Getting collection issue in observer Magento

Question

I want to sort the customer attribute address after sort_order. For some reason by default it doesn't work so I started to digging into the core. This function :

protected function _getFormAttributeCollection()
{
   return parent::_getFormAttributeCollection()
   ->addFieldToFilter('attribute_code', array('neq' => 'created_at'));
}

from Mage_Customer_Model_Form is responsible . If I add here this code ->setOrder('sort_order', 'ASC'); to my collection its working fine. Due to the fact that you don't touch the core, I want to fix this from an observer. I used this event: core_block_abstract_to_html_before and this is my function from my observer:

 $grid = $observer->getBlock();
 if ($grid instanceof  Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Form_Renderer_Fieldset_Element) {
   $collection = $observer->getEvent()->getCollection();
   $collection = $collection->getSelect()->order('sort_order', 'ASC');
// $collection->setOrder('sort_order', 'ASC');
   $observer->getEvent()->setCollection($collection);
 }

The fact is that $collection is always null. I don't know why ? Can someone give me an idea how to fix this ?

Thank you

Answer 1

It's not working because core_block_abstract_to_html_before is too broad, it's called every time a block is rendered. Even though you have a condition in your observer, it's still to broad, the collection is there, you are probably just looking at some other block that is loading on that page.

Solution:

Override Mage_Customer_Model_Form and add

return parent::_getFormAttributeCollection() 
    ->addFieldToFilter('attribute_code', array('neq' => 'created_at'))
    ->setOrder('sort_order', 'ASC');

To the _getFormAttributeCollection() method.

Answer 2

You can try

$addressAttributeCollection = Mage::getResourceModel('customer/address_attribute_collection');
$addressAttributeCollection->setOrder('sort_order', 'ASC');