Magento limit the number of products shown with in the new products block

Question

How to limit the number of products shown with in the new products block? via cms/pages/design/Layout update XML

Answer 1

Try

 <action method="setProductsCount"><count>5</count></action>

See /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/New.php

/**
 * Set how much product should be displayed at once.
 *
 * @param $count
 * @return Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_New
 */
public function setProductsCount($count)
{
    $this->_productsCount = $count;
    return $this;
}

Read more @ http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/248/display_products_on_home_page

Answer 2

Don't try it randomly. You're trying to call an action on a block/product_new. So go into the class Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract and see what function could do the job (double Ctrl+O in eclipse)

Here i see a Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract::addColumnCountLayoutDepend($pageLayout, $columnCount) function.

Maybe it can help you. Example:

$this->addColumnCountLayoutDepend('one_column', 5)