EAV ： Entity – Attribute – Value 的缩写，是数据库模型的一种，使用eav建模的好处是可以动态为数据模型增加或移除属性。

1. 问题提出:

假设需要定义一个实体Customer的信息，通常我们只要定义一个表为customer，并定义相应的属性即可。倘若某天需要为customer增加一个新的属性如“毕业学校”，那么就需要更改表的结构。 如果使用EAV模型则不必改变表结构。

2. Magento的EAV模型定义:

在Magento中，EAV模型相关的表定义有：

eav_attribute eav_attribute_group eav_attribute_option eav_attribute_option_value eav_attribute_set eav_entity eav_entity_attribute eav_entity_datetime eav_entity_decimal eav_entity_int eav_entity_store eav_entity_text eav_entity_type eav_entity_varchar

现在让我来观察最重要的三张表 eav_entity_type，eav_entity_attribute，eav_attribute

1) eav_entity_type表用来定义实体的基本信息。

mysql> select * from eav_entity_type where entity_type_id=1; +—————-+——————+——————-+—————–+—————–+ | entity_type_id | entity_type_code | entity_model . . . → Read More: Magento的EAV模型解析 动态自定义属性

magento 在09年的最后一天发布了社区1.4版的rc1版本，继12月8日之后发布的magento beta后发布的magento rc1，相信离magento正式版发布的日子不远了。

Improvements Numerous HTML/CSS, accessibility and SEO improvements in design themes, including: – reviewed and fixed some obsolete differences between design themes – col-main moved before sidebar columns – numerous widgets CSS improvements – Added missing logo for print pages for French and German skins Added ability to define arbitrary . . . → Read More: magento 1.4 RC1 发布

There are two unused product list blocks in Magento which can be very useful if you push a few buttons, edit few layouts ..

1. Promotion Block located in app\code\core\Mage\Catalog\Block\Product\List\Promotion.php

This is basically built in featured product functionality. It reacts to “promotion” attribute which needs to be created, so let’s click Catalog->Attributes->Manage Attributes->Create New . . . → Read More: Display Random & Promotion Products in Magento

Recently, I just finished coding out a website for a client in Magento. You can view the site at www.3graces.com, it was a full switch from some old legacy asp shopping cart to Magento. Im really happy with the way things turned out and the client is too, Magento just has so many wonderful features built-in.

One feature that I found wasn’t built in was a way to display each sub-category with an image, and its name on a landing page. Magento has a nice feature which allows you to assign an image to a category, but doesnt give you a way to make that show up in a listing somewhere.

I setup 6 main categories, with each having multiple sub-categories and I wanted to have a way to show all those sub-categories to the user on a nice page that was pleasing to the eye. Here is an example: Payot Paris by Category.

To achieve this layout, I created a block called sub_navigation.html and placed it in the following directory: app/design/frontend/3graces/default/template/catalog/navigaton/sub_navigation.html
Continue reading Custom Category Images Listing Block Tutorial