Magento finding .phtml file

Question

<reference name="root">
        <action method="addBodyClass" ifconfig="ultimo_design/effects/shadow"><className>shadow</className></action>
        <action method="addBodyClass" ifconfig="ultimo_layout/responsive/responsive"><className>responsive</className></action>

        <block type="core/text_list" name="main_before_top" as="main_before_top" translate="label">
            <label>Preface, Full-width</label>
        </block>
        <block type="core/text_list" name="preface" as="preface" translate="label">
            <label>Preface</label>
        </block>
        <block type="core/text_list" name="left_first" as="left_first" translate="label">
            <label>Left Column First (shows above main column on smaller screens)</label>
        </block>
        <block type="core/text_list" name="postscript" as="postscript" translate="label">
            <label>Postscript</label>
        </block>
    </reference>




<div class="main-before-top-container"><?php echo $this->getChildHtml('main_before_top') ?></div>

Answer 1

Can you be more specific what you want to do khalid ?

Your not showing everything, but it's possible that your node doesn't have a child.

Example of nesting of blocks in layout xml:

<block type="core/text_list" name="main_before_top" as="main_before_top" translate="label">
   <label>Preface, Full-width</label>
   <block type="core/text_list" name="my.child.block" translate="label">
       <label>Child block of `main_before_top`</label>
   </block>
</block>