Magento 1 Theme – Correct Way to Modify a Magento Template

layoutlocal.xmlmagento-1rwd-themetheme

Please suggest me the right approach, I want to customize the "EMAIL to Friend" page into pop up window, when user click on the button (email this product). By enabling template hinting, I found out that the button is rendered with

frontend/rwd/default/template/catalog/product/view/sharing.phtml

And the corresponding layout file is catalog.xml (in frontend/rwd/default/layout)

So I created a local.xml in the same folder where catalog.xml exist with the following code (just that I have given test.phtml instead of sharing.phtml, just to 'Debug')

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
    <default>

        <catalog-product-view>
            <reference name="content">
                <block type="catalog/product_view" name="product.info" template="catalog/product/view.phtml">
                    <block type="catalog/product_view" name="product.info.sharing" as="sharing" template="catalog/product/view/test.phtml"/>
                </block>
            </reference>
        </catalog-product-view>

    </default>
</layout>

But nothing happens, I mean how I can change (overwrite) the default design of theme, without modifying existing xml and phtml files?

Best Answer

This is what you should put inside your local.xml file.

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
    <catalog_product_view>
        <reference name="product.info.sharing">
            <action method="setTemplate">
                <template>catalog/product/view/test.phtml</template>
            </action>
        </reference>
    </catalog_product_view>
</layout>

Mistakes that you have done

You used two layout update handles: default and catalog-product-view. That is wrong. You only need one layout update handle. The right one that you should use here is catalog_product_view
So catalog-product-view is unknown for magento. The proper name is catalog_product_view
Since sharing block is already defined via catalog.xml, now you need to refer that block and then change the template by adding action setTemplate. That is what the above script does.

Hope you get the idea

Related Solutions

How to Override Template File in Magento 1.8

You should create local.xml in layout folder and set

<catalog_category_default>
    <reference name="product_list">
          <action method="setTemplate"><template>path/to/your/list.phtml</template></action>
    </reference>
</catalog_category_default>

Magento 1.9 – Layout XML for Email Templates

This questions is actually a bit too broad but I'd like to give some insights on that:

When you create a transaction e-mail template via the adminhtml section, the content of the corresponding mail template from app/locale/[language_country]/template/email/[filename].html is copied to the database.

As an example for the "New account" e-mail, the declaration can be found in app/code/core/Mage/Customer/etc/config.xml:

<template>
            <email>
                <customer_create_account_email_template translate="label" module="customer">
                    <label>New account</label>
                    <file>account_new.html</file>
                    <type>html</type>
                </customer_create_account_email_template>
                ...
            </email>
</template>

If the e-mail is being sent, the HTML-template is parsed and the variable and block directives ({{store url=""}}, {{layout handle="sales_email_order_items" order=$order}} from the order_new.html template,...) are then replaced by their corresponding blocks defined in the XML-files.

<sales_email_order_items> can be found in app/design/frontend/base/default/layout/sales.xml where also the block type (<block type="sales/order_email_items" ...> in this case) is defined.

The mail classes of Magento responsible for e-mail sending are Mage_Core_Model_Email_Templateand Mage_Core_Model_Email_Template_Filter.

Best Answer

Mistakes that you have done

Related Solutions

How to Override Template File in Magento 1.8

Magento 1.9 – Layout XML for Email Templates

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