I want the grid in admin to be displayed in frontend. The grid that shows the list of products in admin-> catalog->manage products.
I want to show this on the frontend for each category?
What would be ideal approach to get this done?
You need to rewrite blocks
Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Catalog_Product_Grid
Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Container
to your own, because in this classes we have logic for editing, adding products.
also you need to redefine
adminhtml/default/default/template/catalog/product.phtml
adminhtml/default/default/template/widget/grid.phtml
and add templates to the frontend scope with your customizations.
add to the frontend catalog.xml blocks declaration for catalog_category_default node it might be like this:
<catalog_category_default>
<reference name="content">
<block name="module_name/catalog_product_grid" template="module_name/catalog_product_grid.phtml" output="toHtml />
</reference>
</catalog_category_default>