related products by brand, coding

Question

I want to display in the related products items from the same brand in order from the latest added. I was looking for an extension that can do it and didn't find it. So I figured out that the solution for me would be to edit an already existing extension. I found this 'iWeb Auto Related Products' and installed it. It automatically creates 5 random products from the same category. I'm not good with php so here's the main question do I just need to change all 'category' to 'brand' in the code below or what changes should I do?

public function getRelatedProducts($limit = false) {
    $products = $this->getData('related_products');
    if (!$products) {
        $product = Mage::registry('current_product');

        if ($category = Mage::registry('current_category')) {

        } elseif ($product) {
            $ids = $product->getCategoryIds();

            if (!empty($ids)) {
                $category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->load($ids[0]);
            }
        }

        if ($category) {
            if ($limit === false) {
                $limit = Mage::getStoreConfig('autorelated/general/limit');
            }

            $products = Mage::getResourceModel('reports/product_collection')
                ->addAttributeToFilter('visibility', array(
                    Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Visibility::VISIBILITY_BOTH,
                    Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Visibility::VISIBILITY_IN_CATALOG
                ))
                ->addAttributeToFilter('status', 1)
                ->addCategoryFilter($category)
                ->addAttributeToSelect('*')
                ->setPageSize($limit);

            if ($product) {
                $products->addAttributeToFilter('entity_id', array(
                    'neq' => Mage::registry('current_product')->getId())
                );
            }

            $products->getSelect()->order(new Zend_Db_Expr('RAND()'));
            Mage::getModel('cataloginventory/stock')->addInStockFilterToCollection($products);

            $this->setData('related_products', $products);
        } else {
            return false;
        }
    }

    return $products;
}

If you have a different idea how to make it happen please let me know

thank you

Answer 1

Editing an already existing extension might be a bit of overkill for what you're trying to do. I would suggest creating your own extension (this tutorial will show you how).

Your block would look something like this.

class [Namespace]_[Module]_Block_Related extends Mage_Core_Block_Template
{
   public function getCollection()
   {
      $current_product = Mage::registry('current_product');

      $collection = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getCollection()
         ->addAttributeToSelect('name')
         ->addAttributeToSelect('thumbnail')
         ->addAttributeToSelect('...') // whatever you need
         ->addAttributeToFilter('brand', $current_product->getData('brand'))
         ->setOrder('created_at', 'DESC')
         ->setPageSize(5);

      return $collection;
   }
}

and your PHTML file something like

<?php
$collection = $this->getCollection();
?>
<table class="products-grid" id="upsell-product-table">
    <tbody>
<?php foreach ($collection as $item):?>
        <tr>
            <td>
                <img src="<?php echo Mage::getUrl('media') . $item->getData('thumbnail');?>" width="125" height="125" alt="<?php echo $this->getData('name');?>">
                <h3 class="product-name"><?php echo $this->getData('name');?></h3>
            </td>
        </tr>
<?php endforeach;?>
</tbody></table>
<script type="text/javascript">decorateTable('upsell-product-table')</script>

Bringing it all together on product page using the layout XML. Add the following to your local.xml

<reference name="content">
  <block type="[module]/related" name="custom_related" template="[module]/related.phtml"/>
</reference>

Haven't tested this code but it should work give or take a tweak or two