magento - include core functionality in custom module - magento

I've recently made my first couple of simple modules for magento. Basically just trying out making a module that printed 'hi'. Then one that included the site design, and finally one that inserted it's own block into the content area to print some stuff.
Now, what I really want with this module is to be able to list products (using the same layout as normal product listing) but based on ID's. Like from cookies or as an example, static array of product ID's.
How would I go about to reuse the product listing code as much as possible and retaining the theming for it? Also if there is some small detail I wanted to change in the layout - how could i make a small template adjustment on the fly/programmatically?
Is this even the right way to go about it, to create a new module and somehow include existing functionality in it? Or should I just try to recreate the product listing and mimic the design?
Lots of questions I know, but it's hard to find relevant information beyond the very simplest modules. TIA.

Related

Comic navigation in joomla?

I have a joomla site and would like to integrate some old unfinished webcomics to it, so I can pick them up where I stopped in a CMS that won't leave me in an absolute frothing rage (thanks, wordpress).
I've got some experience with Joomla and I believe it would be a pretty good platform for managing multiple comics... except for the small issue of horrid navigation between pages/articles. Joomla's integrated article navigation is a humble but passable start, but if you intend to use categories to organize chapters then getting from the end of one to the beginning of the next is... yeah. This is a pity, as Joomla's category and article management options are beautiful for archiving and presentation, and adding gantry 5 to it means a great deal of control over the reading experience. Basically, joomla has pretty much everything I want, except for the navigation.
Ideally, what I'd like to be able to accomplish for comic navigation in joomla is:
Clickable full-article-image leading to next article/page
Prev/next article buttons (already available)
Prev/next category buttons (do we have those?)
The latter two in a module I can choose where to publish (optional)
And this is it, basically. I understand that implementing the first could be very hard without some major template customization, in which case I'd be willing to insert the image as a link in the article body... but only if there was one single code I could use, like the one that generates the next category article button. Because I'm not willing to create hundreds of menu items to generate links page-by-page.
So is any of this doable?
This is a quick answer but too much for a comment. I'm assuming since you are on SO that you don't mind coding (as opposed to just configuring).
I think you need to do two things. First you need to create a pagination.php for your template. This will let you really super control what the pagination looks like. You can have images, special css and js, whatever you want. You can also add the "last" and "first" options.
I think you need to make a new plugin to replace the core pagenavigation plugin and that also generates the previous/next category links. (Or I guess you could make one just to do categorynavigation depending on what you want.) HOWEVER, it seems to me that there is data on the sibling links that is already being generated in the content category model so you might be able to use that. (Check the code; I think there was never a UI for it, but it is there. Even if it isn't there, siblings are very easy to obtain in nested sets)
The other thing you can really think about if you go that route is changing the whole thing somewhat to use a module that gets the current ID and category ID from JInput. You might also be able to use JPagination. The important thing, however is that you make sure to do the caching the way the pagination that is there does it. In other words you really want to cache the whole list in the order you want so you are not running so many queries and slowing your site down. You may want to look at the categories and category modules to get some ideas about the queries to do.
Hope that gets you started, but it is definitely something you can do without too much trouble.

Joomla - How can I opt one from various modules to display in a position

I am willing to create a logic in which If I can fetch only desirable module in a particular position.
As we know that Joomla displays the module on basis of positions given to modules created, hence there could be several modules for a single position.
Now what If I only want a single module from those modules who has the position, say "positon-1".
Thanks
Each module can be told to be shown only on specific pages. Look in the module settings at the "Menu Assignment" part. There you can set it to show on
all pages
No pages
Only on the pages selected
On all pages except those selected
So you can set a module to show on the homepage in position-1, but on all other pages there is a different module shown on the same position.
Don't position names like position-1, although the example templates shipped with Joomla! do so. Use semantic names for the module positions. Then, within your template, you define, where these positions live.
Now what If I only want a single module from those modules who has ... [a certain] position
That will never happen then. You're going to have a position called search where the serach field is located, and maybe another one called navigation, where you publish your navigational menus. You get a lot more positions, but also much more flexibility. So if you have a module that needs its own position as in your question, let's have it that.

Joomla: display of articles using RAXO All-mode PRO and JXtended labels

I'm currently working on a site that uses the 'RAXO All-mode PRO' module to display a list of articles on the home page, and the 'JXtended labels' component to display pages containing a list of articles associated with given labels. The front-end functionality in both is very similar - get a list of articles and display them.
Ideally, I'd like both lists to display articles in the same format. However, since each component/module has its own way of fetching the data, and its own template, they're currently inconsistent. What's the best way of going about resolving this?
I can envisage a common bit of code (a module? plugin? component?) that deals with the display of a list of articles, and has its own template for that purpose. I guess I'd then need to hack the existing module and component to hand over to this common piece. There's also the question of getting the same set of data - e.g. RAXO All-mode PRO currently gets an article's category; JXtended labels doesn't.
Has anyone come across this issue before?
The issue of the modules pulling different data sets can only be remedied by hacking the core to get the data that is missing.
Everything else can be accomplished by a simple override. You can modify the module template files then save the new version in JOOMLA/templates/YOUR TEMPLATE/html/MODULE NAME/default.php. You can make the override files match pretty much exactly so the display will be consistent across both modules.

Joomla : Which module is this part of?

I am working on Joomla 1.5 right now and was wondering if there is a way to figure out, from the UI, on which module this is part of ? Eg, there is a picture viewer on the home page and I want to know which module is triggering it.
I do it the hard way no, where I goto all modules and check if each had anything to do with it. But was wondering if there is an easier, faster way.
Thank you :)
In Joomla 1.5 you can simply add ?tp=1 to the url to force the system to show you the template positions. You should just about be able to make out the name of the position in question. From there go to the module manager and filter the list by position.
It shouldn't be too difficult to figure out - the module will have rotator, slideshow or similar in its name/type.
It is probably set to show on the home menu item only too.
In my experience, this is an issue with most CMS - Drupal, Wordpress, and Joomla included. And it can be very frustrating. My approach is normally:
Search the module listing for something likely. So, in your example, I'd search for 'picture', 'viewer' 'gallery', etc. and, hopefully, a likely-looking modue would turn up in the listing. Usually, viewing its settings screen makes it obvious whether that module is the relevant one or not.
If that fails, I usually look at the source (easiest with firebug), and identify something that is likely to be fairly unique - e.g. a class name or a specific attribute in the markup. Once I have that, I resort to find/grep on the command line to identify the origin.
If you find yourself with a lot of extensions, and this becomes a regular problem, you could think about modifying templates to include a comment that identifies their module.

Custom section/category viewing in Joomla

I have written some modules to have it look nicely. What I need now is to re-order Joomla's standard viewing of the content. I have looked into com_content, and my first idea was to write my own component for it. But now I realized it would be about 90% a copy of com_content.
The problem is: When you open a link to a section, com_content views a list of the categories. But I want a list of the articles in category News of each viewed, and a link to every article in category Infos on the menu to the left. And of course, view each on click.
Is there a way to achieve that without writing an own component? Or would it be advisable to customise com_content to my needs? I want this done with a minimum of fuss and complexity.
You can override components view-templates in your theme.
In your case, for articles: Articles are part of the content component. components/com_content/views/article/tmpl/default.php is the default view of an article.
To override it copy the file to templates\<yourtheme>\html\com_content\article/default.php.
As an example, see the default theme ja_purity or beez, which also override it.
That way, you will only change the layout and only for your theme. The component will stay in tact and updates will not be as complicated as otherwise.
The visible components on your website are called modules. See the modules section in the admin section. The category-view is one of the default modules. There is also a module to display a list of categories (AFAIK). That is what you want, right? The modules listed in the module section are not all available ones, but all that are created. You can create a new one and set its type to the category-list for example, and define in what block of the theme it should display.
If you want to do your own Module, do so. Code it, then add it in your admin section and you’re done.

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