Make use of footer_before

Question

The default RWD theme has a file named 1column.phtml in template > page. This file contains this line:

<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('footer_before') ?>

I could make perfect use of this footer_before block, so I tried this in my local.xml:

<reference name="footer_before">
    <block type="core/template" name="team" as="team" template="custom/home/team.phtml" before="-">
         <block type="cms/block" name="home-team">
              <action method="setBlockId"><block_id>home-team</block_id></action>
         </block>
    </block>
</reference>

But it doesn't work. If I use the reference 'footer', and place <?php echo $this->getChildHtml('team') ?> in footer.phtml, it does work. But I want to use this footer_before section.

Answer 1

By Default in RWD theme's page.xml files contain below code

<block type="page/html_wrapper" name="footer.before" as="footer_before" translate="label">
   <label>Page Footer</label>
   <action method="setElementClass"><value>footer-before-container</value></action>
</block>

please check if you have this code and also check If some layout has this code . if below remove code exists then also it removes footer_before section

<remove name="footer.before"/>

you cannot see this section only in above two scenario

Answer 2

The problem that I just stumbled across was that this "footer before" block does not follow Magento's naming conventions. I tried referencing it by "footer_before" which did not work, I had to use "footer.before" according to RWD's page.xml:

<reference name="footer.before">
    <block type="page/html" name="foo" after="-" template="template.phtml" />
</reference>