Today I had to change Magento default products list sorting to sort by product’s date. In fact we don’t need to sort by date, just by entity_id which is product ID in Magento world. To accomplish this, we need to edit /app/code/core/Mage/Catalog/Block/Product/List.php
You have to find _beforeToHtml() function and change some things inside. First we need to define all available sorting options:
$orders = array('entity_id' => $this->__('Newest'), 'name' => $this->__('Name'), 'price' => $this->__('Price') );
then remove all getters of default sorting and order, and put those:
$toolbar->setAvailableOrders($orders);
$toolbar->setDefaultOrder('entity_id');
$toolbar->setDefaultDirection('desc');
so finally your _beforeToHtml() should looks like this one:
protected function _beforeToHtml()
{
$toolbar = $this->getToolbarBlock();
// called prepare sortable parameters
$collection = $this->_getProductCollection();
// use sortable parameters
/*
if ($orders = $this->getAvailableOrders()) {
$toolbar->setAvailableOrders($orders);
}
if ($sort = $this->getSortBy()) {
$toolbar->setDefaultOrder($sort);
}
if ($dir = $this->getDefaultDirection()) {
$toolbar->setDefaultDirection($dir);
}
if ($modes = $this->getModes()) {
$toolbar->setModes($modes);
}
*/
$orders = array('entity_id' => $this->__('Newest'), 'name' => $this->__('Name'), 'price' => $this->__('Price') );
$toolbar->setAvailableOrders($orders);
$toolbar->setDefaultOrder('entity_id');
$toolbar->setDefaultDirection('desc');
// set collection to toolbar and apply sort
$toolbar->setCollection($collection);
$this->setChild('toolbar', $toolbar);
Mage::dispatchEvent('catalog_block_product_list_collection', array(
'collection' => $this->_getProductCollection()
));
$this->_getProductCollection()->load();
return parent::_beforeToHtml();
}