want to show products from a specific category on your home page you can do this simply with

    {{block type="catalog/product_list" category_id="12" template="catalog/product/list.phtml"}}
  

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on your home page which works fine.. however, if you want these products to be randomly selected you hit problems.

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The obvious thing to try is

    {{block type="catalog/product_list_random" category_id="12" template="catalog/product/list.phtml"}}
  

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however, this displays random products from EVERY category!!

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The reason for this is that the file random.php does not work as advertised so we need to create a new version that does. We do not want to break upgrade compatibility so create the following directory structure.

in app/code/local create Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List

eg mkdir -p Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List

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In your new List directory create the following file called Random.php

    <?php
class Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List_Random extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List
{
    protected function _getProductCollection()
    {
        if (is_null($this->_productCollection)) {
            $categoryID = $this->getCategoryId();
            if($categoryID)
            {
              $category = new Mage_Catalog_Model_Category();
              $category->load($categoryID); // this is category id
              $collection = $category->getProductCollection();
            } else
            {
              $collection = Mage::getResourceModel('catalog/product_collection');
            }
            Mage::getModel('catalog/layer')->prepareProductCollection($collection);
            $collection->getSelect()->order('rand()');
            $collection->addStoreFilter();
            $numProducts = $this->getNumProducts() ? $this->getNumProducts() : 3;
            $collection->setPage(1, $numProducts)->load();
 
            $this->_productCollection = $collection;
        }
        return $this->_productCollection;
    }
}
  

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To call this on your home page open your Home page in CMS > Static Pages and in Content add

    {{block type="catalog/product_list_random" category_id="YOUR_CATEGORY_ID" template="catalog/product/list.phtml" column_count="4" num_products="12"}}
  

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Create a new hidden category and add the products you wish to randomly select from. Find the category ID of this category and enter this number in the above place marker.

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You will find that although you are seeing the Category display tool bar (drid view / list view / show.. etc) it has no effect on the layout. the default layout is 3 x 3 grid which is where column_count=”4″ comes into play. Alter this to meet your themes needs. Same goes for num_products=”12″.

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And that is that.

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Don’t want to be looking at the grid.. hide it. (evil hack alert)

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Add

    <style type="text/css">
.toolbar {display:none;}
</style>
  

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at the top of your Content area on the homepage CMS. this will hide the tool bar for just the homepage.
References:

Thanks to mac75a here : http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/72319/ and andytm here: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/72319/

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結合以下內容：

- Create a category to contain the featured products. Call it e.g. “ Featured ” or “ Home Pag e”. Set “ Is Active ” to No . That way, it won’t display in the catalog menu. - After saving the category, please note what ID it gets. You can see it in the last part of the URL . If the URL ends with catalog_category/edit/id/8/ , the ID is 8 . On later version, the ID is next to the category name:

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-

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Add products for the home page to the new category. - Edit the Home Page ( CMS → Manage Pages → Home Page ) and add the following content, where 8 should be replaced by your category ID:

    {{block type="catalog/product_list" category_id="8" template="catalog/product/list.phtml"}}
  

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If your product/list.html references $this→getColumnCount() you can vary the column count (e.g. 4 columns) from the default (3) displayed by using:

    {{block type="catalog/product_list" column_count="4" category_id="8" template="catalog/product/list.phtml"}}
  

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Although displaying more than 3 columns in your template would likely require additional CSS /layout changes as well.

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If you want a view that is different from the category lists, you can copy and modify list.phtml and change the path above. Following steps is an example.

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Add Bestsellers to Home Page using the best-selling box of Blue Theme

In Blue Theme, there is a sample HTML code in the content box ( Admin → CMS → Manage Pages → Home Page ) that displays a list of Best Selling Products. You can easily modify list.phtml to reuse the skin of the best-selling box. Adding featured products to Home Page is a matter of clicking to select the required products in the category ( Admin → CMS → Manage Categories → Category Products tab ) as outlined in the above method and there is no need to mess with the HTML code in the CMS .

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1. Copy the following code to your preferred text editor

    <?php $_productCollection=$this->getLoadedProductCollection() ?>
<?php if(!$_productCollection->count()): ?>
<div class="note-msg">
    <?php echo $this->__('There are no products matching the selection.') ?>
</div>
<?php else: ?>
<div class="box best-selling">
<?php $_collectionSize = $_productCollection->count() ?>
<table border="0" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
    <?php $i=0; foreach ($_productCollection as $_product): ?>
        <?php if($i++%2==0): ?>
        <tr>
        <?php endif; ?>
            <td>
                <a href="<?php echo $_product->getProductUrl() ?>" >
                <img class="product-img" src="<?php echo $this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'small_image')->resize(95, 95); ?>" width="95" height="95" alt="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getName()) ?>" />
                </a>
                <div class="product-description">
                <p><a href="<?php echo $_product->getProductUrl() ?>" title="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getName()) ?>"><?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getName()) ?></a></p>
                <?php echo $this->getPriceHtml($_product, true) ?>
                <?php if($_product->getRatingSummary()): ?>
                    <?php echo $this->getReviewsSummaryHtml($_product, 'short') ?>
                <?php endif; ?>
                <?php echo nl2br($_product->getShortDescription()) ?>
                <a href="<?php echo $_product->getProductUrl() ?>" title="<?php echo $this->htmlEscape($_product->getName()) ?>"><small><?php echo $this->__('Learn More') ?></small></a>
            </td>
        <?php if($i%2==0 || $i==$_collectionSize): ?>
        </tr>
        <?php endif; ?>
    <?php endforeach ?>
    <script type="text/javascript">decorateGeneric($$('tr'), ['last', 'odd', 'even']);</script>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>
<?php endif; //$_productCollection->count() ?>
  

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2. Name it homelist.phtml and save it in location a pp/design/frontend/default/blue/template/catalog/product , create the folders where necessary

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3. Edit the Home Page ( CMS → Manage Pages → Home Page ) and add the following content, where 19 should be replaced by your category ID:

    <h3>Best Selling Products</h3>
{{block type="catalog/product_list" category_id="19" template="catalog/product/homelist.phtml"}} 
  

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If you follow this Wiki, you’ll notice that the breadcrumbs in the Product Page include the inactive category in the middle ( Home/Inactive/Product ) and if you click on the category, you’ll be served with a 404. Following steps show you how to hide the inactive category.

1. Rename your category by adding a prefix ‘0’(Admin → Catalog → Manage Categories → select the inactive category → Name), if your category name is Bestsellers, then rename it 0Bestsellers. This only works if names of other active categories do not start with ‘0’.
2. Edit breadcrumbs.phtml located in app/design/frontend/default/default/template/page/html by adding this <?php if($_crumbInfo[’label’][0]!=’0’): ?> to line 31 and this <?php endif; ?> at line 44. (The line numbers are based on version 1.2.0.2) The complete code:

    <?php if($crumbs && is_array($crumbs)): ?>
<h4 class="no-display"><?php echo $this->__("You're currently on:") ?></h4>
<ul class="breadcrumbs">
    <?php foreach($crumbs as $_crumbName=>$_crumbInfo): ?>
      <?php if($_crumbInfo['label'][0]!='0'): ?>  
        <li class="<?php echo $_crumbName ?>">
        <?php if($_crumbInfo['link']): ?>
            <a href="<?php echo $_crumbInfo['link'] ?>" title="<?php echo $_crumbInfo['title'] ?>"><?php echo $_crumbInfo['label'] ?></a>
        <?php elseif($_crumbInfo['last']): ?>
            <strong><?php echo $_crumbInfo['label'] ?></strong>
        <?php else: ?>
            <?php echo $_crumbInfo['label'] ?>
        <?php endif; ?>
        </li>
        <?php if(!$_crumbInfo['last']): ?>
        <li> / </li>
        <?php endif; ?>
      <?php endif; ?> 
    <?php endforeach; ?>
</ul>
<?php endif; ?>
  

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1. Save the file to the Blue Theme directory here: app/design/frontend/default/blue/template/page/html (If you are using other theme, then save it in the corresponding directory.)

Please note: In order to make this work for more than one block of products with different category IDs on the same page, you need to add the following code at the end of your phtml file(s):

    <?php
//unset catalog to allow using template for multiple categories on single page
Mage::unregister("_singleton/catalog/layer");
?>
  

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Alternative way:

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from: http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/4_-_themes_and_template_customization/cms_and_home_page/add_featured_products_to_home_page

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中文參考：

1. http://www.hellokeykey.com/magento-home-products/

2. http://sjolzy.cn/Add-New-products-in-the-Magento-CMS-Page-with-paging.html

3. http://www.hellokeykey.com/magento-change-product-list-display/

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magento 首頁添加隨機產品 add a Random Featured Product list on home page in Magento