I think custom variables were originally designed to be used in emails but I use them within the main site for little bits of information whose value needs to change on a per store/language basis.
This is how you get a custom variable inside a phtml file:
Mage::getModel(‘core/variable’)->setStoreId(Mage::app()->getStore()->getStoreId())->loadByCode(‘[variable-code]’)->getValue(‘plain’);
Continue reading Magento: Get a custom variable value in a phtml file
You may well have certain pages that you do not want Google, et al, to index in the SERPS. Examples include log in pages, thank you pages, and perhaps content of little search value such as legal blurb. This can let you control a little more, albeit very slightly, the pages you want Google to show and those that you don’t.
You can use the Custom Layout Update control (in the Custom Design tab) to set the robots control on a per-page basis. Simply add the following code into the Custom Layout Update textarea in the Magento admin:
<reference name=”head”>
<action method=”setRobots”><value>NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW</value></action>
</reference>
Continue reading Magento Custom Layout Update: Robots No-index
Some useful bits and bobs to do with ordering, size-limiting and getting data out of collections that I tend to often need to look up.
Limiting the Size of a Collection
Adding isActiveFilter
Loading Friendly URLs/Rewrites
Filter Collection by Attribute and Conditionals List
Get First Item From Collection
Continue reading Magento 1.9: Useful Collection Snippets
As of today (1st November 2017) we noticed a change in how Google is producing searching results. We knew that this change would be affecting mobile search results (mobile first index) but today we have seen it happen on desktop. This Google algorithm change might rock the SEO world…[update:….but hasn’t]
Continue reading Google TLD searches now return searcher-local results
Sometimes, when editing a page you need to know what the full module_controller_action route is so you can modify the correct blocks in the layout files. Here is a simple bit of code to display the full action name in the form of module_controller_action.
Continue reading Magento (v1.x) : Show full page action name (module_controller_action)
Another quick post. This has often driven me crazy so I was glad to have found a solution.
The problem: you are clicking away, adding a whole load of cursors to edit multiple sections of code at once (awesome!) but then you accidentally click in the wrong place…argh.
Without knowing how to deselect or remove a multi cursor you have to start all over again, this time being very slow and precise in case you do it again.
The solution: By using alt+ middle mouse button on the offending cursor you can remove it from the “selection” – doesn’t even have to be the last one! Nice.
I have seen elsewhere that a regular alt-click or ctrl-u )soft undo) will do it but they did now work for me.
Note: the usual approach is that ctrl-something will perform an add action and alt-something will perform a remove action.
Here is how to get the the store config information for the phone number:
<?php echo Mage::getStoreConfig(‘general/store_information/phone’);?>
And for the address:
<?php echo Mage::getStoreConfig(‘general/store_information/address’);?>
In fact you can get all sorts of interesting “config” data out using this getStoreConfig method.
Continue reading Magento: Get store address, phone number or other config information
Your server had to restart, either by design or after some bad event, and now your website doesn’t work – “connection failure”. Looks like your important web services are not set to start automatically on boot up. Here is what to do to get your httpd and mysqld services running on restart.
Continue reading Centos: Making sure your web services auto start after reboot
Here is a little helper function in PHP to round an integer number to the nearest X, where X can be any other integer number. You can specify to force to round up, round down or whichever is closest (round up if it is the same in either direction).
Continue reading PHP: Rounding Numbers to the Nearest 5,10,12 or X
This is a quick and dirty list of the stages to install and set up memcache on centos 7 running php 5.4**
Continue reading Adding Memcache for Magento on Centos 7