Magento Layout XML

Question

I need to understand this in Magento . In page.xml, for the following block :

<block type="page/template_links" name="top.links" as="topLinks"/>

I need to app/design/package/theme/template/page/template/links.phtml

Then for the following block ::

<block type="page/html_welcome" name="welcome" as="welcome"/>

Why I need to lookup app/code/core/Mage/Page/Block/Html/Welcome.php?

Answer 1

In both cases you need to look inside the block classes: for block type="page/template_links" the class is Mage_Page_Block_Template_Links and can be found in the file app/code/core/Mage/Page/Block/Template/Links.php If you look inside the class you'll see:

protected function _construct()
{
    $this->setTemplate('page/template/links.phtml');
}

This points to the file app/design/package/theme/template/page/template/links.phtml The class for the second block only sets the welcome message, and has no template.

Answer 2

In magento we set the template in xml or set template in Action. In your xml, you set as a block file. so by calling block function inside the template you can access the function.In welcome.php you can set the value and get the value in template.