Magento 1.x Cheatsheet

magento-1.x-cheatsheet

//Get Layout Handles Used
var_dump(Mage::app()->getLayout()->getUpdate()->getHandles());

//Get loaded layout blocks 
var_dump(array_keys(Mage::app()->getLayout()->getAllBlocks()));

//Add to Global Messages
Mage::getSingleton('core/session')->addSuccess('Success Message');
Mage::getSingleton('core/session')->addError('Error Message');
Mage::getSingleton('core/session')->addWarning('Warning Message');
Mage::getSingleton('core/session')->addNotice('Notice Message');
can use 
customer/session
catalog/session

//Dump callstack - useful for debugging
private function get_callstack() {
  $dt = debug_backtrace();
  $cs = array();
  foreach ($dt as $t) {
    $cs[] = $t['file'] . ' line ' . $t['line'] . ' calls ' . $t['function'] . "()" ;
  }

  return $cs;
}
Mage::log($this->get_callstack(),null,'callstack.log');