

/catalog/seo_sitemap/product/ -product sitemap
/catalog/seo_sitemap/category/ -category sitemap

Hide index.php in the store view:

In admin, System>Configuration>Web Tab. Under Search Engine Optimization, change User Webserver rewrites to Yes.

Check if a user is logged in:

$this->helper('customer')->isLoggedIn()

<?php
if( $this->helper('customer')->isLoggedIn() ){
?>
<li class="level0 nav-cat1"><a href="/customer/account/login/"><span>logout</span></a></li>
<?php
}else{
?>
<li class="level0 nav-cat1"><a href="/customer/account/login/"><span>login</span></a></li>
<?php } ?>

Display Product Skus: (for product page)

<p class="itemSku">Item #<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getSku()) ?></p>

Change the number of displayed products in list/grid view:

Admin -> System > Catalog > frontend
and: app/design/frontend/default/default/layout/catalog.xml

Embed Contact form in CMS page:

<!-- CONTACT FORM -->
{{block type="core/template" name="contactForm" form_action="/contacts/index/post" template="contacts/form.phtml"}}
<!-- END OF CONTACT FORM -->

Get the Sub-Category Page to display Images: (replace your

\app\design\frontend\YourPath\default\template\catalog\category\view.phtml with below code)

<?php
$_category = $this->getCurrentCategory();
$collection = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->getCategories($_category->entity_id);

$rootcat = $_category->entity_id;
$cat = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($rootcat);
$child = $cat->getChildren();
//echo $child;

if($child)
{
$helper = Mage::helper('catalog/category');
$_helper = $this->helper('catalog/output');
?>
<div class="category-custom-products">
<table>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="405">
<h1 class="page-title"><?php echo $_helper->categoryAttribute($_category, $_category->getName(), 'name') ?></h1>
<?php
$_imgUrl = $_category->getImageUrl();
echo '<img id="ProductCategoryImage" src="'.$_imgUrl.'"/>';
?>

</td>
<td width="40">

</td>
<td valign="top">
<div class="products-grid categories-grid">

<?foreach ($collection as $cat):?>
<?php if($_category->getIsActive()):?>
<?php
$cur_category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($cat->getId());
$_imgUrl = $cur_category->getImageUrl();
?>
<div class="categoryItem">
<a class="categoryImageLink" href="<?php echo $helper->getCategoryUrl($cat);?>"><?php echo '<img class="categoryImg" width="216" height="180" id="ProductCategoryImage" src="'.$_imgUrl.'"/>'; ?></a>
<a class="categoryProductLink" href="<?php echo $helper->getCategoryUrl($cat);?>"><?php echo $cat->getName();?></a>
<a class="viewDetailsLink" href="<?php echo $helper->getCategoryUrl($cat);?>">view details</a>
</div>

<?php endif?>
<?php endforeach;?>
</div>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
<?php
}
else
{
?>
<?php echo $this->getProductListHtml() ?>
<?php
}
?>

Hope this helps someone out. I'll try to add to it if I learn something interesting.