Overriding base magento layout with local.xml file

14 Aug 2016

Sometimes you need to redefine Magento’s base layout entries. But since you should never edit Magento core files, there must be other way to do this.

Solution is simple: you need to create local.xml file in your theme’s layout folder (e.g. app/design/frontend/yourpackage/yourtheme/layout/local.xml) and override required entries there.

Real example: we want to override template that is defined in base layout in app/design/frontend/base/default/layout/persistent.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">

<!-- ... skip ... -->

    <checkout_onepage_index>
        
        <!-- ... skip ... -->
        
        <reference name="checkout.onepage.billing">
            <action method="setTemplate"><template>persistent/checkout/onepage/billing.phtml</template></action>
            <block type="persistent/form_remember" name="persistent.remember.me" template="persistent/remember_me.phtml" />
            <block type="core/template" name="persistent.remember.me.tooltip" template="persistent/remember_me_tooltip.phtml" />
        </reference>
    </checkout_onepage_index>

<!-- ... skip ... -->    
    
</layout>

So we create local.xml file in our theme’s layout folder if it is not already there and put our override in it:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">

    <checkout_onepage_index>
        <reference name="checkout.onepage.billing">
            <action method="setTemplate"><template>checkout/onepage/billing.phtml</template></action>
        </reference>
    </checkout_onepage_index>

</layout>

And voila: we have just replaced persistent/checkout/onepage/billing.phtml with our checkout/onepage/billing.phtml

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Overriding base magento layout with local.xml file