OpenCart Make $products Available in home.tpl File

Question

I'm trying to make the latest products available in the home.tpl file. I've modified the catalog/controller/module/latest.php from:

if (file_exists(DIR_TEMPLATE . $this->config->get('config_template') . '/template/module/latest.tpl')) {
    $this->template = $this->config->get('config_template') . '/template/module/latest.tpl';
} else {
    $this->template = 'default/template/module/latest.tpl';
}

to:

if (file_exists(DIR_TEMPLATE . $this->config->get('config_template') . '/template/common/home.tpl')) {
    $this->template = $this->config->get('config_template') . '/template/common/home.tpl';
} else {
    $this->template = 'default/template/common/home.tpl';
}

But $products is shown to be an Undefined variable: products once the page loads. How would I make $products available on home.tpl?

Note: I have the Latest module loaded with the Layout set to Home and the Position set to Content Top.

Answer 1

You shouldn't have to modify anything in terms of templates for this to work.

Content Top is a child process and is rendered via the controller class whenever it's included in the $children array.

Check your $children array in the home controller, it should look like this:

$this->children = array(
    'common/column_left',
    'common/column_right',
    'common/content_top',
    'common/content_bottom',
    'common/footer',
    'common/header'
);

Check your home.tpl and ensure that the variable $content_top exists.

Make sure the Latest module is enabled .