magento limiting number of returned items in product collection call

Question

Im trying to limit the number of returned results manually in a copy of the list.phtml template, but its turning out to be alot harder than I anticipated.

Ive tried man

Answer 1

A similar approach to @joseph is to override Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List but insert the following code in your new class:

const PAGE_SIZE = 3;

protected function _getProductCollection(){
    $collection = parent::_getProductCollection();
    $yourCustomBoolean = someFunctionThatDetectsYourCustomPage();
    if($yourCustomBoolean) {
        $collection->setPageSize(self::PAGE_SIZE);
    }
    return $collection;
}

that way you will inherit any future changes in the Mage_Catalog code from the parent block but still set your page limits.

Ideally you would use a system.xml node to create a field that can be edited by an administrator without hardcoding the page_size. The xml would look something like:

    
        
            
                
                    
                        Page Size for Custom Page Type
                        text
                        9999
                        1
                        1
                        1
                    
                
            
        
    

Then retrieve that value in your code with:

$page_size = Mage::getStoreConfig('catalog/frontend/custom_page_size');

HTH,
JD