Magento : how to load product details on homepage - magento

Question

I've been trying to show product details on homepage. After long hours searching on google and stackoverflow, i've come with this solution:
Mage::register('product',Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load('17'));
$block = Mage::app()->getLayout()
->createBlock('catalog/product_view')
->setData('area','frontend')
->setTemplate('catalog/product/view.phtml');
echo $block->toHtml();
It does render the catalog/product_view block but no its children, i'd like to understand how to render the children too ?
Note: my homepage as the layout "myviewer.phtml" and the code above is in "myviewer.phtml".

Answer 1

You are currently manually creating the product view block and not using the standard layout xml, so you are not getting any of the default child blocks that would be loaded on the product page via the product page layout handle;
catalog_product_view
Viewing this layout handle in the catalog.xml file will show you which blocks are loaded, and importantly which child blocks are added to the block named 'product.info' which usually uses the template section you are trying to render.
If you view the product page template 'catalog/product/view.phtml' that you are rendering, you will see it calls blocks that will not be available such as;
<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('addtocart') ?>
So to fix this you have two options,
Manually initialize and add each of the child blocks to the product block you are creating using the append() method.
Or
Update the controller action that was used to load and render the page to include the product page layout handle. Call the following in the controller,
$update = $this->getLayout()->getUpdate();
$update->addHandle('catalog_product_view');
This will cause the layout to include all of the correct product page child blocks, then in the template just call;
$_product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load('17');
Mage::register('product',$_product);
Mage::register('current_product',$_product);
$block = Mage::app()->getLayout()->getBlock('product.info');
echo $block->toHtml();
Adding the handle could be done in the controller which would need to be overridden using a rewrite in a custom module (there are already lots of articles on this).
Use an event observer for any event fired before the controller action.

Answer 2

Magento creates its block hierarchy based on its layout XML configuration. For example, the catalog/product_view block is used in the catalog.xml layout file (usually found in app/design/frontend/base/default/layout/catalog.xml). This file also defines all of the children blocks of the catalog/product_view block.
Magento decides which layout instructions to carry out depending on the active layout handles. For example, the catalog.xml file references the catalog_product_view layout handle, which corresponds to the catalog module, product controller, view action. Whenever that specific controller action is invoked, that layout is applied.
In your case, the home page is probably a CMS page, which doesn't apply the catalog_product_view layout handle (it typically applies the cms_page handle). As such, the block hierarchy is not defined correctly for you to utilize the catalog/product_view block.
There are many ways of resolving this issue, but first you have to think about exactly what you're trying to do. If you try to use the catalog/product_view block, your home page will look almost exactly like a regular product page, which may or may not be what you want. One way of achieving that is to use the <update/> tag, which takes another layout handle and merges it with the current layout handle.
I recommend reading some more into Magento's layout XML system. Alan Storm has some great resources on the subject, such as this blog post (warning, it's a bit outdated), and his book on Magento's layout system.

Answer 3

you can do it by inserting in CMS > Pages > Home
{{block type="catalog/product_list" name="home.catalog.product.list" alias="products_homepage" LATEST="0" template="catalog/product/list.phtml"}}
In this case you have to change in template/catalog/product/list.phtml
Find this code around in lines 74 , 133 and 180
<?php
$_nameAfterChildren = $this->getChild('name.after')->getSortedChildren();
foreach($_nameAfterChildren as $_nameAfterChildName):
Replace adding a if statement , should be something like this :
<?php
$_nameAfter = $this->getChild('name.after');
// New if here
if($_nameAfter):
$_afterChildren = $this->getChild('name.after')->getSortedChildren();
foreach($_afterChildren as $_afterChildName):