Customizing MagentoJul 08 2010 | 15:07:35 | No Comments

Quick start – here are some pages that helped me get going quickly:


Defining your own attributes is easy.  Getting them to display in a template is not.  Cheat sheet:

http://www.sharpdotinc.com/mdost/2009/04/06/magento-getting-product-attributes-values-and-labels/


Don’t hack the Magento tree directly!  You’ll be sad when you upgrade and your customizations are gone. Do this instead:

http://www.exploremagento.com/magento/override-a-magento-core-block-class.php


Grab all the simple child products for a configurable product (and then display one of their other custom attributes):

http://snippi.net/taxonomy/term/10


Updating stock through the SOAP API is unbelievably slow.  The API doesn’t appear to accept more than one SKU per call! Use a script like this instead:

http://www.sonassi.com/knowledge-base/magento-knowledge-base/mass-update-stock-levels-in-magento-fast/


Some hints on how to get Magento to generate plain-text email:

http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/43928/


Kicking off an index process from the command line (using a custom script):

http://www.sonassi.com/knowledge-base/magento-knowledge-base/catalog-search-index-refresh-running-slow-or-haltingfreezing/