Question

I need to include a custom block on my templates, and even thoguh I read several instructions on how to do it, none seem to work, and none answer all issues (for me).

I have a template file here:
[templates]/aw_blog/blog-bottom.phtml

I am using a custom theme according to best practices for Magento 1.4.1 and up, so I am working with local.xml to override the page.xml in the base theme.

In my 2column-left.phtml template, I call the blog-bottom template like so:

<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('blog-bottom') ?>

So I know that the missing link is local.xml, but the various options I tried produce no results. So, what is the correct way to refer to this block in local.xml so that it is available to pages using 2column-left? I have both CMS and category pages using 2column left, and I’d want to show this block on all of them.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You’re right, You have to add your block declaration in your layout xml. I don’t use any local.xml file, I don’t know what it is exactly, sorry 😐

Anyway, if you want to add this block in, say, the left column you have to declare it this way (if the block named “left” is already declared)

<reference name="left">
    <block name="customblock" type="core/template" template="path/to/your/template" />
</reference>

However, fOr this kind of block (which will be present on almost every page) I would rewrite the page.xml file and add the block directly in the declaration of the “left” block like this :

<block type="core/text_list" name="left" as="left" translate="label">
    <label>Left Column</label>
    <block name="customblock" type="core/template" template="path/to/your/template" />
</block>