Magento Sidebar Featured Products
Posted on January 17, 2010
This tutorial will explain how to add a featured product to the sidebar. In this example we will add the featured product to the right sidebar. The steps we will follow are as follows.
- Create a new category in the magento admin area to contain our featured products.
- Add the block calls to the XML Layout
- Create the phtml template files to be referenced by the block
Category
Add a new category to your store to contain your featured products. Make it inactive and jot down the id that it is given once saved. Add any products you want to consider featured to this category. Also make sure this category is not a root category.
Layout
Open page.xml and inside your default handle's right block add the following line.
<block type="catalog/navigation" name="featured" template="catalog/featured_random.phtml" />My finished right block looks as follows:
<block type="core/text_list" name="right" as="right"> <block type="catalog/navigation" name="featured" template="catalog/featured_random.phtml" /> <block type="catalog/navigation" name="category.listing" template="catalog/navigation/categories.phtml" /> </block>
Template
Use the following code for featured_random.phtml
<?php /** * Magento * * NOTICE OF LICENSE * * This source file is subject to the Academic Free License (AFL 3.0) * that is bundled with this package in the file LICENSE_AFL.txt. * It is also available through the world-wide-web at this URL: * http://opensource.org/licenses/afl-3.0.php * If you did not receive a copy of the license and are unable to * obtain it through the world-wide-web, please send an email * to license@magentocommerce.com so we can send you a copy immediately. * * DISCLAIMER * * Do not edit or add to this file if you wish to upgrade Magento to newer * versions in the future. If you wish to customize Magento for your * needs please refer to http://www.magentocommerce.com for more information. * * @category design_default * @package Mage * @copyright Copyright (c) 2008 Irubin Consulting Inc. DBA Varien (http://www.varien.com) * @license http://opensource.org/licenses/afl-3.0.php Academic Free License (AFL 3.0) */ ?> <?php $category_id = "25"; // category_id for "Featured Products" $_productCollection = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product_collection') ->addAttributeToSelect(array('name', 'price', 'small_image'), 'inner') ->addCategoryFilter(Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($category_id)); ?> <?php if($_productCollection->count()): ?> <?php $products = array(); foreach ($_productCollection as $_product) { array_push($products, $_product); } $_product = $products[rand(0,count($products)-1)]; ?> <div class="block block-featured-product"> <div class="block-title"> <h2>Featured Product</h2> </div> <div class="block-content"> <ul id="featured-product-list"> <li class="featured-product"> <h4><?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getName())?></h4> <a href="<?php echo $_product->getProductUrl() ?>" title="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getImageLabel($_product, 'small_image')) ?>"> <img class="product-image" src="<?php echo $this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'small_image')->resize(117, 117); ?>" alt="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getImageLabel($_product, 'small_image')) ?>" title="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($this->getImageLabel($_product, 'small_image')) ?>" /> </a> <a class="view-item-button" href="<?php echo $_product->getProductUrl() ?>" title="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getName()) ?>">View Item</a> </li> </ul> </div> </div> <?php endif; ?>
Resources:
- Elias Interactive - Adapted from Homepage Featured Products

February 26th, 2010 - 22:25
Thanks! This is great. I would like to add several featured products on the same page. My solution has been to just copy and paste the above code in the same .phtml file. It works, but I often end up with the same featured product being displayed. Is there a better way? Or a way to ensure different featured products will appear? If so, any advice would be appreciated. Thanks agian.
March 14th, 2010 - 10:23
@Andy, I think what you would want to do is remove the product (something like unset($_product[YOUR_RANDOM_ARRAY_INDEX]) ) from the $_product array after you’ve added it to your featured product list. That way you can prevent duplicates from being on the same page. Hope this helps, if you haven’t already figured it out