How to catch emails sent with PHP on your local server

Taking the idea from Martin Valasek.
I decided to make a small change like add the extension "*.eml" for opening faster the saved emails with thunderbird at the time they are created.
Create a folder for your outgoing mail. We will create it in under /var/log/ where all the logs are stored:

$ sudo mkdir /var/log/mail

Create file /usr/local/bin/sendmail using your favorite text editor

$ sudo nano /usr/local/bin/sendmail

Add following PHP script to this new "sendmail" file:

#!/usr/bin/php
<?php
$input = file_get_contents('php://stdin');
$timeCreated = explode(" ",microtime());
$filename = tempnam('/var/log/mail',$timeCreated[1].'_'.$timeCreated[0].'_');
file_put_contents($filename.'.eml', $input);
unlink($filename);
shell_exec('thunderbird '.$filename.'.eml > /dev/null 2>/dev/null &');

 We need to link our PHP script to PHP's sendmail functionality. Edit your "php.ini" file and set the sendmail_path setting as following:

sendmail_path = /usr/local/bin/sendmail

In Ubuntu the "php.ini" is located for Apache

/etc/php5/apache2

and for Cli

/etc/php5/cli

Now we need to set permissions for new files/folders:

$ sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/sendmail
$ sudo chmod 777 /var/log/mail

Restart apache:

$ sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart

You can now try to send an email using PHP's mail() function and check the /var/log/mail folder.
And the email will open automatically with Thunderbird when they are created.

Another way to get all stores names with their id in Magento

/**
 * Return all the stores
 * 
 * @author abelbm
 * @return array
 */
function getAllStores(){
    $stores = array();
    
    $storesData = Mage::getSingleton('adminhtml/system_store')->getStoreValuesForForm(); 
    foreach ($storesData as $storeGrandParent)
        foreach ($storeGrandParent as $storeParent)
            if(is_array($storeParent) && !empty($storeParent)){
                foreach ($storeParent as $store)
                    $stores[$store['value']] = strip_tags(trim(iconv('UTF-8', 'ASCII//TRANSLIT', $store['label'])));
            }
            
    return $stores;
}

Script to refresh Cache and Index in Magento

Let's place a file in the Magento root called "maintanance.php"

$path = '/your/magento/root');
echo("Refresh the Cache \n");
$return = shell_exec("php shell/refreshCache.php");
echo $return."\n";
echo 'Refreshing Cache';
#php shell/refreshCache.php
echo("Reindexing...this could take a while  \n");
$return = shell_exec("php shell/indexer.php --reindexall");
echo $return."\n";
#php shell/indexer.php --reindexall

Create in shell folder refreshCache.php

$magePath = 'app/Mage.php';
require_once($magePath);


try {
 $allTypes = Mage::app()->useCache();
 foreach($allTypes as $type => $blah) {
  Mage::app()->getCacheInstance()->cleanType($type);
 }
} catch (Exception $e) {
 // do something
 error_log($e->getMessage());
 Mage::log($e->getMessage());
}

Update Magento 1.5 to 1.7

1. First of all prepare your environment for a big time of php execution, this can depend on the size of your database. 1.a Increase the time to your PHP

max_execution_time = 10800     ; Maximum execution time of each script, in seconds, 10800 = 3 hours
max_input_time = 10800 ; Maximum amount of time each script may spend parsing request data

1.b Increase also in your Apache

BusyTimeout 10800
ProcessLifeTime 10800
IPCConnectTimeout 20
IPCCommTimeout 10800
MaxRequestsPerProcess -1

2. Run the updates of Magento

chmod 755 mage
rm -rf var/cache/* downloader/pearlib/cache/* downloader/pearlib/download/*
./mage mage-setup .
./mage sync --force
./mage config-set preferred_state stable
./mage list-upgrades
./mage install http://connect20.magentocommerce.com/community Mage_All_Latest --force
rm -rf var/cache/* downloader/pearlib/cache/* downloader/pearlib/download/*
chmod 755 mage

2.a This step always occurs an error. This step is for re-index the tables.

php shell/indexer.php reindexall

This is the error but is normal, it will fix on the way. It only happen in the "Product Price"

Product Prices index process unknown error:
exception 'PDOException' with message 'SQLSTATE[42S22]: Column not found: 1054 Unknown column 'website_date' in 'field list'' in /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Zend/Db/Statement/Pdo.php:228
Stack trace:
#0 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Zend/Db/Statement/Pdo.php(228): PDOStatement->execute(Array)
#1 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Varien/Db/Statement/Pdo/Mysql.php(110): Zend_Db_Statement_Pdo->_execute(Array)
#2 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Zend/Db/Statement.php(300): Varien_Db_Statement_Pdo_Mysql->_execute(Array)
#3 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Zend/Db/Adapter/Abstract.php(479): Zend_Db_Statement->execute(Array)
#4 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Zend/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Abstract.php(238): Zend_Db_Adapter_Abstract->query('INSERT INTO `ca...', Array)
#5 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Varien/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Mysql.php(419): Zend_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Abstract->query('INSERT INTO `ca...', Array)
#6 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Varien/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Mysql.php(1974): Varien_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Mysql->query('INSERT INTO `ca...', Array)
#7 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/lib/Varien/Db/Adapter/Pdo/Mysql.php(1947): Varien_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Mysql->insertArray('catalog_product...', Array, Array)
#8 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Model/Resource/Product/Indexer/Price.php(599): Varien_Db_Adapter_Pdo_Mysql->insertMultiple('catalog_product...', Array)
#9 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Model/Resource/Product/Indexer/Price.php(378): Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Product_Indexer_Price->_prepareWebsiteDateTable()
#10 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/app/code/core/Mage/Index/Model/Indexer/Abstract.php(143): Mage_Catalog_Model_Resource_Product_Indexer_Price->reindexAll()
#11 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/app/code/core/Mage/Index/Model/Process.php(209): Mage_Index_Model_Indexer_Abstract->reindexAll()
#12 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/app/code/core/Mage/Index/Model/Process.php(255): Mage_Index_Model_Process->reindexAll()
#13 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/shell/indexer.php(158): Mage_Index_Model_Process->reindexEverything()
#14 /home/erjpub/documents/public_html/shell/indexer.php(198): Mage_Shell_Compiler->run()
#15 {main}

2.b Keep with the update

./mage upgrade-all --force
find . -type f -exec chmod 644 {} \;
find . -type d -exec chmod 777 {} \;
chmod 750 mage
chmod o+w var var/.htaccess app/etc
chmod -R o+w media
chmod -R 777 var/package var/locks var/report var/export downloader 

3. Update to 1.7 is succesfull, but the pager doesn't work as expected. This is because an missing function. 3.a Go to 'app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List/Toolbar.php' line 35. Look up this line

class Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List_Toolbar extends Mage_Core_Block_Template

Change it by this

class Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List_Toolbar extends Mage_Page_Block_Html_Pager

Problem with DataTable and FancyBox in Internet Explorer

Working in a project I found a strange problem when I was mixing  FancyBox with DataTable.
Here was the issue, when placing a link inside a table generated with DataTable and this link was set to be handle with FancyBox for showing a 'div' tag, in Mozilla Firefox and Chrome everything worked just fine, but in all Internet Explorer  nothing worked as expected.

So, I used a link as a gateway, when you click in a link inside the DataTable it update the value for the 'gateway' link and later just trigger FancyBox.

Try it your self!
Of course, first download DataTable and FancyBox.

Here is the HTML code:

 


   
Email
   
Name
  

 

  
 
 

Email
  
Name
 


Gateway






     


      
To:
      

 

      
Message:
      

     

Here is the JavaScript code:

This is what you should see at the end:

Adding more parameters to the GET request in the JQuery UI Autocomplete

Working with the JQuery UI Autocomplete in the remote datasource way, my problem begun when I needed to add more parameters when making the call by GET method. Lucky, I found this  page, but in that example the author was using a simple JSON structure:

[{"name":"name 1"},{"name":"name 2"}]

Here is the URL request

As you can see the parameter term is where we send our request. 

By another hand, isn't explained in the JQuery UI Autocomplete how the JSON should be return. 


Here is the structure

 -id

 -label

 -value

Example 

[{"id":"id 1","label":"label 1","value":"value 1"},{"id":"id 2","label":"label 2","value":"value 2"}]

So, knowing these details I made the little change.

$("#searchBox").autocomplete({ 
    source: function(req,add){
        $.getJSON("source.php?parameter1=param1&meter2=param2", req  , function(data){
            var suggestions = [];
            $.each(data,function(i,val){
                suggestions.push(val);
            });
            add(suggestions);
        });
    },
    select: function(event,ui){
        alert("The ID is "+ui.item.id+" the value is "+ui.item.value);
      },
    change: function(){
     $('#searchBox').val('');
    }
  });

Here an example with the parameter clientid added

Here is how must be the structure of the returned JSON

Taking data submited from ChronoForms in Joomla

Chronoforms is a good extension for building forms in Joomla.
There are good documentation in their site and is very easy to work with it.

But, how to interact with the data sent in the form build with Chronoforms ?

Here is an example.
Let's say that when we are sending an e-amil we want to make some changes if one variable has a value.
See in the picture

We know that for print a variable defined in Chronoforms we call it in this way 

{variable}

But for interact with it we do it in this way

$form->data['variableName']