Clone and append a clonned block - catalog/product_price, only to the current's product price block

Question

The goal is to append a block, after the product price, on the product view page using an observer.

To this moment, I was able to:

• clone the catalog/product_price
• set the clone as a child-block
• and set a custom type and template for it

The issue is, that there are additional blocks on the page, that include a catalog/product_price block. Tier-prices and related products namely. I would like exclude them from the block cloning and child addition process.

the relevant config.xml part:

<frontend>
    <events>
        <core_block_abstract_to_html_before>
            <observers>
                <namespace_modulename>
                    <type>model</type>
                    <class>namespace_modulename/observer</class>
                    <method>insertBlock</method>
                </namespace_modulename>
            </observers>
        </core_block_abstract_to_html_before>
    </events>
</frontend>

the observer:

    class Namespace_Modulename_Model_Observer {

    public function insertBlock($observer){

        $_block = $observer->getBlock();
        $_type = $_block->getType();
        if ($_type == 'catalog/product_price') {
            $_child = clone $_block;
            $_child->setType('some/block');
            $_block->setChild('kiddo', $_child);
            $_block->setTemplate('namespace/modulname/additional.phtml');
        }
    }
}

How would you advise to do that, preferably in canonical Magento API way ?

Answer 1

This is not the preferably way to extend the default magento layout. Its better to use the layout xml in your theme folder. This is not very efficient because this event is fired a lot of times on all the magento pages.

Its better to use something like this:

<catalog_product_view translate="label">
   <reference name="product.clone_prices (or some other block)">
      <block type="some/block" name="kiddo" template="namespace/modulname/additional.phtml">
   </reference>
</catalog_product_view>

Then add in your custom template the following line:

<?php echo $this->getChildHtml('kiddo'); ?>