Magento limit the number of products shown with in

Question

How to limit the number of products shown with in the new products block? via cms/pages/design/Layout update XML

<block type="catalog/product_new" name="home.catalog.product.new" template="catalog/product/new.phtml" >
   <action method="setColumnCount"><count>5</count></action> 
   <action method="setLimit"><limit>5</limit></action>
</block>

setLimit does not work, nor does

<action method="setDefaultGridPerPage"><limit>5</limit></action>

or:

<action method="setData"><key>limit</key><value>3</value></action>

or:

<action method="setProductLimit"><count>5</count></action> 

or:

<action method="setProductsLimit"><count>5</count></action> 

or:

<action method="setProductsCount"><count>5</count></action>

Answer 1

Don't try it randomly. You're trying to call an action on a block/product_new. So go into the class Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract and see what function could do the job (double Ctrl+O in eclipse)

Here i see a Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract::addColumnCountLayoutDepend($pageLayout, $columnCount) function.

Maybe it can help you. Example:

$this->addColumnCountLayoutDepend('one_column', 5)

Answer 2

Try

 <action method="setProductsCount"><count>5</count></action>

See /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/New.php

/**
 * Set how much product should be displayed at once.
 *
 * @param $count
 * @return Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_New
 */
public function setProductsCount($count)
{
    $this->_productsCount = $count;
    return $this;
}

Read more @ http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/groups/248/display_products_on_home_page