VirtueMart Template System

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Users Guide 2
Introduction 2

Themes 2

Template Fields 3

Predefined Global Variables 3

Configuration Fields 3

Coding & PHP 4

Configuration 5

Shop Pages 6
Shop.index 7

shop.browse 9

Supplementary Template Files 10

categoryChildlist.tpl.php (../templates/common) 10

recent.tpl.php (../templates/common) 11

featuredProducts.tpl.php (../templates/common) 12

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 VirtueMart Template System
Users Guide
Introduction

This, as the title suggests, is a users guide to VirtueMartʼs template system. It is not a guide to writing html,
php or css or for Joomla templates. Hopefully, it will show which templates each shop page uses and the
relationship between template files. This should make it easier for you to locate and edit the files required
to make your shop, look the way that you want it.

Some people may be dismayed that the files are not just plain html with a few extra tags added! But, using
a few php commands and following a few simple rules, quite complex shop pages can be made. With
some items only being displayed when they are required.

Themes

Each theme is stored in itʼs own subdirectory within VirtueMart. This means you can work on a new theme
and just switch for testing. Which means that you will always have a good theme to to back to.

Themes are stored in your-site/components/com_virtuemart/themes/ (your-site is the root of your-sites

directory structure. For the majority of hosting companies, the sites are stored in public_html. So to access
the themes on your site called MyShop will be public_html/MyShop/components/com_virtuemart/
themes/...... etc).

For all these examples and explanations I shall be using the default template your-site/components/com_virtuemart/
themes/default.

The basic structure of each theme is as follows, I wonʼt go into detail about these files:

All images used by VM

All the individual templates
Stored values for theme config1
css file for the theme2
Javascript for theme3
php for use in theme4
(temp file for testing)
xml file for theme config5

1. In the admin section certain defaults for the theme can be set. These values are stored in this file.
2. This stores all the css for the frontend of the store.
3. All javascript used by the theme are stored here. This can be extended with new functions for use by the theme.
4. Any php functions that the theme requires.
5. This displays the configuration settings in the admin section for the theme.

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Within the templates are these folders:

Shop basket files

Category browse files
Checkout files, shipping, payment etc
Files that are common to many processes

As the name suggests

Templates that donʼt apply to the other folders
Flypages and all their supplemental templates

Template Fields

If you want to output the value of a variable all you need to do is add PHP brackets and echo the variable
inside:

<!-- Print out the value of a variable -->

<p>Product Name: <?php echo $product_name ?></p>

Don't forget to close the PHP brackets and always use valid PHP code. If you don't, it might break your
site.

Remember, you donʼt have to use all the available fields. It is up to you, the store owner or administrator,
as to which fields you display. Thatʼs the whole point of a template system, not just deciding where to
display your data but what data to display.

Predefined Global Variables

The following variables can be used in all of the template files without extra global declaration.

$VM_LANG

This is the global language object. It displays strings which are defined in the language file for VirtueMart.

Usage:

<?php echo $VM_LANG->_('PHPSHOP_FLYPAGE_LBL') ?>

This would print "Product Details".

$sess

Used to build (SEF-enabled) URLs that can be used in links.

Usage:

<a href="<?php echo $sess->url( $_SERVER['PHP_SELF'] .'?page=shop.product_details&amp;product_id='.

$product_id ) ?>">Details...</a>

Configuration Fields

These are the fields that are defined in the themes configuration. They are normally used to test for their
condition e.g. on or off, a list of styles etc.

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Usage:

if( $this->get_cfg( 'showFeatured', 1 )) {

//commands to execute
..
}
This checks for the configuration variable showFeatured, if set to 1 the commands are executed.

Coding & PHP

The first line of each template file must be:

<?php if( !defined( '_VALID_MOS' ) && !defined( '_JEXEC' ) ) die( 'Direct Access to '.basename(__FILE__).' is not
allowed.' );

This stops the files being accessed outside of Joomla and must be included.

To begin PHP code use <?php and to close use ?>

Each line of php must be ended with a semicolon unless it is a curly brace { or }

These braces are to define blocks of code e.g. a loop or an if statement. They must match otherwise the
page will fail and you may end up with a blank screen!

All VirtueMart code is written in an indented fashion. So each block of code and depth of the braces can be
easily seen. e.g.

<div>
<?php
foreach($something as $thing) {
//this is within the loop above
$command1 = $thing[“one”];
$command2 = $thing[“two”];
if($command 1 == $command2 ) {
//new block only executed if above is true
echo $command1.” “.$thing[“three”];
} //closes the true part of the if
else
{
echo “False”;
} // closes the else of the if
} //closes the loop
?>
</div>
as you can see comments can be added by using // and php code can be placed anyway. Itʼs just a case of
matching tags just as with html tags.

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 Configuration

This is what is generated by

theme.xml

Most of the entries are self

explanatory, but some may not make
sense to some store owners.

Use AJAX: this is a method of

loading a page without refreshing the
page. A backend process generates
the page and just redisplays it.

There are three option in the product list style dropdown. This selects one of three alternative templates
when displaying the category pages. These define the overall look of the category pages.

Style Theme Description

Product listing with a table ../templates/browse/includes/ A basic table based layout

browse_layouttable.tpl.php

Flat product list ../templates/browse/includes/ A 1 product per row, table based

browse_listtable.tpl.php category display

Product List, no table, div based ../templates/browse/includes/ A basic div based layout
browse_notables.tpl.php

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 Shop Pages

Each page in a shop uses a backend file to generate all the data for the displayed page, each page will
call classes that help generate the data.

Each of these pages will populate the templates and may set data in several templates. The pages I will
deal with here are shop.index, shop.browse, shop.product_details and shop.cart. The page is shown in the
url of the page you are working on.

e.g. http://photography.noctilucent.me.uk/index.php?
page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=1&category_id=1&option=com_virtuemart&Ite
mid=53

As you can see page=shop.product_details is the file that generates the data for the page, so in the
VirtueMart core we know which page created the page and for any hacks or mods that require
customization will be done in this file. This wonʼt be covered here, but it gives you an insight on page
creation.

I will also cover the supplementary template files that each template uses. Several of these are shared
between pages. So they will only be covered once!

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Shop.index

Shop.index is the first page of the shop, which displays a description of the shop and the top level categories.

Main files

File Path Description

shop.index.php /administrator/components/com/ Page creation file

virtuemart/html

shopindex.tpl.php ../templates/common/ Main Template file

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Supplementary Template files used

File Path Description

categoryChildlist.tpl.php ../templates/common/ Displays the sub categories

recent.tpl.php ../templates/common/ Displays the recently viewed products

featuredProducts.tpl.php ../templates/common/ Displays featured products

Available fields

Field Template

$vendor_store_desc Stored description displayed on the front page

$ps_product pointer to the ps_product class so that it can be used within the
templates.

$ps_product- This outputs the featured products using the pointer above.
>featuredProducts(true, The format is featuredProducts(random,no of products,categories)
10,false) i.e. random products - true, false, max number of products, category_id
to display, false.

$recent_products Displays the recent products template

$categories Displays the category childlist template

Notes

There is nothing special to note about this template file. But to set the default number of categories per row
edit categoryChildlist.tpl.php This will be explained the Supplementary template files.

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shop.browse

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 Supplementary Template Files
These files are not directly used to display pages, but are called by the main templates to keep a
consistent look and feel across the whole store. Many of these files will include some basic php to help
display the template. I will try to explain any significant lines to make it easier for you to customise.

categoryChildlist.tpl.php (../templates/common)

This file is used to display the sub-categories of the current category. It also checks the current categories
per row and if not set defaults it to 4. This can obviously be changed by editing the file.

For those that are not used to php, iʼll try to explain what each section does.

Line 6 $categories_per_row = 4;

This sets the default number of categories per row, changing the number obviously cahnges this.

Lines 10-12 if( empty( $categories )) {

return; // Do nothing, if there are no child categories!
}

This just checks to see if there are any sub categories, if not it just stops there and returns with an empty
category list.

Line 17 foreach( $categories as $category) {

This just sets up a loop to display each sub category.

Line 26 <a title="<?php echo $category["category_name"] ?>" href="<?php $sess-

>purl(URL."index.php?option=com_virtuemart&amp;page=shop.browse&amp;category_id=".
$category["category_id"]) ?>">

This line sets up the link from the category list to the actual category displayed.

Available Fields

Each field is referenced using $category[“field_name”]

Field Name Description

category_name Name of the current sub-category

category_id The category_id of the current sub-category

category_thumb_image The url of the sub-categoryʼs thumb image

number_of_products The total number of products in this sub-category

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recent.tpl.php (../templates/common)

This template file displays the recently viewed products, the number of which is set in the configuration
page.

Line 2 if( empty( $recent_products)) return;

This just checks to see if there are any recently viewed products, if not it just stops there and returns with
an empty list.

Line 8 foreach( $recent_products as $recent ) {

This just sets up a loop to display each recently viewed product.

Lines 9-12 foreach( $recent as $attr => $val ) {

$this->set( $attr, $val );
}

These lines assign the field name to each recent product and then the value to that field name.
It may seem a little bit alien, but there is nothing to worry about. Just remember not to delete it or the loop
above. Basically, leave well alone, it works and thatʼs all you need to know.

line 30-32 <?php

}
?>

This basically closes the loop started on line 8. So everything in between is done for each recent product.

Available Fields

Each field is referenced using $recent[“field_name”]

Field Name Description

product_name The name of the recently viewed product

category_name The category name in which the product was viewed

product_thumb_image The thumbnail image of the product

product_url The direct link to the product

category_url The direct link to the category

product_s_desc The short description of the product

Notes
The standard file just shows a list of the product name with a link then “Category” with a link to that
category. But the available fields allow more to be displayed e.g. a thumbnail which could encompass the
product name with a link to the product with the short description beside it without a link to the category.

It could also display the recent products across the page, not just in a list. It really is down to the store
owner as to how these are displayed.

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featuredProducts.tpl.php (../templates/common)

This template file displays any product which has itʼs status flagged as special (featured product). It also
determines how many featured products to show per row. This template also use another template ../
templates/browse/includes/addtocart_form.tpl.php

line 2 $featured_per_row = 2;

Does what is says, sets the number of products to display per row.

Lines 9-11 if( empty( $featured_products )) {

return; // Do nothing, if there are no Featured!
}

Returns if there are no featured products.

Line 13 foreach( $featured_products as $featured ) {

This just sets up a loop to display each featured product.

Line 16 <a title="<?php echo $featured["product_name"] ?>" href="<?php $sess-

>purl(URL."index.php?option=com_virtuemart&amp;page=shop.product_details&amp;flypage=".
$featured["flypage"]."&amp;product_id=".$featured["product_id"]) ?>">

This outputs a link to the products flypage/detail page.

Line 21 <a title="<?php echo $featured["product_name"] ?>" href="<?php $sess-

>purl(URL."index.php?option=com_virtuemart&amp;page=shop.product_details&amp;flypage=".
$featured["flypage"]."&amp;product_id=".$featured["product_id"]) ?>">

This starts to output another link to the product page

Line 22-23 <?php echo ps_product::image_tag( $featured["product_thumb"], "class=

\"browseProductImage\" border=\"0\" alt=\"".$featured["product_name"]."\"");
?></a><br /><br />

This correctly outputs the thumb image in an image tag and resizes if necessary.

Available Fields

Each field is referenced using $featured[“field_name”]

Field Name Description

product_name The name of the featured product

product_sku sku of the featured product

product_thumb The thumbnail image of the product

product_id The actual product_id of the product

product_price The calculated price, including discounts etc

product_s_desc The short description of the product

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 Field Name Description

product_url Direct link to the products flypage

product_full_image Full image of the product

flypage Flypage of the featured product

form_addtocart Created by the template file ../templates/browse/includes/

addtocart_form.tpl.php

has_addtocart Set if the product has an addtocart button

i count for the total number of featured products

product_in_stock number of products held in stock

ps_product_attribute pointer to the class ps_product_attribute.php

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