Author: 芳草苑主

I write this article about my understanding of layout.xml up to now. I use it to show you

• How to add buttons in order/invoice/shipment/creditmemo without override Block class?
• How to define an array as a parameter in layout.xml using <action method=”addButton”><param>array</param></action>?
• How to assign any type of variables in layout.xml?
• How to avoid overriding controller class but still get the result you want on a specific url?

as well.

All my understanding was inspired by the task: adding buttons in order view at backend to offer administrators extra order process facilities.

I love Magento class overriding architecture, but as I have learned the downside of overriding (Basically, there is only one chance of overriding for each class among all extension classes. Therefore, the more classes overridden, the greater chance of conflict between extensions.), I create a principle for my programming in Magento – do not override Magento class unless there is no other way around it.

So, back to the task. It would be very easy to add the button if I had overridden Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Sales_Order_View. It could be

public function __construct() {
parent::__construct();
$this->_addButton('new_button', array(
'label'    => Mage::helper('sales')->__('New Button'),
'onclick'  => "window.open('{$this->getUrlForNewButton()}')",
))
;
}

However, I do not want to override Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Sales_Order_View. How about firing addButton method in layout.xml? I see an example of addTab at the left side

<block type="adminhtml/sales_order_view_tabs" name="sales_order_tabs">
<action method="addTab"><name>order_info</name><block>order_tab_info</block></action>
<action method="addTab"><name>order_invoices</name><block>adminhtml/sales_order_view_tab_invoices</block></action>
<action method="addTab"><name>order_creditmemos</name><block>adminhtml/sales_order_view_tab_creditmemos</block></action>
<action method="addTab"><name>order_shipments</name><block>adminhtml/sales_order_view_tab_shipments</block></action>
<action method="addTab"><name>order_history</name><block>adminhtml/sales_order_view_tab_history</block></action>
</block>

In the example, addTab method takes two parameters, one for tab name and the other for block name. Inside addTab method, it creates a block object from the block name, which is passed in as a string. In fact, the tag name <name> or <block> is not significant in layout.xml. It does not represent parameter name in method. But the position is significant – the first tag is passed into method as the first parameter, and ditto the followings.

Back to addButton method in Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Container. It takes at least two parameters, one as string and the second as associated array. So the layout.xml can be something like this:

<reference name="sales_order_edit">
<action method="addButton" translate="label">
<name>new_button</name>
<button_array><!-- this tag name is not significant -->
<label>New Button</label>
<onclick>window.open('{$this->getUrlForNewButton()}')</onclick>
</button_array>
</action>
</reference>

The difficult part is in <onclick> – it requires a variable of current order id. After some digging, I find another example:

<reference name="footer_links">
<action method="addLink" translate="label title" module="catalog" ifconfig="catalog/seo/site_map"><label>Site Map</label><url helper="catalog/map/getCategoryUrl" /><title>Site Map</title></action>
</reference>

So, I create a helper method to return url for new button and modify layout.xml to

<reference name="sales_order_edit">
<action method="addButton" translate="label">
<name>new_button</name>
<button_array><!-- this tag name is not significant -->
<label>New Button</label>
<onclick helper="mymodule/getUrlForNewButton"/>
</button_array>
</action>
</reference>

Unfortunately, it did not work. I assume the helper callback does not work if it is in the array. So I change the helper method to return an associated array directly as the second parameter for layout.xml and the final layout.xml is

<reference name="sales_order_edit">
<action method="addButton" translate="label">
<name>new_button</name>
<button helper="mymodule/getNewButtonSecondParam"/>
</action>
</reference>

It works perfectly. I am very proud of myself.

Some while ago, I overrode Mage_Catalog_ProductController just to register a variable in viewAction

public function viewAction() {
Mage::register('my_var', $value);
parent::viewAction();
}

Now I reviewing that approach stupid. I could register a variable using layout.xml without any class overriding!

今天我注意到一个还未来得及升级的 Magento 1.3.2.3 的安装 down 了，原因是 Magento 1.3.2.3 无法和 memcached 1.4.4.2 协同工作（memcached 1.4.4.2 服务器环境自动升级带来的）。

错误提示如下

Notice: MemcachePool::delete() [memcachepool.delete]: Server 127.0.0.1 (tcp 11211, udp 0) failed with: CLIENT_ERROR bad command line format. Usage: delete [noreply]
(0) in /……/magento/app/code/core/Zend/Cache/Backend/Memcached.php on line 271

我按提示找到 Memcached.php 把第271行改为

return $this->_memcache->delete($id, 0);

仍旧无效。

尝试着升级安装到 Magento 1.4.0.1，能支持 memcached 1.4.4.2 了。

但网站布局变得乱七八糟，需要调整很多 template, layout 及 css 文件，这不是一时半会能完成的，只好暂用备份文件降级到 Magento 1.3.2.3，改用 apc backend cache。还好网站在单台服务器上运行，没涉及到分布式缓存，memcached 不是必需的。我装了 memcached 也没怎么玩它，缺乏掌控，暂时先搁置。

After I put a lot of test orders into Magento, now I want to delete them for a clean start. I also want to shorten the length of order number, and the order number from various stores share the global increment. I want the similar settings on Matgento invoice, shipment, and creditmemo.

I have concluded these steps after some trials and errors.

Firstly, empty orders, invoices, shipments, and creditmemo by executing mysql commands:

TRUNCATE `magento_sales_flat_order_item`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_flat_quote`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_flat_quote_address`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_flat_quote_address_item`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_flat_quote_item`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_flat_quote_item_option`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_flat_quote_payment`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_flat_quote_shipping_rate`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_invoiced_aggregated`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_invoiced_aggregated_order`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_aggregated_created`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_entity`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_entity_datetime`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_entity_decimal`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_entity_int`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_entity_text`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_entity_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_int`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_tax`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_text`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_order_varchar`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_payment_transaction`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_refunded_aggregated`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_refunded_aggregated_order`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_shipping_aggregated`;
TRUNCATE `magento_sales_shipping_aggregated_order`;

Then, go to table magento_eav_entity_type, find entity order, invoice, shipment, creditmemo, change increment_per_store to or not to share global increment (default is 1 which means each store has its own increment), change increment_pad_length to shorten or longer numbers (increment_pad_length does not include prefix: 1 digit by default).

Then, empty table magento_eav_entity_store by executing:

TRUNCATE `magento_eav_entity_store`;

With an empty table, Magento generate default increment_prefix which is store id (with global increment setting, it is 0), and increment starts from 0.

I want the first order, invoice, shipment, creditmemo number look like 100001, I set magento_eav_entity_type.increment_pad_length at 5, and insert 4 records into magento_eav_entity_store.

And that’s it.

2010年6月22日更新：我想提醒一下，光有几个 store_id = 0 的记录不够保险。因为几天后，我发现每个 storeview 都有了各自的记录，显然 storeview 的记录优先于 default (store_id = 0)。increment_prefix 默认为 store_id，这让每个 storeview 有了不同的前缀，与我初衷（所有 storeview 统一使用 “1” 为前缀）相悖。我不清楚后来这些自动添加的记录是由什么事件引发的。既然 increment_prefix 被改了，我只好接受这个事实，改来改后会让后台订单号看起来没有连续性。