Specific view page for products (product info) from specific category in Magento 1.9

Question

We devided all the products into two categories:

• "Main products"
• "Accessories"

All listed products from the category "Main products" are opened with our custom template: catalog/product/view_main_producs.phtml

Here it comes the tricky part :)

All products from the category "Accessories" needs to be opened with different custom template catalog/product/view_accessories.phtml, because the products from this category have different attributes.

In some way we managed (partly) to acchive this with the following lines of code:

<reference name="product.info">
<action method="setTemplate"> <template>catalog/product/view_accessories.phtml</template></action>
</reference>

We inserted the above code into "Accessories" category Custom Design -> Custom Layout Update

With the above code we managed to open products from category "Accessories" into on our custom view_accessories.phtml template!

Here is what is the problem. Above code only works if a person came to our web site through the links on our web site.

Now we have two issues:

1. If person come to our web site and search for accessories products (search toolbar), the product will not be opened in view_accessories.phtml template!
2. If person click on the products while searching for it on google, bing (SEO search), the product will not be opend in "view_accessories.phtml"!

Our question is: how to achieve for all products from "accessories" category to be opened in "view_acccessories.phtml" - no matter how come the person access the link?

Thanks in advenced :)

Answer 1

Try following way:

app/etc/modules/SR_MagentoCommunity.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
    <modules>
        <SR_MagentoCommunity>
            <active>true</active>
            <codePool>local</codePool>
        </SR_MagentoCommunity>
    </modules>
</config>

app/code/local/SR/MagentoCommunity/etc/config.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
    <modules>
        <SR_MagentoCommunity>
            <version>0.0.0.1</version>
        </SR_MagentoCommunity>
    </modules>
    <global>
        <models>
            <sr_magentocommunity>
                <class>SR_MagentoCommunity_Model</class>
            </sr_magentocommunity>
        </models>
    </global>
    <frontend>
        <events>
            <controller_action_layout_render_before_catalog_product_view>
                <observers>
                    <sr_magentocommunity_controller_action_layout_render_before_catalog_product_view>
                        <type>singleton</type>
                        <class>sr_magentocommunity/observer</class>
                        <method>controllerActionLayoutRenderBeforeCatalogProductView</method>
                    </sr_magentocommunity_controller_action_layout_render_before_catalog_product_view>
                </observers>
            </controller_action_layout_render_before_catalog_product_view>
        </events>
    </frontend>
</config>

app/code/local/SR/MagentoCommunity/Model/Observer.php

<?php

class SR_MagentoCommunity_Model_Observer
{

    public function controllerActionLayoutRenderBeforeCatalogProductView(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
    {
        $layout = Mage::getSingleton('core/layout');
        $request = Mage::app()->getRequest();
        $productId  = (int) $request->getParam('id');
        /** @var Mage_Catalog_Model_Product $product */
        $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')
            ->setStoreId(Mage::app()->getStore()->getId())
            ->load($productId);
        $categoryIds = $product->getCategoryIds();
        // suppose 14 is your category id
        if (in_array(14, $categoryIds)) {
            $layout->getBlock('product.info')->setTemplate('catalog/product/view_accessories.phtml');
        }
    }
}