Magento - Determine what pages is available to handle

Question

how can i determine what pages is available to handle in magento layout files? after default handle (which shows up on almost every page) there're few handles for example :

<checkout_cart_index translate="label">
........
</checkout_cart_index>

which goes to the checkout cart page.

while the file in app/design/frontend/mypackage/mytheme/template/ contains .phtml for function in each block, how can i know where is the list of php page for the website?

from what i studied at magento Designer guide PDF i only knows that handle itself shows what pages it should show the module inside, which is there's default, or other specific pages we want to show, but i can't understand how can i get the list of pages and what is the tag ex : **

For instance, <catalog_product_view> contains the layout updates for the Product View page, while <catalog_product_compare_index> contains those for the Compare Product page.

this is taken from the pdf itself which is the tag is not the same as the page name also. i'm getting a bit confused here, i have read all of the pdf about the block, the attributes of the block, customizing template module etc and this is the only thing i haven't understand.

Answer 1

usually the layout handle matches the url.
If the url is module/controller/action the layout handle would be module_controller_action.
If the url is module/controller (the action is missing) then the action defaults to index. So the handle would be module_controller_index.
If both controller and action are missing then the layout handle would be module_index_index.

if any of the parts in the url contains an underscore this one will be kept in the handle.
So for module/some_controller/action you get module_some_controller_action.

These are the general handles.
But there are a few special handles that are loaded for special occasions.
I don't have a full list, but here are some examples:

• customer_logged_in - loaded for all pages when the customer is logged in
• customer_logged_out - loaded for all the pages when the customer is not logged in.
• catalog_category_layered - loaded for categories with is_anchor set to yes.
• catalog_category_default - loaded for categories with is_anchor set to no.
• cms_index_index - for homepage.
• cms_page loaded for all cms pages.
• PRODUCT_TYPE_simple - for all simple products (there is one similar for configurable, virtual, ...).
• CATEGORY_5 - loaded for category with id 5.