Question

I need to use the same custom made block 2 times on the same page but with different values loaded from the database.

So I need to transfer a config value(Here called SimpleMenuInstanceRef) from my page.xml file to the block/model so each block knows what data to load from the database.

I am doing it with this block:

    <block template="simplemenu/leftMenuTemplate.phtml" type="simplemenu/standard" name="leftMenu" as="leftMenu" translate="label">
        <label>Left menu header</label>
        <action method="setSimpleMenuInstanceRef"><SimpleMenuInstanceRef>4</SimpleMenuInstanceRef></action>
        </block>

And this kinda works. In my leftMenuTemplate.phtml I can do a

echo $this->getSimpleMenuInstanceRef()

And this will show the value from the config.

But I need the value in my blocks _construct method so I can load data depending on its value. But doing a $this->getSimpleMenuInstanceRef in _construct don’t return anything. So how can I get the value in my block code, or do I need to transfer the value in an other way?

Edit: Changed __construct to _construct to match real code.

Answer 1

Yes, you need. Try to declare block as:

<block instance="4" template="simplemenu/leftMenuTemplate.phtml" type="simplemenu/standard" name="leftMenu" as="leftMenu" translate="label">
    <label>Left menu header</label>
</block>

After doing this, you can easily access to the ‘instance’ var:

protected function _construct() {
    parent::_construct();
    echo $this->getData('instance');
}