As strange as this may sound, processor class that gets called is Mage_Core_Model_Email_Template_Filter located at app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Email/Template/Filter.php .

There are also some interesting directives in superclass Varien_Filter_Template, but if i’m not mistaken, none of them can be used.

There are six replacement codes  that can be used and each triggers its equivalent Directive function:

skinDirective
mediaDirective
htmlescapeDirective
storeDirective
blockDirective
layoutDirective

I’ll start with easier and most commonly used and continue with advanced ones in part two of this article.

1. skinDirective

Description: Used to retrieve path of skin folder and its files, theme fallback respected
Example: {{skin url=’images/image.jpg’ _theme=’blank’}}
Synonym: Mage::getDesign()->getSkinUrl($params['url'], $params)
Params:
url = empty or relative file path
_theme = alternative theme, fallbacks if file not exist
_package = alternative package
_area = alternative area(frontend,adminhtml)
_type, _default etc. = nothing useful, somebody please correct me if i’m wrong

2. mediaDirective

Description: Used to retrieve path of root/media folder and its files
Example: {{media url=’image.jpg’}}
Synonym: Mage::getBaseUrl(‘media’) . $params['url']
Params:
url = empty or relative file path

3. htmlescapeDirective

Description: Used to escape special html chars
Example: {{htmlescape var=’<a href=”www.inchoo.net”>inchoo</a><b>inchoo</b><i>inchoo</i>’ allowed_tags=’b'}}
Synonym: Mage::helper(‘core’)->htmlEscape($params['var'], $params['allowed_tags'])
Params:
var = string to escape
allowed_tags = comma-separated list of allowed tags

4. storeDirective

Description: Used to build magento routes and custom urls
Example: {{store url=’customer/account’ _query_a=’8′}}
Synonym: Mage::getUrl($params['url'], $params);
Params:
url = magento routers url
direct_url = normal url, appended to baseurl
_query_PARAMNAME = adds query param, for example _query_a=’8′ adds a=8 to url
_fragment = adds fragment, for example #comments
_escape = escapes “,’,<,>
custom = if using magento route url param, every custom param added will be appended like /a/8/b/10

I probably missed something in this last one, but it’s very late and i’m tired of poking through Magento

To be continued ..

1. Download FLIR from FLIR homepage. I was using latest 1.2 stable for this article because of simplicity, but if you try you’ll find out that 2.0 beta also works great but requires little more configuration.

2. Unpack FLIR content (cache,fonts,etc.) inside skin/frontend/default/default/facelift
I think it makes perfect sense to put it into skin folder.

3. Open app/design/frontend/yourpackage/yourtheme/template/page/html/head.phtml and append

<script language=”javascript” src=”<?php echo $this->getSkinUrl(‘facelift/flir.js’) ?>”></script>

<script type=”text/javascript”>
document.observe(“dom:loaded”, function() {
FLIR.init({ path: ‘<?php echo $this->getSkinUrl(‘facelift/’) ?>’ }, new FLIRStyle({ mode: ‘wrap’ }) );
FLIR.auto();
});
</script>

If your php error reporting isn’t disabled add error_reporting(0); somewhere on top of config-flir.php. This is main config file from which you can define options and custom fonts, so examine it.

Refresh your Magento store and you should see the result.

flir.js can also be alternatively included from layout files inside head block
<reference name=”head”>
<action method=”addItem”><type>skin_js</type><name>facelift/flir.js</name></action>
</reference>

There is nice Quick Start Guide and Documentation available from FLIR homepage, so i won’t go in details on some advanced FLIR settings, but here are few examples:

//pass selectors as comma separated list
FLIR.auto(‘h5,h4′);
//pass an array of selectors
FLIR.auto( [ 'h4', 'h5' ] );
//replace manually with custom options
FLIR.replace( ‘div.box h4′ , new FLIRStyle({ mode: ‘wrap’ , css: {‘font-family’:'arial’} }) );
//prototype way
$$(‘div.box h4′).each( function(el) { FLIR.replace(el);  } );

Cya.

As title says I’ll show you how to implement simple random banner rotation functionality in Magento using static blocks.

First of all, upload images you want to use in “/skin/frontend/YOUR_INTERFACE/YOUR_THEME/images/”

In admin panel add N static blocks (“CMS->Static Blocks->Add new block”)

For identifier field use something like this:

SomeBannerIdentifierName_1
SomeBannerIdentifierName_2
SomeBannerIdentifierName_3
...
SomeBannerIdentifierName_N

For each content use this:

<a href="ADDRESS_YOU_WANT_TO_USE"><img src="{{skin url=images/media/IMAGE_YOU_WANT_TO_USE.jpg}}" alt="Some alt text"  /></a>

Please note that you are not restricted only to images, you could use text, video or whatever you want here, but I’ll focus on images with links as title says.

Now when all is set, make new file called banner_rotator.phtml in  “/app/design/frontend/YOUR_INTERFACE/YOUR_THEME/template/callouts/banner_rotator.phtml”

And use this code inside:

< ?php
echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('cms/block')->setBlockId('SomeBannerIdentifierName_'.mt_rand(1, N))->toHtml() ?>

*Make sure you replace “N” with highest number of your static block

In order to show this block, you should be familiar with Magento layouts.
Since that is out of scope for this article, I’ll show you how to put it below the content on cms pages.

Open “/app/design/frontend/YOUR_INTERFACE/YOUR_THEME/layout/cms.xml”

[*] Put this line:

<block type="core/template" name="home.banner.rotator" template="callouts/banner_rotator.phtml"/>

Find this:

<cms_page>
<reference name="content">
<block type="cms/page" name="cms_page"/>

P U T  [*] H E R E  ! ! !

</reference>
</cms_page>

Unfortunately I can’t be more specific so feel free to ask me anything.

UPDATE:

If you want this to work for specific page such as homepage do this:

Instead of here /app/design/frontend/YOUR_INTERFACE/YOUR_THEME/layout/cms.xml
put this:

<reference code="content">
<block type="core/template" name="home.banner.rotator" template="callouts/banner_rotator.phtml"/>
</reference>

into your Admin panel’s CMS->Pages->Your page->Design->Layout Update XML field
Everything else is the same…

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
 <global>
  <cms>
   <layouts>
    <custom_static_page_one>
     <label>Custom static page 1</label>
     <template>page/custom-static-page-1.phtml</template>
    </custom_static_page_one>
   </layouts>
  </cms>
 </global>
</config>

Then activate it: app/etc/modules/Inchoo_AdditionalCmsPageLayouts.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
 <modules>
  <Inchoo_AdditionalCmsPageLayouts>
   <codePool>local</codePool>
   <active>true</active>
  </Inchoo_AdditionalCmsPageLayouts>
 </modules>
</config>

Add your page/custom-static-page-1.phtml template file (or copy some default one for start) and you’re done There is also tutorial about this on Magento Wiki. However i don’t like approach of duplicating and overriding Mage files from /local, if it can be avoided, so i decided to write this small and useful example of adding or overriding default Magento settings through separated config files. And yes, Magento values can be overridden this way. Default layouts config can be found in app/code/core/Mage/Cms/etc/config.xml along with used xml code structure, so check it out. Thank you for listening!

Internet is full of “your language sucks, mine is better”, “your language framework sucks, mine is better”. To be honest, I’m sick of it. The way I see it; C#, python, php, ruby, java… are all great and powerful languages. Using one over other will not make you write great application just like that. There is only one thing I consider advantage in web development, and that is using interpreted language over compiled one. This however is merely my preference.

Here’s a link to some pretty useful material on application architecture, Application Architecture Guide 2.0. Architecture Guide 2.0 is about designing applications on the .NET Platform.

Here is another one for web apps, Web Architecture Pocket Guide.

I’m a PHP developer, however I like to throw a few lines of code in C# from time to time. Although books are related to Microsoft .Net platform, if you are not short sighted (in terms of technology), I’m sure you will find these books useful reading whatever platform you might be using.

<a href=”http://video.msn.com/?playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:e615c682-0b89-4c90-8b31-d7b5dbf40283&#038;showPlaylist=true” mce_href=”http://video.msn.com/?playlist=videoByUuids:uuids:e615c682-0b89-4c90-8b31-d7b5dbf40283&amp;showPlaylist=true” target=”_new” title=”Train the Trainer – Application Architecture Guide 2.0″>Video: Train the Trainer – Application Architecture Guide 2.0</a>

There were some really interesting replies.

Advantages:

• It’s free
• Fast to setup
• Easy to learn
• Lots of plugins and templates available so you don’t need to be a PHP guru or designer to have a nice looking site with lots of features.
• Easy to modify page templates allowing you to customize the presentation layers to your heart content
• Large and active open source community community of people developing add-ons, plugins, themes frequently
• Easy to host with simple requirements

Disadvantages:

• Many of the themes have a tendency to look the same or similar.
• PHP’s track record for security is pretty bad.
• Database queries may be very heavy
• It isn’t a full CMS product – which is fine for a lot of sites – but if your site is moving a long way away from something based around a blog then you might find it starts to creak a bit!

http://www.linkedin.com/answers/technology/web-development/TCH_WDD/308438-15378406

Many of the people think that WordPress is still just for blogging and if you want some decent CMS, you should consider Drupal. This quote summarizes those thoughts:

Most of the disadvantages come in when someone tries to warp it outside of being a blog, when they stack on a ton of plugins that try to make WordPress take the place of Joomla or Drupal. It doesn’t. When people try to make it do that, it does it to a lower performance level, and has more sustainability problems.

What are your thoughts about this topic. Feel free to post the comment here or if you are a LinkedIn user, you can reply there.