Block in reference root not loaded but loaded in reference header

Question

Magento CE 1.9.4.5

I created a module and successfully had it loaded. The xml is below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<layout>
    <default>
        <reference name="header">
            <block type="core/template" name="mymodule.topbar" template="topbar/content.phtml"/>
        </reference>
    </default>
</layout>

As you can see, the content is the reference name="header" in topbar/content.phtml is loaded by calling $this->getChildHtml('mymodule.topbar') in header.phtml.

I wonder if I still need to load the topbar even when header is not used, so changed the xml to:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<layout>
    <default>
        <reference name="root">
            <block type="core/template" name="mymodule.topbar" template="page/html/topbar.phtml"/>
        </reference>
    </default>
</layout>

I copied the content.phml file to app/design/frontend/mymodule/mytheme/template/page/html and renamed it to topbar.phtml. It suddenly doesn't load anymore and I can't see anything wrong.

Any one please give me some advice. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Did you update your page layouts to now call that block?

You’ve moved the block out of the “header” template’s scope. This means your block is no longer a child of header. So the old call to getChildHtml will be empty because your block isn’t a child of “header” in the layout XML. You need to now update the root templates to call your block.