Magento: Call template phtml file via Ajax

Question

I'm attempting to call a phtml file from Ajax on the homepage of my Magento site. I basically created a copy of app/design/frontend/base/default/template/catalog/product/list.phtml and customized it to view a particular category. If I add a block pointing to this file in the CMS section, I can view it just fine. However, I want to call this file via Ajax.

I followed the instructions to create a module here, and then I attempted to follow the logic of Ajax in Magento by following this post. However, in the last step it lists:

<module_controller_action>
<block type="module/block" name="root" output="toHtml" template="module/template.phtml"/>
</module_controller_action>

Where do I insert this? Also, for the template="module/template.phtml", what folder is that referring to?

Answer 1

That bit of xml needs to be put in a layout xml file, which are found in the app/design/frontend/base/default/layout/ directory. You can update any of the layout files with that snippit, but I don't recommend that. I usually recommend creating a local.xml file in your template's layout directory (app/design/frontend/*/*/layout/local.xml).

Now, make sure you update the xml snippit too so that it says your real module, controller, and action name! :)

The template="module/template.phtml" will also need to be customized to reflect the path to the phtml file. So if you put your custom phtml file in app/design/frontend/*/*/template/myfolder/myphtml.phtml, then the code would be template="myfolder/myphtml.phtml"