Mryntu

In Magento 1.9.2.x I would like to create a custom module that will show all sale items (anything with a current special price) within a different section of the store but retaining the normal category hierarchy/structure and filtered navigation etc.

Example:

Standard category URLs showing non-sale items:

/books/
/videos/
/games/

New URLs showing only sale items within those same categories:

/sale/books/
/sale/videos/
/sale/games/

Previously we have done this by creating the "Sale" category and replicating the standard category tree beneath that and assigning products to those categories.

This quickly becomes un-manageable for a large catalogue, and when special prices end it is almost impossible to remember to remove the items from the Sale categories. A previous dev tried scripting the removal of products from sale categories but I don't feel that is the right approach either.

This guide from Inchoo looks like it will help me achieve most of what I want. The missing part is how I could implement the normal (/) and sale (/sale/) category URL structure.

Any ideas how I may handle this?

you could write a custom module and register 'sale' as its frontname and the category's url_key as a parameter (eg. /sale/category/books)
i have some hints here for you regarding loading the products. when you want to have all filters available from the layered nav you should load the products via the catalog/layer model...

Namespace/Module/config.xml:

<frontend>
 <routers>
 <saleproducts>
 <use>standard</use>
 <args>
 <module>Namespace_Module</module>
 <frontName>sale</frontName>
 </args>
 </saleproducts>
 </routers>
 <layout>
 <updates>
 <saleproducts>
 <file>sale.xml</file>
 </saleproducts>
 </updates>
 </layout>
</frontend>

Namespace/Module/controllers/IndexController.php:

class Namespace_Module_IndexController extends Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action

 public function indexAction()
 
 $this->loadLayout(); 
 $this->renderLayout(); 
 

in the layout file /design/frontend/base/default/layout/sale.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
 <sale_index_index>
 <reference name="content">
 <block type="sale/product_list" name="product_list" template="catalog/product/list.phtml">
 <block type="catalog/product_list_toolbar" name="product_list_toolbar" template="catalog/product/list/toolbar.phtml">
 <block type="page/html_pager" name="product_list_toolbar_pager"/>
 </block>
 <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>empty</layout><count>6</count></action>
 <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>one_column</layout><count>5</count></action>
 <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>two_columns_left</layout><count>4</count></action>
 <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>two_columns_right</layout><count>4</count></action>
 <action method="addColumnCountLayoutDepend"><layout>three_columns</layout><count>3</count></action>
 <action method="setToolbarBlockName"><name>product_list_toolbar</name></action>
 </block>
 </reference>
 </sale_index_index>
</layout> 

and a Block in Namespace/Module/Block/Product/List.php :

class Namespace_Module_Block_Product_List extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List
{
 protected function _getProductCollection()


 $category = Mage::getModel('catalog/category')->setStoreId(Mage::app()->getStore()->getId())->load($this->getRequest()->getCategory(), 'url_key');
 Mage::register('current_category', $category);
 $productCollection = Mage::getSingleton('catalog/layer')->getProductCollection();

 return $productCollection;