Get add to cart URL and image without loading product object

Question

Kind of a spinoff of this question. I'm trying to extend Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Widget_Link to make a widget template that displays the product image and an add to cart button along with the product link. Is there any way to get this info without doing Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load()?

What Have You Tried

1. The working-but-ugly way: I know I could split the product id off the id_path string supplied by the widget and use it to load the full product, like so:

   $idPath = explode('/', $this->_getData('id_path'));
   if (isset($idPath[1])) {
       $id = $idPath[1];
       if ($id) {
           $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($id);
   
           /* Use $product to get the needed info */
   
       }
   }
   

   but this means I'm fetching a big giant product object with lots of data I don't need, possibly several times per page. I'm under the impression that this is not desirable. (Am I wrong?)

2. Use getAttributeRawValue in the resource model: I have the resource model available in $this->_entityResource but I can't use getAttributeRawValue to get the add to cart URL since it's not an attribute. I can get the value of the image attribute this way but can't figure out how to use that to actually display the image. All the templates I've looked at use $this->helper('catalog/image') which eventually requires a product object. I'd like to be able to use the cache if possible so just straight-up appending it to /media/product/catalog seems like a bad idea. (Wrong?)
3. Use the getAddToCartUrl function: This also appears to require a product object as the first argument.

Is there a better way I'm not aware of?

This is on CE 1.9, if that makes a difference.

Answer 1

Case1:

Rewrite the class Mage_Catalog_Block_Widget_Link and on the rewite class add new funtoin getProductId() on

public function getProductId()
{

if($this->hasStoreId()) {
            $store = Mage::app()->getStore($this->getStoreId());
        } else {
            $store = Mage::app()->getStore();
        }

    if ($this->getData('id_path')) {
            /* @var $urlRewriteResource Mage_Core_Model_Mysql4_Url_Rewrite */
            $urlRewriteResource = Mage::getResourceSingleton('core/url_rewrite');
            $pID = $urlRewriteResource->getProductPathByIdPath($this->getData('id_path'), $store);
    return $pID; 
        }


    return null;
}

Case2:

Rewrite the class Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Url_Rewrite and on the rewrite class add new funtoin getProductPathByIdPath(),which will get product

public function getProductPathByIdPath($idPath, $store)
{
    if ($store instanceof Mage_Core_Model_Store) {
        $storeId = (int)$store->getId();
    } else {
        $storeId = (int)$store;
    }

    $select = $this->_getReadAdapter()->select();
    /** @var $select Varien_Db_Select */
    $select->from(array('main_table' => $this->getMainTable()), 'product_id')
        ->where('main_table.store_id = :store_id')
        ->where('main_table.id_path = :id_path')
     ->where('main_table.product_id IS  NOT NULL)
        ->limit(1);

    $bind = array(
        'store_id' => $storeId,
        'id_path'  => $idPath
    );

    return $this->_getReadAdapter()->fetchOne($select, $bind);
}

this function get Product Id

Case3:

Rewrite the class Mage_Checkout_Helper_Car and on the rewrite class add new funtoin getmyAddUrl().By using this you can get cart url

 public function getmyAddUrl($productId, $additional = array())
    {
        $continueUrl    = Mage::helper('core')->urlEncode($this->getCurrentUrl());
        $urlParamName   = Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action::PARAM_NAME_URL_ENCODED;

        $routeParams = array(
            $urlParamName   => $continueUrl,
            'product'       => $productId
        );

        if (!empty($additional)) {
            $routeParams = array_merge($routeParams, $additional);
        }


        return $this->_getUrl('checkout/cart/add', $routeParams);
    }