I have been working on Magento for the last few months. I want to develop modules in Magento but my question is how can I start to develop for it?
1) What are some of the basic needs to create a module?
2) What type of xml files settings need to develop module and why?
If someone could also provide a diagram of the overall architecture of a Magento module, that would be great.
You can find here a nice tutorial: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/03/01/basics-creating-magento-module/.
This one is nice also: http://code.tutsplus.com/tutorials/magento-custom-module-development--cms-20643.
There are a lot of resources like this online. If only there was a tool to search for them...
If you are a beginner, you can use a module creator.
You will use it even if you are an advanced magnento developer because you don't want to do the same thing over and over again.
I can recommend you this one: https://github.com/tzyganu/UMC1.9. It's pretty advanced and does a lot of stuff, not just a simple module.
Or this one. http://www.silksoftware.com/magento-module-creator/. This has the advantage of being on online and you don't have to install anything to use it.
Related
I'm developing a web Application using PHP. And there i need to use commenting system. One of my senior suggested me to use Drupal for the commenting system, i referred some websites, but i got a contradicting answers. Some of them says "integrating Drupal with any website application will not be consistent". Is that right? Or may i use Drupal comments in my PHP Application?
I know this is not a programming question, still i need to get some experts advice for this. so i post my question here.
In short, if the rest of your project is built in Drupal, then absolutely use Drupal's comment system. If not, you're probably better off using something else.
Drupal is a flexible content management system and framework that provides way more out-of-the-box functionality than just comments. The comment system is relatively tightly coupled to Drupal's nodes and entities and isn't currently intended to be used stand alone. Using just the comment module in Drupal would entail quite a bit of work just in disabling the parts you wouldn't be using and then figuring out how to integrate with the parts you needed. You would be in uncharted territory, with little to no documentation available to help you figure out how to do all that.
If you just need a comment system, you're better off using a stand-alone comment service (such as Disqus or IntenseDebate) or using a package tailored for comments (such as juvia or EasyPageComments) or writing your own comment system.
I'm thinking of building a plugin based application.
At the moment, I am not sure what type of plugins will be used so I don't have a requirement.
I wish to know how such applications are designed so I can start my application around that.
Does anyone have any experience with this? I don't mind what sort of system it is or what your plugins do. What I want are some ideas on how others have achieved this so I can formulate and make my own.
Thanks.
I use this for all of my plugins: http://failover.co.za/2010/10/20/writing-a-pluggable-php-application-part-1/
If the plugins are going to be built by people who won't be editing the script, then you can just include the file for the plugin.
I think it's better for you to work with MVC Framework and then create an application core (modules and all apps need and require this), then think global and create other apps and modules.
Also I suggest you look at an Open Source CMS like Wordpress, Drupal, etc.
We are building a custom application using LAMP with P being PHP. We also need to have CMS to manage various aspects of the site. The two options for the CMS are
Build a complete custom CMS from scratch
Extend an existing open source CMS to fit our needs. This way we can use some of the features out of the box and others we will build ourselves.
I would like to get your feedback on the following
What are your experiences with option number 2?
Which CMS would you recommend that we can further customize and extend for our use?
What are the best ways to integrate a custom application with other external CMS?
I really like the MVC approach for a CMS (you did mention extending), and PyroCMS is built on Codeigniter. It might not (out of the box) serve all of your needs, but easily could. Its worth a look, at the least.
A whole set of CMS are available nowadays, everyone with its own pros and cons.
I guess the first step in your case is to make a list of the features that you:
MUST HAVE
SHOULD HAVE
COULD HAVE
Once you have this list, you'll be able to compare the existing CMSs to see which one better fits your needs.
There's no a best CMS (otherwise everyone would use the same).
Said this, Joomla offers a powerful base system, easily extensible. But this is just my modest opinion. Right now, 4712 extensions exist for this CMS. If you still can't find all you need, it's possible to implement your own extensions (in terms of plugins, components and modules). See the developers section for more information.
I've recommended ModX in response to previous questions
It provides a nice clean framework which is simple to install and is easy customize.
For your situation I think ModX is a strong contender as it allows you to embed your own php code in your site using snippets - Bob's guide on snippets is a good overview. The snippets can be managed through the backend web manager and they can easily be dropped into any pages as required.
Larger applications can be setup as modules, this is similar to many of the other main stream CMS's, it's just that in ModX the web based control makes the management of the code a simple task.
I need to choose a forum component for a new Joomla installation and I'm wondering which one should I use:
JoomlaBoard
Joomla phpBB
Joomla SMF
Any other you might want to suggest
Among the requisites, I will need to dynamically create/delete forums and to add/delete members, so a forum that offers high level API for these tasks would be great. I can live with writing by myself the scripts to directly edit the database, though.
Any suggestion?
Kunena! http://www.kunena.com/
I used ccBoard http://codeclassic.org/ and is pretty good
My best success has been with the Joomla Forum
http://forum.joomla.org/
I would personally choose Kunena or PHPBB.
Both are fast, powerful but both have a few set backs. Kunena integrates with Joomla very easily, all you have to do is install and configure. has to be installed on a subdomain then integrated using a bridge, however is does have some features that Kunena doesnt like usergroups.
I personally use Kunena cause I love the simplicity and integration.
We're planning on setting up a website for student group - most of the content is fairly static but certain portions such as events and members would turn up from the database. I've never worked with PHP much, and was wondering would a CMS system like Drupal or PHP Nuke be appropriate for this kinda work?
Is there anything else that would allow me to go about creating a template and then reusing it across the website?
Drupal would be a very good choice for this. It has its learning curve, - anything you choose will. But eventually the light bulb will go off and you'll see how logically its organized and how flexible it is to extend.
And there are vast resources available to help you get up to speed quick. Tutorials and videos touching all angles of how Drupal works. And then there are uncountable quantity of themes, hundreds of add-on modules of every kind.
With a handful of additional modules added to the core distribution (cck certainly, maybe views and taxonomy too) you can configure basically everything and not ever touch a line of PHP code.
It is extremely simple to install and get started with. I have both Drupal 5 and 6 running under xampplite on a lil MSI netbook! .. Downoad and be up and running in under 15 mins.
You can try out all of the CMS available # http://php.opensourcecms.com.
I've never used PHP Nuke before, but Drupal can easily do the job.
Check out the Calendar module in Drupal for the event function.
Try out Joomla! works the best not just in content management but also theres extensions that you can use to allow users to book meetings and schedule events. Easy and simple.
Try out the +Joomla! instalation and hosting and just worrie about contents! They will put the rest working for you for super cheap price.
I recommend Joomla 1.5. It is easy to use and tons of resources on the web. Good for newbie.