Removing unnecessary blocks from Magento's sidebar

As you can see from the previous screenshots of this chapter, there are quite a few blocks displayed in Magento's sidebars by default that you will not want to use. You can set these not to display in your theme customizing your theme's layout instructions.

Open your theme's local.xml file and apply the following XML:

<reference name="left">
<remove name="left.permanent.callout"/>
<remove name="right.newsletter"/>
<remove name="cart_sidebar"/>
<remove name="sale.reorder.sidebar"/>
</reference>

<reference name="right">
<remove name="right.permanent.callout"/>
<remove name="livechat.chat"/>
<remove name="right.poll"/>
<remove name="paypal.partner.right.logo"/>
<remove name="cart_sidebar"/>
<remove name="sale.reorder.sidebar"/>
<remove name="catalog.compare.sidebar"/>
</reference>

This removes commonly unused blocks in your Magento theme:

• The cart box in...