This is my first post here and I’ll write about my first challenge regarding Magento since I came to work at Inchoo.
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 …

If you already performed some Magento research, you will know that it is built on a fully modular model that gives great scalability and flexibility for your store. While creating a theme, you are provided with many content blocks that you can place in structural blocks. If you are not sure what they are, please read Designer’s Guide to Magento first. Magento provides few structural blocks by default and many content blocks. This article tells what needs to be in place to create new structural block.
What are structural blocks?
They are …

If you login to your Magento admin today, you are welcomed with message box that says:
CSRF Attack Prevention Read details !
Yesterday Magento team acknowledged CSRF vulnerability and provided solution in a form of tutorial to change admin path (frontName) of your Magento shop.

I find this approach strange and funny at the same time. Is hiding vulnerability new way of fixing it? Especially since some users of French Magento forums found similar problem in downloader (Magento connect manager). I can confirm this couse i tested it myself. The most …

Category toolbar has many options. By default is shows how many items are in the category, you can choose how many products you wish to be displayed per page, you can change the listing type (List or Grid) and you may choose Sort Order. This “Sort Order” can be confusing. The default “Sort Order” is “Best Value”. What does it mean? How is the Best value determined? Can we change the default sort order?

What is “Best Value” filed?
When you go to Category page in Magento administration, you will see …

Adding and removing javascript and css is handled separately within Magento. CSS is added in the usual fashion, where you have a <link rel=”stylesheet”… />. However, any included javascript (unless linked to “by hand” from a theme’s skin) is pulled via a php files which reads through the “js” folder in the root directory (root/js/index.php is responsible for this).
That is all well and good for Magento. The real question is how we, as developers, add these items when we need them. How you as a developer add css or javascript …

If like many of the Magento store owners you find that some of the built-in features are not useful to you or to your customers you can always disable them via the admin interface buy disabling their respective modules.
Wishlist is not one of them.
To remove all of the traces of the wishlist functionality you need to do the following:
1. Go to the Admin interface (select the appropriate scope) and under System -> Configuration -> Customers -> Whishlist select “No” under the “Enabled” in the General options.
This will remove all …

As you know, Magento has a built-in contact form that can be used for general contacts. That form isn’t part of any CMS page, you cannot edit some introduction text, you cannot add phone numbers administration, and you cannot see the breadcrumbs. If you wish to edit text in that default contact form, you will need to update front-end files. Luckily, there is an alternative.
If you are a developer, editing your contact form HTML is an easy task. You only need to open file:
app/design/frontend/default/[yourtheme]/template/contacts/form.phtml and you will find your way …

I recently answered a question on the magento forums about how to remove the callout images in the right / left columns.
This is a pretty easy task, but finding them required a small bit of digging (as usual).
My first recommendation when trying to find any thing in the front end is to turn on Template Path hints in the admin section

Admin > System > Configuration
Switch your “Current Configuration Scope” to your store (’Main Website’ on a stock build)
Click on the Developer Tab (bottom left) and find the Debug area
Template Path …

It’s been a while since my last post. I’ve been working on Magento quite actively last two months. I noticed this negative trend in my blogging; more I know about Magento, the less I write about it. Some things just look so easy now, and they start to feel like something I should not write about. Anyhow…. time to share some wisdom with community
Our current client uses somewhat specific (don’t they all) store set. When I say specific, i don’t imply anything bad about it. One of the stand …

Magento comes packed with a lot of options. But no matter how many options you put into some product you can never cover all of them. One of such options (for now) is a color switcher in Magento. To be more precise, an image switcher based on color selection.
Recently I’ve made a screencast on my site on this subject, with somewhat different title. The idea is to have a dropdown box from which you choose a color and based on the color selection product image changes. All of this is …