On the other hand, admin should be able to view the comment on the order page.

Adding a custom comment box for each item in the cart is actually very easy. First lets add the textarea field for each item.

In your theme, for the file: template/checkout/cart.phtml
Add the new heading along with other heading for cart items.

<th><?php echo $this->__('Comments') ?></th> 

In the file: template/checkout/cart/item/default.phtml
Add a new column

            <td class="a-center">
            <textarea name="cart[<?php echo $_item->getId() ?>][comments]" rows="3" cols="20"><?php echo $_item->getItemcomment() ?></textarea>
            </td>

For Older version of Magento it would be:

            <td class="a-center">
            <textarea name="cart[<?php echo $_item->getId() ?>][comments]" rows="3" cols="20"><?php echo $this->getItemItemcomment($_item) ?></textarea>
            </td>

Doing upto this. shoul show the text area added

The next step is to save the comment in DB, when customer update the cart.

So add a new field ‘itemcomment’ in the tabel ‘sales_flat_quote_item’. (For older version of Magento the table would be ‘sales_quote_item’)

Now we are going to add the code which will do the DB operation. For this we will need to modify the file:
app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/Model/Cart.php (Note: If you are planning to upgrade your Magento setup, copy this file to local & modify.)

Here we need to add some code to the function updateItems(), such a way that the function should now look like below:

    public function updateItems($data)
    {
        Mage::dispatchEvent('checkout_cart_update_items_before', array('cart'=>$this, 'info'=>$data));

        foreach ($data as $itemId => $itemInfo) {

            $item = $this->getQuote()->getItemById($itemId);
            if (!$item) {
                continue;
            }

            if (!empty($itemInfo['remove']) || (isset($itemInfo['qty']) && $itemInfo['qty']=='0')) {
                $this->removeItem($itemId);
                continue;
            }

            $qty = isset($itemInfo['qty']) ? (float) $itemInfo['qty'] : false;
            if ($qty > 0) {
                $item->setQty($qty);
            }

        /* Start: Custom code added for comments */
        if(!empty($itemInfo['comments'])) {

        	$write = Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getConnection('core_write');

        	# make the frame_queue active
      		$query = "UPDATE `sales_flat_quote_item` SET itemcomment = '".$itemInfo['comments']."' where item_id = $itemId";
			$write->query($query);

        	$item->setItemcomment($itemInfo['comments']);
        }
        /* End: Custom code added for comments */

        }

        Mage::dispatchEvent('checkout_cart_update_items_after', array('cart'=>$this, 'info'=>$data));
        return $this;
    }

Showing the comment in Admin -> View Order

Add a new function getItemcomment() to the file below:
app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Sales/Order/View/Items.php

If you are on verstion 1.5 or later.. add it to the file below.
app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Sales/Order/View/Items.php

	public function getItemcomment($item) {
		$itemId = $item->getId();

		$write = Mage::getSingleton('core/resource')->getConnection('core_write');

    	$query = "SELECT q.* FROM `sales_flat_order_item` o
	    LEFT JOIN `sales_flat_quote_item` q on o.quote_item_id = q.item_id
	    WHERE o.item_id = $itemId";

		# For older versions of Magento
/*	    $query = "SELECT q.* FROM `sales_order_entity_int` o
	    LEFT JOIN `sales_flat_quote_item` q on o.value = q.entity_id
	    WHERE o.entity_id = $itemId AND o.attribute_id = 343";       */	    

		$res = $write->query($query);

		while ($row = $res->fetch() ) {
			if(key_exists('itemcomment',$row)) {
				echo nl2br($row['itemcomment']);
			}
		}
	}    

To add the comments column to the items edit the .phtml file below:
app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/sales/order/view/items.phtml

Adding header for items to make it look like below:

.
.
<tr class="headings">
    <th><?php echo $this->helper('sales')->__('Product') ?></th>
    <th><?php echo $this->helper('sales')->__('Comments') ?></th>
    <th><?php echo $this->helper('sales')->__('Item Status') ?></th>
.
.
.

Adding Column with comments. app/design/adminhtml/default/default/template/sales/order/view/items/renderer/default.phtml
Add a column for item comments juts before status columns to make it look a like below.

.
.
<td><?php echo $this->getItemcomment($_item) ?></td> <!-- New column added for item comments -->
<td class="a-center"><?php echo $_item->getStatus() ?></td>
.
.

Doing upto this will show the comments column in the item table. It should look like image below.

As a solution, I replaced the version of file below from Magento 1.4.0 to Magento 1.4.1

js/prototype/validation.js

Also disabled the Centinel Validation by commenting the line below in file : app/code/core/Mage/Payment/Model/Method/Cc.php

this->getCentinelValidator()->validate($this->getCentinelValidationData());

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 120 seconds exceeded in...

To fix it, open your php.ini and replace the value for ‘max_execution_time’ and ‘max_input_time’ as per below.

max_execution_time = 3600
max_input_time = 3600

In case you want different CSS body class for different module pages on frontend, what you need to do is to find the syntax: $this->loadLayout(); in module controller files and add some new lines just below it.

Example:
I want to set the ‘my-profile’ class to all the customer pages on frontend. So I opened the AccountController.php & edited the function indexAction(). Just below the ‘$this->loadLayout();’ I added few lines. So it will look as below.

        $this->loadLayout();

	    if ($root = $this->getLayout()->getBlock('root')) {
	            $root->addBodyClass('my-profile');
	    }

However above code needed to be altered in the core code. So better to follow the below.

To update it via layout XML,

 my-profile

This will affect in the <body> tag.

<body <?php echo $this->getBodyClass()?'class="'.$this->getBodyClass().'"':'' ?>>

Well, that can be needed specially for a Home page. One of my friend faced many issues in managing the Home page with existing layout. As a result, he needed to write other codes as well to maintain the concurrency between other pages. If we do change in current layout, it would affect the other pages as well using the same layout.

So better way it to create a new layout.
[The steps below are updated to make it work with Magento 1.4 as well]

Steps:

1. Open the file: app/etc/modules/Mage_All.xml
Edit the <codePool > tag to ‘local’ such that it looks like:

          true
          local
          
                  
           

2. Copy config.xml
from app/code/core/Mage/Page/etc/config.xml
to app/code/local/Mage/Page/etc/config.xml

3. The file can be edited: app/code/local/Mage/Page/etc/config.xml
Add new lines between <layout> .. </layout> along with other layouts.

		
.
.
		
			Home
			
			page_home
		
.
.
		

2. Create new file : template/page/home.phtml along with 1column.phtml, 2columns-left.phtml etc.. You can just copy the existing code of one of the column layout phtml inside the home.phtml. Modify the code inside home.phtml as per your need.

3. On the Admin, Go To CMS -> Manage Pages. Edit the home page. Change the Layout to ‘Home’ under the ‘Design’ Tab.

This will apply the home.phtml to Home page.

The data on the cart page is coming from the table ‘sales_flat_quote_item’. This table is having lot many fields. Some of them are product_id, name, description, qty, price. Those are the fields which basically reflects on the cart page.

My task was to display the custom image, custom price, custom description in the row of a product on the cart page.

So first of all we need to insert those values in the DB, while adding the product to the cart.

The phase of adding the product to cart is bit complicated to understand.

These are list of some functions involved in Add to cart phase.

app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/controllers/CartController.php: addAction()
app/code/core/Mage/Checkout/Model/Cart.php: addProduct($product, $info)
app/code/core/Mage/Sales/Model/Quote.php: addProduct(Mage_Catalog_Model_Product $product, $request=null)

In the above function, you can set the custom values for the product.

Find the for loop:
foreach ($cartCandidates as $candidate) { … }
Inside that custom fields can be set.

foreach ($cartCandidates as $candidate) {
            $item = $this->_addCatalogProduct($candidate, $candidate->getCartQty());
            ...
            ...
            ...
            $item->setCustomPrice('custom value goes here');
            $item->setCustomImage('custom value goes here');
            ...
            ...
}

I want the custom image as well. So I have added the one more field in the table ‘sales_flat_quote_item’.

Getting those custom values on the cart page is very easy. Go to template/checkout/cart/item/default.phtml.
The below lines can get those values.

echo $_item->getCustomImage();

The price on the cart page will replaced automatically by custom_price value if that has been set.

After taking help from some forums & all I was able to generate a new Report the way I wanted.

I was looking to generate the Report for the Products sold along with the name of the Artist to whom the product belongs to.

These are the steps to be followed / I followed.

1. The title of the report is: ‘Artist Sold Works’. To add the new item under the Reports -> Products.

Open the ‘app/code/code/Mage/Reports/etc/config.xml’

Add the followind code in the ‘children of ‘products’ (near line 221).

	<title>Artist Sold Works</title>
	adminhtml/report_product/artistsold

Add the followind code in the of

(near line 370).

		<title>Artists Sold Works</title>

2. Copy files

app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Report/Product/Sold.php to app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Report/Product/Artistsold.php.

3. Copy directories

app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Report/Product/Sold to

app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Report/Product/Artistsold

app/code/core/Mage/Reports/Model/Mysql4/Product/Sold to

app/code/core/Mage/Reports/Model/Mysql4/Product/Artistsold

4. In the file Artistsold.php, change the class name from

Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Report_Product_Sold to Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Report_Product_Artistsold.

Change the lines

        $this->_controller = 'report_product_sold';
        $this->_headerText = Mage::helper('reports')->__('Products Ordered');

to

        $this->_controller = 'report_product_artistsold';
        $this->_headerText = Mage::helper('reports')->__('Artist Sold Works');

5. Add/Modify the columns in the

app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Block/Report/Product/Artistsold/Grid.php

Here in my case:

        $this->addColumn('artistId', array(
            'header'    =>Mage::helper('reports')->__('Artist'),
            'width'     =>'120px',
            'index'     =>'artistname',
        ));		

        $this->addColumn('sale_percentage', array(
            'header'    =>Mage::helper('reports')->__('Artist Share'),
            'width'     =>'60px',
            'index'     =>'sale_percentage',
            'align'     =>'right'
        ));

        $this->addColumn('base_price_total', array(
            'header'    =>Mage::helper('reports')->__('Total Product Base Price ($)'),
            'width'     =>'60px',
            'index'     =>'base_price_total',
            'align'     =>'right',
            'total'     =>'sum',
            'type'      =>'number'

        ));

        $this->addColumn('artist_earned', array(
            'header'    =>Mage::helper('reports')->__('Artist Earned ($)'),
            'width'     =>'60px',
            'index'     =>'artist_earned',
            'align'     =>'right',
            'total'     =>'sum',
            'type'      =>'number'
        ));

6. Add new functions to

app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/controllers/Report/ProductController.php

    public function artistsoldAction()
    {
        $this->_initAction()
            ->_setActiveMenu('report/product/artistsold')
            ->_addBreadcrumb(Mage::helper('reports')->__('Artists Sold Works'), Mage::helper('reports')->__('Artists Sold Works'))
            ->_addContent($this->getLayout()->createBlock('adminhtml/report_product_artistsold'))
            ->renderLayout();
    }

7. Open the file

app/code/core/Mage/Reports/Model/Mysql4/Product/Artistsold/Collection.php.

Rename the class name from

Mage_Reports_Model_Mysql4_Product_Sold_Collection to

Mage_Reports_Model_Mysql4_Product_Artistsold_Collection

Customize the function setDateRange() in the as per your need.

Here in my case:

    public function setDateRange($frmdate, $todate)
    {
        $this->_reset()
            ->addAttributeToSelect('*')
            ->addOrderedQtyForArtistSold($frmdate,$todate);
		return $this;
    }

8. To get the new fields, to alter the sql query I copied the function addOrderedQty() to addOrderedQtyForArtistSold() in the file

app/code/core/Mage/Reports/Model/Mysql4/Product/Collection.php

And I did changes in the functions as per my need to get the extra columns.

Here in my case:

	public function addOrderedQtyForArtistSold($frm = '', $to = '')
    {
		if(key_exists('report',$_SESSION)) {
    		$artistId = $_SESSION['report']['artistid'];
		}
		else {
			$artistId ='';
		}

        $qtyOrderedTableName = $this->getTable('sales/order_item');
        $qtyOrderedFieldName = 'qty_ordered';

        $productIdTableName = $this->getTable('sales/order_item');
        $productIdFieldName = 'product_id';

		$productEntityIntTable = (string)Mage::getConfig()->getTablePrefix() . 'catalog_product_entity_varchar';
		$adminUserTable = $this->getTable('admin_user');
		$artistsTable = $this->getTable('appartists');
		$eavAttributeTable = $this->getTable('eav/attribute');

        $compositeTypeIds = Mage::getSingleton('catalog/product_type')->getCompositeTypes();

        # This was added by Dev1 to get the configurable items in the list & not to get the simple products
        $compositeTypeIds = Array (
						    '0' => 'grouped',
						    '1' => 'simple',
						    '2' => 'bundle'
							);

        $productTypes = $this->getConnection()->quoteInto(' AND (e.type_id NOT IN (?))', $compositeTypeIds);

        if ($frm != '' && $to != '') {
            $dateFilter = " AND `order`.created_at BETWEEN '{$frm}' AND '{$to}'";
        } else {
            $dateFilter = "";
        }

        $this->getSelect()->reset()->from(
           array('order_items' => $qtyOrderedTableName),
           array('ordered_qty' => "SUM(order_items.{$qtyOrderedFieldName})",'base_price_total' => "SUM(order_items.price)")
        );

        $order = Mage::getResourceSingleton('sales/order');

        $stateAttr = $order->getAttribute('state');
        if ($stateAttr->getBackend()->isStatic()) {

            $_joinCondition = $this->getConnection()->quoteInto(
                'order.entity_id = order_items.order_id AND order.state<>?', Mage_Sales_Model_Order::STATE_CANCELED
            );
            $_joinCondition .= $dateFilter;

            $this->getSelect()->joinInner(
                array('order' => $this->getTable('sales/order')),
                $_joinCondition,
                array()
            );
        } else {

            $_joinCondition = 'order.entity_id = order_state.entity_id';
            $_joinCondition .= $this->getConnection()->quoteInto(' AND order_state.attribute_id=? ', $stateAttr->getId());
            $_joinCondition .= $this->getConnection()->quoteInto(' AND order_state.value<>? ', Mage_Sales_Model_Order::STATE_CANCELED);

            $this->getSelect()
                ->joinInner(
                    array('order' => $this->getTable('sales/order')),
                    'order.entity_id = order_items.order_id' . $dateFilter,
                    array())
                ->joinInner(
                    array('order_state' => $stateAttr->getBackend()->getTable()),
                    $_joinCondition,
                    array());
        }

        $this->getSelect()
            ->joinInner(array('e' => $this->getProductEntityTableName()),
                "e.entity_id = order_items.{$productIdFieldName}")
             ->group('e.entity_id')
            ->having('ordered_qty > 0');

        $artistIdConcat = $artistId != '' ? " AND artistId=$artistId" : "";

        $this->getSelect()
            ->joinInner(
                array('pei' => $productEntityIntTable),
                "e.entity_id = pei.entity_id",
                array())
            ->joinInner(
                array('ea' => $eavAttributeTable),
                "pei.attribute_id=ea.attribute_id AND ea.attribute_code='artistid'",
                array())
            ->joinInner(
                array('au' => $adminUserTable),
                "au.user_id=pei.value",
                array("artistname" => "CONCAT(firstname, ' ',lastname)"))
            ->joinInner(
                array('ar' => $artistsTable),
                "ar.artistId=au.user_id".$artistIdConcat,
                array("sale_percentage" => "CONCAT(sale_percentage,'%')","artist_earned" => "((SUM(order_items.price)) * (sale_percentage)) / 100"));

        return $this;
    }

The biggest problem was, one page checkout page was getting infinite redirection loops. So it was not opening anyhow.

The solution was in Magento Admin only:

System -> Configuration -> Web.
Disable everything under the ‘Session Validation Settings’ box.

You just need to fill the values in ‘Quick simple product creation’ box & press ‘Quick create’ button.

However, if you want to create big amount of simple products, its painful to fill the form every time.

In my case, I had to create simple product for the T-shirt. I have to choose the Style from the drop down, then color from the drop down & the size from the drop down. There were about 280 combinations. So I had to create 280 simple products.

Then I decided to create a script which can make the process of creating simple products very fast.

I took the inner HTML of ‘Quick simple product creation’ box, did some modifications.

Quick simple product creation










Name *


 Autogenerate
[STORE VIEW]
 


SKU *


 Autogenerate
[GLOBAL]
 


Status *


-- Please Select --
Enabled
Disabled


[WEBSITE]
 


Visibility *


-- Please Select --
Nowhere
Catalog
Search
Catalog, Search


[STORE VIEW]
 


Style *




		
Men
Hoodies
Women
Kids




Product with this combination of attributes already associated to configurable.




 


Color *




		
Black
Creme
Lemon
Pink
Baby Blue
Navy
Asphalt
Blue
Brown
Gray
Green
Magneta
Red
Silver
White




Product with this combination of attributes already associated to configurable.




 


Size *




		
X Large
X Small
XX Large
XXX Large
Small
Medium
Large




Product with this combination of attributes already associated to configurable.




 


Qty *



 


Stock Availability


In Stock
Out of Stock



 
















    Quick Create
    

 

If you want to use the above script, follow the steps below:
Set the array with the id of the size labels.

var style = new Array();
style['size'] = new Array(100,99,98,136,135,134);
style['sizename'] = new Array('small','medium','large','xl','xxl','xxxl');

Create the colors array, here the key will be the label id of the attribute & the value can be anything which will used in the name of the simple product you are going to create

var colors = new Array();
colors[24] = "black";
colors[150] = "creme";
.
.
.

.

Example:

I want to create simple product having the attributes as per below:
Style: Men
Color: Black
Size: Small

So I can set the colorkey with value 24 (on line 44).

colorkey = 24;

Set the style on line 48.

frmObj.elements['simple_product[style]'].value = 125;

Save the file & run it in browser. You will see the screen as below.

Press the Quick create button. This will submit the form to your host. Make sure that you are logged in as Admin in your Magento setup.

In this case the form will submitted six times, each time with different value of shirt size. As a result six products will be inserted with Black color, in Man style with size different sizes.

The mechanism above is bit tricky & awkward. Let me know your doubts in comments.

I used this in the module which I created with Module Creator.
I supposed to show the uploaded image on the edit form on Admin. The images are uploaded by the user from the front end.

For displaying the thumbnail, by default there is no way in Magento.
So I created a new class ‘Varien_Data_Form_Element_Thumbnail’ & named it Thumbnail.php.

class Varien_Data_Form_Element_Thumbnail extends Varien_Data_Form_Element_Abstract
{
    public function __construct($data)
    {
        parent::__construct($data);
        $this->setType('file');
    }

    public function getElementHtml()
    {
        $html = '';

        if ($this->getValue()) {
            $url = $this->_getUrl();

            if( !preg_match("/^http\:\/\/|https\:\/\//", $url) ) {
                $url = Mage::getBaseUrl('media') . $url;
            }

            $html = ' ';
        }
        $this->setClass('input-file');
        $html.= parent::getElementHtml();

        return $html;
    }

    protected function _getUrl()
    {
        return $this->getValue();
    }

    public function getName()
    {
        return  $this->getData('name');
    }
}

Copy the file at ‘/lib/Varien/Data/Form/Element/’.

To Display the thumbnail, inside the function _prepareForm() write the code below. (In my case I edited the file.. ‘app/code/local/Mage/Modulename/Block/Adminhtml/Modulename/Edit/Tab/Form.php’. This module was created with Module Creator)

$form = new Varien_Data_Form();
      $this->setForm($form);
      $fieldset = $form->addFieldset('modulename_form', array('legend'=>Mage::helper('modulename')->__('Module information')));
      $tempArray = array(
	          'label'     => Mage::helper('arequets')->__('Sample Work'),
	          'name'      => 'samplefilename',
	          'style'     => 'display:none;',
		  );
      $fieldset->addField('samplefilename', 'thumbnail',$tempArray);

Here, ‘samplefilename’ should be the path of the thumbnail.