Access current product collection in 2-columns-left

Question

I need to access the current product collection in teh main page template (in this case 2-columns-left) in order to check whether a certain product exists, and if it does, display a banner advert.

I have tried:

$products = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->getCollection();

but this loads all products, not just the ones loaded into the product list template.

Is there a way I can access only those products listed in the product view template from the parent template (2-columns-left)?

Answer 1

You can do:

Mage::registry('current_category')->getProductCollection();

Regards, Diego.

Answer 2

Mat, you can use the following code,

$currentCategory = Mage::registry('current_category');
if($currentCategory){
   $products = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')
                ->getCollection($currentCategory);               
}

Hope this helps. Thanks.