Magento XML using before/after to place blocks hardly ever works

Question

I\'m a front-end Magento dev, have built quite a few of my own themes and I want to understand Magento\'s XML block positioning better...

I normally use a loca

Answer 1

I wonder but it seems that Mage_Core_Block_Abstract:

public function getChildHtml($name = '', $useCache = true, $sorted = false)

doesn't render the blocks in order because of $sorted = false.

So finally the order/sorting of blocks is by default only considered in Core/Block/Text/List - Block.

If you want to ensure that child blocks were output in correct order you have to use:

getChildHtml('', true, true) ?>