How to get Product url and show in detail page even it is non visibility mode?

Question

By default Magento does not allow the product which has 'not visibility in frontend' mode to avoid showing the product in listing and detail page. When user hit the previously loaded url, it redirects to 404 since it is not visibility in front end mode. I am in situation to load this product in its detail page only.(catalog_product_view).

I am extending Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_View to check. I am stuck now on how to get url and view page for non visibility product. kindly advice

Answer 1

Don't make it too complicated, you should not need to rewrite any core files. If I understand your issue correct, you need to make the products "Visible in Catalog" but do not assign them to any category.

Answer 2

Disclaimer : I don't understand why do you need this ? But I will give you some hint to sort out the issue.

For catalog product view page, product visibility checking is actually takes place in a helper class. Most specifically it happens in Mage_Catalog_Helper_Product. Take look on the initProduct method there. You can see that it checks for product's visibility as like this.

if (!$this->canShow($product)) {
    return false;
}

If you further investigate, we can conclude that we will get a no found page for two conditions.

1. If the status of your product is disable.

2. Product is not assign with current website/store that is viewing.

In order to change this default behaviour, my recommendation is to create a new attribute with name visibility_in_product_view for every product and then make it a select option with value 1 for yes and 2 for no. Now set this value to yes, for every product that you need this exception.

Now rewrite the helper class method Mage_Catalog_Helper_Product::canShow() as like this.

<?php
class Namespace_Modulename_Helper_Product extends Mage_Catalog_Helper_Product
{
    //use to check product view visibility status
    const VISIBILITY_IN_PRODUCT_VIEW_PAGE = 1;

    public function canShow($product, $where = 'catalog')
    {
        if (is_int($product)) {
            $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($product);
        }

        /* @var $product Mage_Catalog_Model_Product */

        if (!$product->getId()) {
            return false;
        }
        if ($product->isVisibleInCatalog()) {
            if ($product->isVisibleInSiteVisibility()) {
                return true;
            } else {
                 $frontname = Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getModuleName();
                 $controller = Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getControllerName();
                 $action = Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getActionName();
                if ($frontname.$controller.$action == 'catalogproductview' && Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Visibility::VISIBILITY_NOT_VISIBLE == $product->getVisibility()) {
                    if ($product->getVisibilityInProductView() == self::VISIBILITY_IN_PRODUCT_VIEW_PAGE) {
                        return true;
                    } else {
                        return false;
                    }
                } else {
                    return false;
                }
            }
        }
        else {
            return false;
        }
    }  
}

This is the part that do the trick here

        if ($product->isVisibleInCatalog()) {
            if ($product->isVisibleInSiteVisibility()) {
                return true;
            } else {
                $frontname = Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getModuleName();
                 $controller = Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getControllerName();
                 $action = Mage::app()->getFrontController()->getRequest()->getActionName();
                if ($frontname.$controller.$action == 'catalogproductview' && Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Visibility::VISIBILITY_NOT_VISIBLE == $product->getVisibility()) {
                    if ($product->getVisibilityInProductView() == self::VISIBILITY_IN_PRODUCT_VIEW_PAGE) {
                        return true;
                    } else {
                        return false;
                    }
                } else {
                    return false;
                }
            }
        }
        else {
            return false;
        }

Here first it check whether product is enabled or not. If enabled, it will check whether product is visible or not. If product is not visible, then it will check whether not visible individually is the real cause the previous condition. If that is yes, then we will check whether exception is provided for view page by inspecting the status of our custom attribute. If exception enabled, then it will show in product view page.

Hence problem solved