How to create a custom block from billing.phtml

Question

I would like to add a new block in the customer registration, edit and billing forms. This block will contain a dropdown control where the customer can select if he wants to register as a company or as an individual.

At first, I edited billing.phtml and added the following:

<li class="fields">
    <?php echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('core/template')->setTemplate('mynamespace/mymodule/customer/widget/registeras.phtml')->toHtml(); ?>
</li>

This is working fine, but instead of using 'core/template', I would like to create my custom typed block.

I wrote this in the config:

<config>
    <modules>
        <Mynamespace_Mymodule>
            <version>0.0.1</version>
        </Mynamespace_Mymodule>
    </modules>
    <global>
        <blocks>
            <mymodule>
                <class>Mynamespace_Mymodule_Block_Widget_Registeras</class>
            </mymodule>
        </blocks>
        ...
    </global>
</config>

Then I created the class of my block:

class Mynamespace_Mymodule_Block_Widget_Registeras extends Mage_Customer_Block_Widget_Abstract
{
    public function _construct()
    {
        parent::_construct();

        // default template location
        $this->setTemplate('mynamespace/mymodule/customer/widget/registeras.phtml');
    }

    /**
     * Get current customer from session
     *
     * @return Mage_Customer_Model_Customer
     */
    public function getCustomer()
    {
        return Mage::getSingleton('customer/session')->getCustomer();
    }
}

Now I replaced:

$this->getLayout()->createBlock('core/template')->setTemplate('mynamespace/mymodule/customer/widget/registeras.phtml')->toHtml(); ?>

by this:

<?php echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('mynamespace_mymodule/widget_registeras')->setObject($this->getQuote()->getCustomer())->toHtml(); ?>

But it's not working. Here is the error I get:

exception 'Mage_Core_Exception' with message 'Invalid block type: Mage_Mynamespace_Mymodule_Block_Widget_Registeras' in E:\myworkspace\magento\app\Mage.php:595 Stack trace: 0 E:\myworkspace\magento\app\code\core\Mage\Core\Model\Layout.php(495): Mage::throwException('Invalid block t...') 1 E:\myworkspace\magento\app\code\core\Mage\Core\Model\Layout.php(437): Mage_Core_Model_Layout->_getBlockInstance('mynamespace_my...', Array) 2 E:\myworkspace\magento\app\code\core\Mage\Core\Model\Layout.php(472): Mage_Core_Model_Layout->createBlock('mynamespace_my...', 'widget_register...') ...

I could not understand why magento adds 'Mage_' to the class name.

I also tried to load it using the layout and getChildHtml() but I could not get it work better.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you

Answer 1

Use this

<?php echo $this->getLayout()->createBlock('mymodule/widget_registeras')->setObject($this->getQuote()->getCustomer())->toHtml(); ?>

Hope this will solve your problem!

Answer 2

Typically Magento will prepend "Mage_" if you don't have your <blocks> set up quite right in the config.xml.

Try replacing this...

    <blocks>
        <mymodule>
            <class>Mynamespace_Mymodule_Block_Widget_Registeras</class>
        </mymodule>
    </blocks>

with this...

    <blocks>
        <mymodule>
            <class>Mynamespace_Mymodule_Block</class>
        </mymodule>
    </blocks>

Also, when you are calling createBlock() you will use just "mymodule/widget_registeras" like Asish Hira says. The first part of that before the slash / will reference the <mymodule> you set up inside your <blocks> of the config.xml