Asia Connect Group's Blog

After installing magento can’t log in to admin panel

asiaconnect — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 08:46:27 +0000

Problem Description
While installing magento on xampp version 2.5 you have provided admin username and password. After installation finished you no longer login with your admin account. In fact in the “Log in to Admin Panel” window whenever you provide wrong password/username combination it displays “Invalid Username or Password.” But whenever you provide correct password it does not show anything. Though a new url like
http://127.0.0.1/magento/index.php/admin/index/index/key/d135be4de664ab83db829120740e058a/
is displayed on the address bar.
Everytime you do this you can’t log in to admin panel.

Cause of the problem
The problem occurs because magneto could not store cookies. We run it as localhost and localhost is not true domain but to store cookies we need a domain. That’s why login stops without saying any word.

Solution of the problem
Way 1:
In different forums I saw they mentioned connecting as http://localhost/magento/index.php/admin will fail but if you connect as http://127.0.0.1/magento/index.php/admin it will work. But in my case IP address in the URL did not work too.
I made it work into whenever I changed my browser. Suppose I installed magento using google chrome browser and I open admin url into my firefox window and it worked. Though in the firefox the url http://localhost/magento/index.php/admin did not work, but url http://127.0.0.1/magento/index.php/admin worked fine.

Way 2:
-Go to app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Session/Abstract/Varien.php file within your magento directory.

-Find the code,

session_set_cookie_params(
           $this->getCookie()->getLifetime(),
           $this->getCookie()->getPath(),
           $this->getCookie()->getDomain(),
           $this->getCookie()->isSecure(),
           $this->getCookie()->getHttponly()
       );

-Replace above code by,

session_set_cookie_params(
           $this->getCookie()->getLifetime(),
           $this->getCookie()->getPath()
           //$this->getCookie()->getDomain(),
           //$this->getCookie()->isSecure(),
           //$this->getCookie()->getHttponly()
       );

-Save it and try to login to your magento admin panel.
It would work.

Magento Featured Products

asiaconnect — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:21:16 +0000

I’ve been working with Magento version 0.8.16100 for a couple days now trying to implement a Featured Product feature. The Featured Product is a product with an attribute I added from the admin. When the administrator selects “Yes” in the “Featured” attribute, that product will be displayed in a content block.

I’ll explain each step I took to make this custom feature. Please forgive me if I left anything out. The PHP itself I would like to rewrite to be more… professional, but I couldn’t figure out how to query a product by its attribute. Maybe you can help?

Step 1) Create new “Featured” attribute

Create a new attribute by going to Catalog -> Attributes -> Manage Attributes -> Add New Attribute.

Attribute Properties
Attribute Identifier: featured
Catalog Input Type for Store Owner: Yes/No
Unique Value (not shared with other products): No
Values Required: No
Input Validation for Store Owner: None
Apply To Configurable/Grouped Product: Yes

Front End Properties
Use in quick search: No
Use in advanced search: Yes
Comparable on Front-end: No
Use In Layered Navigation (Can be used only with catalog input type ‘Dropdown’): No

System Properties
Data Type for Saving in Database: String
Globally Editable: No
Visible on Catalog Pages on Front-end: Yes

Manage Label/Options
Default: Featured Product
English: Featured Product

Save the new attribute and go to Catalog -> Attributes -> Manage Attributes Sets to add the attribute to the default feature set.

Step 2) Add Block configuration to catalog.xml

Open MyCompany/app/design/frontend/default/default/layout/catalog.xml. We want to add a new right above the product list block in the default category layout.
Insert the block configuration on line 73 (default catalog.xml).

 <block type="catalog/product_featured" name="product_featured" as="product_featured" template="catalog/product/featured.phtml">block> 

Step 3) Create new block class that will instantiate the featured product

Create a new file, and directories: app/code/local/MyCompany/Catalog/Block/Product/Featured.php

 class MyCompany_Catalog_Block_Product_Featured extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract

{

public function getFeaturedProduct()

{

// instantiate database connection object

$storeId = 0;

$categoryId = $this->getRequest()->getParam('id', false);

$resource = Mage::getSingleton('core/resource');

$read = $resource->getConnection('catalog_read');

$productStoreTable = $resource->getTableName('catalog/product_store');

$categoryProductTable = $resource->getTableName('catalog/category_product');
// Query database for all products in this category because I don't know how to query by attribute

// this logic bothers me because I'm selecting and instantiating each product in the whole category

// just to get the first featured product.  The query should include the 'featured' attribute in the WHERE

// clause.  If you know how to do that, please share :)

$select = $read->select()

->from(array('cp'=>$categoryProductTable))

->join(array('ps'=>$productStoreTable), 'ps.product_id=cp.product_id', array())

->where('ps.store_id=?', $storeId)

->where('cp.category_id=?', $categoryId);

$featuredProductData = $read->fetchAll($select);
// iterate over result set from database

foreach ($featuredProductData as $row) {
// instantiate the product object

$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($row['product_id']);
// if the product is a featured product, return the object

if ($product->getData('featured')) {

return $product;

}

}

return; } }

We’re almost there!

Step 4) Extend Mage_Catalog_Block_Category_View

Create a new file, and directories, called app/code/local/MyCompany/Catalog/Block/Category/View.php. We’re extending the core class here so our module will be separate from the core code base. When upgrading, we won’t have to worry about our code not working or having to patch files.

 class MyCompany_Catalog_Block_Category_View extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Category_View

{

public function getFeaturedProductHtml()

{

return $this->getBlockHtml('product_featured');

}

}

Step 5) Modify the templates

I haven’t really integrated any real HTML changes, so I will simply point out the files to create and where to edit the HTML.

Edit app/design/frontend/default/default/template/catalog/category/view.phtml and add the following code:

=$this->getFeaturedProductHtml()?>

right above this line:

=$this->getProductListHtml()?>

Edit app/design/frontend/default/default/template/catalog/product/featured.phtml and customize your HTML here (see any of the product templates for Product object member variables).

Step 6) Add new blocks to the app/etc/local.xml

Add

 <blocks>

<catalog>

<rewrite>

<product_featured>MyCompany_Catalog_Block_Product_Featuredproduct_featured>

rewrite>

<rewrite>

<category_view>MyCompany_Catalog_Block_Category_Viewcategory_view>

rewrite>

catalog>

blocks>

I hope this helps you add a “Featured Product” feature. It certainly feels thorough, but if I left anything out, please let me know and I’ll be happy to help. If you know how to query by a specific product attribute, please let me know.

Using jQuery in Magento

asiaconnect — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:39:18 +0000

At work we are developing a site for a client using the Magento eCommerce software. This is my first time using it and I’m finding it fairly badass (and it’s free!). There is a lot to like about it, which we’ll probably talk about another time, but it uses Prototype for a JavaScript library. Now I’m sure Prototype is wonderful and all that, but I don’t know a lick of it. I’d rather just use the library I’ve known to come and love, jQuery. But Prototype and jQuery notoriously don’t get along. This is how to deal with that.

The latest version of Magento comes with a somewhat outdated version of the script.aculo.us effects file, which is part of the problem. Go get the latest version (1.8.2 right now). You may want to rename it with the version number at the end, like effects-1.8.1.js
Upload the file to [Magento]/js/scriptaculous
Open the file page.xml at [Magento]/app/design/frontend/default/default/layout/page.xml
On about line 41, there will be a line like this:
Change the file name to your new file
The layout files are normally cached, so you’ll need to clear that cache to see the effect take place. Log into the backend and go to System > Cache Management
Select “refresh” from the All Cache menu and save (which should clear your cache)
Reload a store page and view source to make sure your new file is the one that is loading
Now you need to include jQuery on your page. You could add a new line to the page.xml file, or you could open the common head.phtml file at [Magneto]/app/design/frontend/default/default/template/page/html/head.phtml – and add your