How to get Magento Invoice & shipment comment visible on frontend through SOAP API?

Question

I am writing a custom order handling script for magento CE. If a new order is picked up by the script through cron it should create an invoice and notify the user and send a comment. I use the SOAP api for this purpose. This works when sending an email, but how can I make the comment visible to the user on the frontend? If I manually login to Magento admin, I can add a comment to an order and then check Visible on Frontend. I would like the comments I add with sales_order_invoice.create and sales_order_shipment.create to be visible to the customer in the Frontend the same way. I know that is not possible with default settings in the backend, but I would like to do that. If this is really hard to do, I would at least like the comments added with sales_order.addComment to be visible to the customer on the frontend just as when I manually comment and check Visible on Frontend.

Here is my code for the SOAP proxy:

class magentoProxyHandler{

    protected $proxy;
    protected $session;

    function __construct(){

        $this->proxy = new SoapClient('http://www.magento.nl/index.php/api/soap/?wsdl');
        $this->session = $this->proxy->login('change_order', 'password');
    }

    function __destruct(){

        $this->proxy->endSession($this->session);

    }

    function addComment($orderId, $status, $comment = '', $notifyCustomer = true){

        $orderId = ($orderId > 100000000 ? $orderId : $orderId + 100000000);
        $notify = $notifyCustomer ? true : false;

        $changeOrder = array('orderIncrementId' => $orderId, 'status' => $status, 'comment'=> $comment, 'notify'=> $notify);

        return $this->proxy->call($this->session, 'sales_order.addComment', $changeOrder);

    }


    function createInvoice($orderId, $status, $comment = 'Invoice ready', $notifyCustomer = true){

        $orderId = ($orderId > 100000000 ? $orderId : $orderId + 100000000);
        $notify = $notifyCustomer ? true : false;
        return $this->proxy->call($this->session, 'sales_order_invoice.create', array($orderId, array(), $comment, true, true));

    }

    function shipOrder($orderId, $status, $comment = 'Order shipped', $notifyCustomer = true){

        $orderId = ($orderId > 100000000 ? $orderId : $orderId + 100000000);
        $notify = $notifyCustomer ? true : false;
        return $this->proxy->call($this->session, 'sales_order_shipment.create', array($orderId, array(), $comment, true, true));

    }


} //end of class

I know I can do some little improvements to this code, this was simply for testing the the soap API.

I also asked this question in stackoverflow. I hope thats OK. If It get answered there, I'll post the answer here. Hope you guys can help me. Thanks in advance.

Edit: Ok , I found out this flag has to be set in database: is_visible_on_front . Is there anyway to pass this through the SOAP api? Of course I tried adding it to the call, as well as isVisibleOnFront but it doesn't work...

Answer 1

OK I found out how to do it, had to change a little code:

1. I coppied /app/code/core/Mage/Sales/Model/Order/Api.php to /app/code/local/Mage/Sales/Model/Order/Api.php

2. I changed the method addComment:

   public function addComment($orderIncrementId, $status, $comment = '', $notify = false, $showOnFront = true)
   {
       $order = $this->_initOrder($orderIncrementId);
   
       $historyItem = $order->addStatusHistoryComment($comment, $status);
       $historyItem->setIsVisibleOnFront($showOnFront);
       $historyItem->setIsCustomerNotified($notify)->save();
   
   
       try {
           if ($notify && $comment) {
               $oldStore = Mage::getDesign()->getStore();
               $oldArea = Mage::getDesign()->getArea();
               Mage::getDesign()->setStore($order->getStoreId());
               Mage::getDesign()->setArea('frontend');
           }
   
           $order->save();
           $order->sendOrderUpdateEmail($notify, $comment);
           if ($notify && $comment) {
               Mage::getDesign()->setStore($oldStore);
               Mage::getDesign()->setArea($oldArea);
           }
   
       } catch (Mage_Core_Exception $e) {
           $this->_fault('status_not_changed', $e->getMessage());
       }
   
       return true;
   }
   

3. And then in my class:

   function addComment($orderId, $status, $comment = '', $notifyCustomer = true, $showOnFront = true){
   
       $orderId = ($orderId > 100000000 ? $orderId : $orderId + 100000000);
       $notify = $notifyCustomer ? true : false;
   
       $changeOrder = array('orderIncrementId' => $orderId, 'status' => $status, 'comment'=> $comment, 'notify'=> $notify, 'showOnFront' =>  $showOnFront);
   
       return $this->proxy->call($this->session, 'sales_order.addComment', $changeOrder);
   
   }
   

Works like a charm! From what I've seen I can do the same thing in the shipment and invoice api files.