Find out the "name" for a referenceBlock in Magento 2

Question

I want to remove some blocks from my page. Say for example that I want to remove the container for the logo.

Then I create /app/design/frontend/MYVENDORNAME/MYTHEMENAME/Magento_Theme/layout/default.xml with the following code:

<page layout="3columns" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:View/Layout/etc/page_configuration.xsd">
 <referenceBlock name="logo" remove="true"/>
</page>

In this case I managed to find out the name (name="logo") of this reference block by searching through the files in the Base Theme.

The question is: Is there a better way to find out the names of blocks. I figure there must be a list of all names used in the XMl files in Magento? Or some kind of reference?

Say for example that I would like to remove the menu (<div class="sections nav-sections">...</div>). How do I find out the name of that

• xanka: u can find it in XML file in base theme. if you like to remove the menu this name is catalog.topnav. i find it in default.xml in module Theme in base.

Answer 1

There are a couple of ways to do this:

1. Guess
2. Review Layout for Base, Blank and Luma Themes
3. Perform IDE Searches for Class and ID Names
4. Enable 'Enabled Template Path Hints for Storefront' and 'Add Block Names to Hints'.

You can enable path hints and block hints by logging into the admin interface and going to:

Stores > Configuration > Advanced > Developer > Debug

Unfortunately, there's still no surefire way to find these easily, as far as I know. Though it looks like the guys working on the core are on to it:

https://github.com/magento/magento2/issues/571

• Barbanet: As Gareth said, you can enable template path hints to try to figure out wich template and block is rendering that part of the code.
• wlin: I like how you said 'guess', path hints is pretty useless in some cases.
• hey: #4 did not work for me in the first instance, because I did not whitelist my IP as described here: docs.magento.com/m2/ee/user_guide/system/…

Answer 2

Here's how I find them...

Content> Widgets> Add Widget
Type = CMS Static Block
Design Theme = [Your Theme]

Continue

Layout Updates> Add Layout
Display On = [Pick One]

Right click Inspect on "Please Select" underneath Container.
Expand the <select> element in Dev Tools
All the option value='s are your referenceContainer Names.

:)

• DevonDahon: Why don't we see referenceContainers like header.panel or page.wrapper in this list ?
• Jonathan Marzullo: Thank you very much! You think magento 2 devs would provide a quick reference to find these names in their docs. Much appreciated for your helpful tip :)
• Samyer: You need to select "Page Layouts" in the "Display On" drop down, then you will see all the reference containers
• Freshwebs: Thank you! This worked a treat for me - obvious now!
• puntable: Thanks man, very nice tips when learning M2 :)

Answer 3

You can execute the php-cli code below to get a list of all the ~200 referenceBlock. Make sure the path to your Magento 2 root folder is correct. You can also change the instruction variable to list block, container and referenceContainer.

<?php
//$instruction = "container";
//$instruction = "referenceContainer";
$instruction = "block";
//$instruction = "referenceBlock";
$path = '/var/www/html/magento2/vendor/magento';
$command = 'cd '.$path.' && egrep -r -i --include \*.xml "<'.$instruction.'".*?"name=" *';
exec($command, $output);
$container_max_length = 1;
$pattern = '/(.*?):.*<'.$instruction.'.*name="(.*?)".*/';
foreach ($output as $subject) {
 preg_match($pattern, $subject, $matches);
 $containers[$matches[2]][] = $matches[1];
 if (strlen($matches[2]) > $container_max_length) $container_max_length = strlen($matches[2]);
}
$n=1;
ksort($containers);
foreach ($containers as $k => $v) {
 printf("%6s", "$n. ");
 printf("%-".$container_max_length."s".$v[0]."\n", $k);
 $i=1;
 while (isset($v[$i])) {
 printf(" %-".$container_max_length."s".$v[$i]."\n", "");
 $i++;
 }
 $n++;
}
?>

• crashtestxxx: Genius. This method is so priceless. Thank you so much for sharing.
• Liam Mitchell: This is awesome thanks very much super helpful. I modified it into one that would dump all of them out as text files for the entire site. gist.github.com/LiamKarlMitchell/…
• Adrian Lopez: Does it requires some specific version of php/magento? On PHP 7.2.24 + Magento 2.3.3 I get the error: "PHP Warning: ksort() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/magento/Desktop/list-magento.php on line 21" And got no output.
• Chris: Works great, but theres a problem with the regex, its not including line breaks that may happen before the 'name='. I found missing entries if the name value was on the second line down. Needs something like $instruction.'(.*|\n)?name="

Answer 4

You can use this free extension:

https://github.com/ho-nl/magento2-Ho_Templatehints

Or following @blizam answer some references picked from the widgets:

After Page Header> page.top

After Page Header Top> top.container

Before Main Columns> columns.top

Before Page Footer> page.bottom

Before Page Footer Container> page.bottom.container

CMS Footer Links> cms_footer_links_container

Compare Link Wrapper> compare-link-wrapper

Main Content Area> content

Main Content Aside> content.aside

Main Content Bottom> content.bottom

Main Content Container> main

Main Content Top> content.top

Mini-cart promotion block> minicart.addons

Page Bottom> before.body.end

Page Footer> footer

Page Footer Container> footer-container

Page Header> header-wrapper

Page Header Container> header.container

Page Header Panel> header.panel

Page Top> after.body.start

Sidebar Additional> sidebar.additional

Sidebar Main> sidebar.main

• myshadowself: What an excellent suggestion github.com/ho-nl/magento2-Ho_Templatehints is - Just installed it on 2.4.5 and works brilliantly once I got my head around it. Will save me hours of time. Thank you from 4.5 years later.

Answer 5

I put together a little module that will write the XML page structure to a log file in the var/log/ folder.

app/code/CustomerParadigm/PageXml/etc/module.xml

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="../../../../../lib/internal/Magento/Framework/Module/etc/module.xsd">
 <module name="CustomerParadigm_PageXml" setup_version="1.0.0" schema_version="1.0.0">
 <sequence>
 <module name="Magento_Catalog"/>
 <module name="Magento_Theme"/>
 </sequence>
 </module>
</config>

app/code/CustomerParadigm/PageXml/etc/events.xml

<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:Event/etc/events.xsd">
 <event name="layout_generate_blocks_after">
 <observer name="customerparadigm_layout_generate_blocks_after" instance="CustomerParadigm\PageXml\Model\Layout" />
 </event>
</config>

app/code/CustomerParadigm/PageXml/registration.php

<?php
 \Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::register(
 \Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::MODULE,
 'CustomerParadigm_PageXml',
 __DIR__
);

app/code/CustomerParadigm/PageXml/Model/Layout.php

<?php
namespace CustomerParadigm\PageXml\Model;
use Magento\Framework\Event\Observer;
use Magento\Framework\Event\ObserverInterface;
class Layout implements ObserverInterface {
 protected $_logger;
 public function __construct ( \Psr\Log\LoggerInterface $logger ) {
 $this->_logger = $logger;
 }
 public function execute(\Magento\Framework\Event\Observer $observer) {
 $log_file = BP . '/var/log/page_layout.xml';
 if (file_exists($log_file)) {
 unlink($log_file);
 }
 $xml = $observer->getEvent()->getLayout()->getXmlString();
 /*$this->_logger->debug($xml);*/
 $writer = new \Zend\Log\Writer\Stream($log_file);
 $logger = new \Zend\Log\Logger();
 $logger->addWriter($writer);
 $logger->info($xml);
 return $this;
 }
}

Nothing too amazing going on here, and i'm sure there is plenty of room to improve (working with the built in logger is one of them) but it gets the job done for me when i'm developing a site.

Answer 6

https://gist.github.com/joshfortyfour/11d0f7dbc7be9e85bf4e9c62c668f465

@here you find a list of containers still it is difficult to locate right one but i know you can manage to find the right one.

or as above some one provides a free module link to find container or block in magento , i tried it but still it is some how useful in respoect to wandering over web.