As you may know, Magento Design Fall-Back is used to render themes from the Magento basic templates and the most important part of this article will make you focus on the fall-back hierarchy. Let’s me show you more details as below:

The fall-back hierarchy is described from Custom_theme -> default_theme -> base -> error.

Please take a look at the following diagram:

In a nutshell, Design Fall-Back process includes 4 steps:

Search the request file in the folder:

app/design/frontend/custom_package/custom_theme/
skin/frontend/custom_ package/custom_theme

If not finding it, please search in the folder:

app/design/frontend/custom_package/default
skin/frontend/custom_package/default

In case you are still unable to look for the request file, continue searching in the folder:

app/design/frontend/base/default
skin/frontend/base/default

The error notification will be displayed if the file cannot be found.

Our series of posts about Template Structure ends here. Hope you find it helpful.

Add Your Comment

Discussion

3 comments

Ricardo Martins

8 February 2012 at 10:19 pm

Hi Blanka.
I cant see the diagram. Its too small. Can you post it again with a onclick big-size version?
Thank you very much.
Ricardo Martins

8 February 2012 at 10:23 pm

Just one more question:

Does the default folders
app/design/frontend/custom_package/default
skin/frontend/custom_package/default

means the “Default” value at the design config?
Does it means that if I put there “mydefault” the defaults would be
app/../mydefault and skin/../mydefault?

Thanks once more Blanka.
- Blanka
  
  9 February 2012 at 9:31 am
  
  Hi Ricardo,
  Thanks for your interest in my article. For larger size of the picture, please click on this link: http://www.magestore.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Magestore-Template-Structure-FallBacks.png. You can see it more clearly.
  Regarding your question, the theme that has the name “default” in your design package is the default theme of your package. And in the design config, if you put the package “mydefault”, the default theme will be app/…/mydefault/default and skin/…/mydefault/default
  If you still have any questions, please let me know. I’ll assist you.

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David on Topic 1 – Part 1: Fundamentals
Hi, Thanks for your comment. You can easily find the answers for all of your questions in our other tutorials in Basics category. If there're any further questions, please feel free to leave comments. We will help you resolve them.

yogesh on Topic 1 – Part 1: Fundamentals
I have the below question, can please review it. 1) Identify the function and proper use of automatically available events, including *_load_after, etc. 2) What are the common methods with which the framework accesses its configuration values and areas? 3) How are per-store configuration values established in the XML DOM? 4) By what process do the factory methods and autoloader enable class instantiation? 5) What are the interface and configuration options for automatically fired events? 6) What is the structure of event observers, and how are properties accessed therein? 7) Describe the use of Magento translate classes and translate files 8) Describe the advantages and disadvantages of using subdomains and subdirectories in internationalization

Travis on How to add custom PHP code into CMS page in Magento?
Hi Christian, Have you tried once again? Please make sure that you put {{block type="core/template" template="customphp/demo.phtml"}} in just one CMS page.

Christian on How to add custom PHP code into CMS page in Magento?
How do you do this? I've tried with not results, please if you can give me some more info, thank you

Naeem on How to add custom PHP code into CMS page in Magento?
Thank you so much for very useful post. Waiting for your module.

Ricardo Martins

8 February 2012 at 10:19 pm

Hi Blanka.
I cant see the diagram. Its too small. Can you post it again with a onclick big-size version?
Thank you very much.

8 February 2012 at 10:23 pm

Just one more question:

Does the default folders
app/design/frontend/custom_package/default
skin/frontend/custom_package/default

means the “Default” value at the design config?
Does it means that if I put there “mydefault” the defaults would be
app/../mydefault and skin/../mydefault?

Thanks once more Blanka.

Blanka

9 February 2012 at 9:31 am

Hi Ricardo,
Thanks for your interest in my article. For larger size of the picture, please click on this link: http://www.magestore.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Magestore-Template-Structure-FallBacks.png. You can see it more clearly.
Regarding your question, the theme that has the name “default” in your design package is the default theme of your package. And in the design config, if you put the package “mydefault”, the default theme will be app/…/mydefault/default and skin/…/mydefault/default
If you still have any questions, please let me know. I’ll assist you.