quafzi / Magento-Productvisibility

Is a specific product visible in Magento or not? Why? This module will show the answer.

Contents

• 1   Intention
• 2   Features
• 3   Installation
• 4   Issues
• 5   Extensibility

1   Intention

It is a common case: You create a product in the backend of Magento and want it to be shown in the shop. But in a little bit of hurry you miss to set a property which prevents its visibility.

That's why this module exists. Its intention is to show you, which properties could be responsible for hiding the product. It is ready to handle multiple stores and so it gives you the chance to determine in which store the product should be visible.

You'll find the output of this module as a new tab of the product edit page in the backend of Magento.

Quafzi_Productvisibility has not a finished state, so much work has to be done to improve it.

2   Features

We provide a set of default checkpoints which include

• if product is enabled
• if product is visible in catalog
• if product has a website
• if product has a category
• if product is in stock
• if product is up to date in price index
• if product is up to date in stock index

For configurable products a warning will be shown additionally, if its simple products are visible individually.

If a checkpoint fails, there will be a howto which gives you a hint. For some checkpoints there will be also a description where to find the product in the shop (categories, websites).

These checkpoints are exclusively visible after you selected a store view. Otherwise there will appear a list of store views with the information where the product should be visible.

3   Installation

To install this extension, you should use modman:

modman clone https://github.com/quafzi/Magento-Productvisibility.git

4   Issues

There are many possibilities to improve this module. So for example we don't explicitly handle

• bundle products
• grouped products

Also some magento features are not handled, that could have influences on product visibility, for example:

• flat catalog
• catalog events (enterprise feature)
• catalog permissions (enterprise feature)
• customer segments (enterprise feature)
• some indexes (search, ...)
• compiler
• find modules catching events catalog_product_is_salable_before and catalog_product_is_salable_after

In the past, we did not need these features to be handled by this module, that's just why we did not already implement this. You could either implement it on your own (and send us your solution) or just be patient and hope we do it betimes.

5   Extensibility

There are many modules available for Magento and some of them are able to hide products. We can't know them all and that's why this module is extensible. If you want to add a new checkpoint, just catch the event like this:

<config>
    <adminhtml>
        <events>
            <quafzi_product_visibility_checkpoints_load>
                <observers>
                    <my_module>
                        <type>singleton</type>
                        <class>my_module/observer</class>
                        <method>addCheckpoint</method>
                    </my_module>
                </observers>
            </quafzi_product_visibility_checkpoints_load>
        </events>
    </adminhtml>
</config>

Now you can add a new checkpoint in the observer:

/**
 * add checkpoint for My_Module
 *
 * @param Varien_Event_Observer $observer Observer
 *
 * @return void
 */
public function addCheckpoint(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
{
    /**
     * @var Quafzi_Productvisibility_Block_Adminhtml_Catalog_Product_Edit_Tab_Visibility
     */
    $block = $observer->getEvent()->getVisibilityBlock();
    $block->addCheckpoint(
        Mage::helper('productvisibility')->createCheckpoint(
            /* name of the checkpoint */
            'My Module allows product to be shown',

            /* if product is visible */
            Mage::helper('my_module')->isProductVisible($block->getProduct()),

            /* how to change visibility */
            Mage::helper('productvisibility')
                ->__('...'),

            /* optional: details of visibility */
            Mage::helper('productvisibility')
                ->__('...'),

            /* optional: dependencies */
            array('is in stock')
        )
    );

The third parameter of the method createCheckpoint() defines, if the product is visible according to this checkpoint. The following return values are supported:

• true means that the product is visible
• false means that the product is not visible
• null (which creates a warning message)

Modules can also rewrite existing checkpoints. To do so, you must only use the name of the existing checkpoint.