Magento Product Images Full URL Path Instead of Cached

Question

The code below works for products that have images, but for products that don't have images, the placeholder small image doesn't show.

echo Mage::getModel('catalog/product_media_config')->getMediaUrl( $_product->getSmallImage());

Answer 1

<?php 
   // get image full url

       echo $imageUrl = Mage::getBaseUrl(Mage_Core_Model_Store::URL_TYPE_MEDIA) . 'catalog/product' . $_product->getImage();

    // get image using custom size with url 

        echo $imageCacheUrl = Mage::helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'image')->resize(135,135); 
    ?>

Answer 2

The code that affects what you want to do is

//file: app/code/core/Mag/Catalog/Helper/Image.php
//class: Mage_Catalog_Helper_Image
    /**
     * Return Image URL
     *
     * @return string
     */
    public function __toString()
    {
        try {
          //...
        } catch (Exception $e) {
            $url = Mage::getDesign()->getSkinUrl($this->getPlaceholder());
        }
        return $url;
    }

The interesting line is

$url = Mage::getDesign()->getSkinUrl($this->getPlaceholder());

So in your code you need to test the return value of $_product->getSmallImage() and if it is false or null use Mage::getDesign()->getSkinUrl($this->getPlaceholder()); instead.

You might want to inspect $_product->getSmallImage() to see what it returns when no value is set.

Oh, and I just checked: getPlaceholder() is a function not a magic getter. This is the function:

public function getPlaceholder()
{
    if (!$this->_placeholder) {
        $attr = $this->_getModel()->getDestinationSubdir();
        $this->_placeholder = 'images/catalog/product/placeholder/'.$attr.'.jpg';
    }
    return $this->_placeholder;
}

So you will have to unravel some $this (hint $this->_getModel() is Mage::getModel('catalog/product_image') )

or to cut a long story short just fall back to the default:

echo ($this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'small_image'));

in your phtml file if $_product->getSmallImage() doesn't exist.

Update following your comment:

Specifcically in the .phtml file that you are using to generate the HTML that displays the small image you could write:

$testSmallImageExists = $_product->getSmallImage();
if($testSmallImageExists)
{
    echo Mage::getModel('catalog/product_media_config')->getMediaUrl( $_product->getSmallImage());
}
else
{
   echo ($this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'small_image'));
}

Or just simply use

echo ($this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'small_image'));

I'm sure that is the standard Magento way.