Magento Default Products Sort Order Newest

By 23 Comments

Magento currently does not sort category products and any product listing for that matter by Newest (highest entity_id). Since my store works best when showing fresh products we felt it necessary to have our Magento installation sort by newest product first (descending) so that just by clicking through categories, users would be seeing the latest and greatest products. Now, Magento does allow you to manually rank per product from the Catalog -> Manage Categories -> Category Products screen, but changing our product listings to show latest products first was our goal.

* Note: Those of you now using Magento version 1.4.* can and should avoid editing the core files and now simply make the change by editing you’re theme’s xml layout files. You can read about this here:

I was able to change my Magento product listings to show newest items first by following the comments in this post within the Magento Forum:

The two important pieces are here:

We need things sorted by product entered date since my industry is very front-line driven. So I wen and changed things to this:

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$this->_availableOrder = array(
    entity_id  => $this->__(Newest),
    name      => $this->__(Name),
    price       => $this->__(Price)
);

And here:

Figured it out: in the same toolbar.php file, around lines 101-110, change this:

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public function getCurrentDirection()
{
if ($dir = (string) $this->getRequest()->getParam($this->getDirectionVarName())) {
    $dir = strtolower($dir);
    if (in_array($dir, array(desc, asc))) {
        return $dir;
    }
}
return <strong>asc</strong>;
}

To this:

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public function getCurrentDirection()
{
if ($dir = (string) $this->getRequest()->getParam($this->getDirectionVarName())) {
    $dir = strtolower($dir);
    if (in_array($dir, array(desc, asc))) {
        return $dir;
    }
}
return <strong>desc</strong>;
}

Along with your newest entity_id it works like a charm!

That allowed me to have my Magento store sort by newest product first.

Now, there will be an issue when updating so hopefully they’ll be able to add default sort ordering to the administrative suite in the upcoming versions.

Post written by Ed Reckers

Founder and lead web development consultant at Red Bridge Internet : San Francisco WordPress Developers and Consultants.

23 Responses to “Magento Default Products Sort Order Newest”

  1. narina

    very good! thanks a lot!!

  2. Einstein9

    Well, i wanted to thank you for this tip, but i tried to open the file and search for the string to replace it but i could not find it.
    i dono if the magento ver. makes a difference
    mine is: 1.3.2.3
    is there any other way please?
    or can i pay someone to fix this for me?

    thank you

  3. SonicE

    For Magento version 1.3.2.3
    The file you need to look at is: /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List/Toolbar.php

    Since we’ll modify it, make a copy to /app/code/local/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List/Toolbar.php

    Near Line 98 search for

    protected $_direction = ‘asc’;

    Change to

    protected $_direction = ‘desc’;

  4. y

    i was just looking for this! will try out!

  5. Daniel

    Can’t find anywhere the code for:

    $this->_availableOrder = array(
    entity_id => $this->__(Newest),
    name => $this->__(Name),
    price => $this->__(Price)
    );

  6. ed

    Daniel, the file would be here:

    /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List.php

  7. Skully

    Could not find any of these lines in mine either 2 files.

    $this->_availableOrder = array(
    entity_id => $this->__(Newest),
    name => $this->__(Name),
    price => $this->__(Price)
    );

    Magento ver. 1.3.2.3

  8. ed

    Skully, I’m running the same version and the file for this is still on the Product List.php template:

    /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List.php

  9. steward

    This discussion assumes “entity_id” means the same as “newest”.
    Not so, for many who imported and updated some batches of products when we converted to Magento.
    I’d really like to sort by “date added”. Sigh.

  10. Prashant

    I want to sort order by their availability in the stock, if its “out of stock” it should be displayed at the end.

  11. Me

    You are a genius …..Thanks lots

  12. artur

    hello to all, do you know maybe how to do it in magento 1.4? adding new attribute doesn’t work – it listing with known only to itself way and in different way each time… so, i would like to hack code or even change position option for entity_id or something. i would be very thankful for your help!

  13. ANDiTKO

    For Magento 1.4 Change line 119 to:
    protected $_direction = ‘desc’;

  14. Sacha

    Thanx! This is awesome!!

  15. scott

    Even easier yet. Just add this to custom layout for the categories you want to reverse the order of.

    desc

  16. vipinss316

    thnx a lot

  17. Prashant

    nice thanks…

  18. Bryan

    1.5.1

    I had to add code in toolbar.php because the “available order array” was not there. I was looking to add “rating summary” to the array.

    This is from several other posters, not my code, perhaps is more clear in my summary (hopefully helpful to someone )as this was in pieces in several posts over different forums. Thanks to posters!
    ——–
    Toolbar.php
    Line 233
    public function setCollection($collection)
    {
    parent::setCollection($collection);
    if ($this->getCurrentOrder()) {
    —————
    // Begin new Code
    $this->getCollection()->joinField(‘rating’,
    ‘review/review_aggregate’,
    ‘rating_summary’,
    ‘entity_pk_value=entity_id’,
    ‘{{table}}.store_id=1’,
    ‘left’);
    // End new Code
    —————–
    $this->getCollection()->setOrder($this->getCurrentOrder(), $this->getCurrentDirection());
    }
    return $this;
    }
    ———-
    Line 422 ( after adding lines at 233)

    public function getAvailableOrders()
    {
    // Add rating to “Sort by”
    $_availableOrder = $this->_availableOrder;
    $_availableOrder[‘rating’] = ‘Rating’;
    return $_availableOrder;

    $this->_availableOrder = array(
    ‘entity_id’ => Mage::helper(’catalog’)->__(’Newest’),
    ‘name’ => Mage::helper(’catalog’)->__(’Name’),
    ‘price’ => Mage::helper(’catalog’)->__(’Price’),
    ‘rating_summary’ => Mage::helper(’catalog’)->__(’Rating’)
    );

    return $this->_availableOrder;
    }
    ________

    This works but displays:

    Position
    Name
    Price
    Rating

    I was expecting it to display

    Newest
    Name
    Price
    Rating

    I do not think Position is equal to Newest?
    And I changed line 119 to
    protected $_direction = ‘desc’;
    but does not seem to have any effect.

    I am wanting to display
    Reviews: descending
    Newest: descending
    Price: ascending

    and not show Position.
    Thanks for any help or pointers.
    Bryan.

  19. tuba

    very helpful and nice trick! Thank you!

  20. A Tucson Web Designer

    Great article, but the tough part that I’m looking for is sorting via a custom order. It’s tricky because you’ll need to create a custom attribute for that and then change the product sort by adding a module to override the list.phtml template in Magento 1.5.1. Maybe I’ll post an article about it and link it to this.

  21. Jim

    Thank you for sharing the post.
    Nowadays right sorting options can help online shop to attract customers and create better condition to product buying.
    I use http://amasty.com/improved-sorting.html extension for my web shop and i can tell that it works perfect.

  22. Paul Simmons

    Thank you for share a great post here with all.
    I have recently came across with an alternative extension that improves product sorting options in Magento.
    Let me know how do you see this module? http://www.fmeaddons.com/magento/improve-catalog-sorting-products-extension.html

  23. HM Hasan

    I have a problem.
    it is working my site it show new to old.But if I change sort by then, when I return Newest it do not work, it show old to new. please help me.

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