Magento Starters guide

An introduction to your new e-commerce platform

Content
1.- Who is Blue Jay Projects 2.- What should we know about Magento? 3.- Learn the product 4.- Developers Area
4.1.- What you should learn before 4.2.- My First day with Magento 4.3.- Modifying Magento 4.4.- Keeping a maintainable Magento 4.5.- Magento Ninja 4.6.- Performance tips

5.- References and links

Blue Jay Projects

Main focus in LAMP Performance and Scalability, Distributed DBMS E-commerce, Magento , Cloud-computing architectures Agile Evangelists

Customers and Experiences

* Copyright of the logos belong to their respectives companies

Get to know the product!

WHAT SHOULD WE KNOW ABOUT MAGENTO?

Unique Selling Points

Modularity , inherited from Zend Framework software architecture Data Flexibility, however EAV has a cost Community driven software, great ecosystem with lots of modules Multi currency, Multi store, Multi language, designed to see your business grow Very fast release cycle

History
Magento first release 1.0 : March 31st, 2008 Latest community release 1.6.1.0 : October 31st, 2011 First versions hardly relied on Entity-Attribute-Model, with all the current flexibility but with big performance issues, just like any other beta software. Later releases got rid of EAV model in order entity and offered the possibility to flatten the catalog entities ( products / categories ). Many people still wait for customer entity to be flattened at some point, which would also boost big Magento installations.

Versions
Community - Open Source OSL v3 - No official support, however you may find lots of companies offering it - No Warranty or any kind of indemnification Professional Enterprise - PA-DSS Compliant - Professional + More - Supported by advanced modules Magento solution enterprise oriented, partners official support with - Warranty included SLA. - Indemnification included - To sum up: Magento community with some minor modules, and everything it takes to be PCICompliant

Find more at Magentocommerce.com

Release History
Release 1.3.0 1.3.1 1.4.0.0 1.4.0.1 1.4.1.0 1.4.1.1 1.5.0.0 1.5.0.1 1.6.0.0 1.6.1.0 Whats special? WSDL, Flat catalog, Bugfix Widgets, WYSIWYG editor, 3dSecure bugfix Flatten Orders! Bugfix and LOTS of FEATURES! Better Order statuses management, magento mobile, better import/export, All from 1.5.0.0 + bugfix Minimum advertised price, persistent cart, some shipping integration to print labels Minor improvements and bugfix Date 2009/03/30 2009/04/17 (18 days) 2010/02/12 2010/02/19 2010/07/10 2010/06/26 Failed! 2011/02/09 2011/08/18 2011/10/19

OK, we like it. Where should we Start?

* Bob Spunge copyright is property of Viacom International

Learn the product

Have some training in e-commerce in general, youll find most of the things you might need are either in Magento core modules or Magento connect. Magento has a lot of information to watch and read. Pay attention to the webinars at http://www.magentocommerce.com/media/webinars/, get special focus on Magento U summer webinars, they were quite good. This is pretty important to avoid developing new features, instead of using what comes out-of-the-box. Visit http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/ , have a look at some modules out there, probably you find 80% of what you want for your business. You might also get some new ideas Spend lots of time playing with Magento backend, get to know whats in every single tab, each link

Seriously, Spend enough time to understand what weve seen so far. It will save you lots of headaches!!

* Image extracted from docmendizabal.blogspot.com

Ready!

DEVELOPERS AREA

What you should learn before

Magento is a Zend Framework (v1) application. Learning ZF will help you getting Magento quickly. Dedicate some days to learn at http://framework.zend.com/ Understand OOP http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object-oriented_programming first . Once you are done, study and understand Eventdriven programming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Event-driven_programming Understand Model View Controller architectural pattern principles ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modelviewcontroller ), and RESPECT it when developing Magento.

Seriously, Spend enough time to understand what weve seen so far. It will save you lots of headaches!!

* Image extracted from docmendizabal.blogspot.com

I know kung-fu. Prove it!

* The Matrix is a registered brand by Warner Bros.

Everything is hard at the beginning

MY FIRST DAY DEVELOPING MAGENTO

*picture from blackberrypool.com

 You might need some help during setup, follow the official installation guide at
http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base/entry/magento-installation-guide

After the installation, you MUST understand EVERY SINGLE parameter under system>configuration. Its the key to avoid developing again something that comes out-of-the-box. Magento directory structure: app directory is your main focus js and skin will also be important developing frontend media will host all the catalog pictures var is where all the temporary content will be Dont mess too much with the rest

 Create your own Namespace in app/code/local . Every module you develop will be placed there. Create also your own design package in app/design/ frontend . Remember the webinars
http://www.magentocommerce.com/media/screencasts/designers-guide-1/view

Create new layouts and use them in any CMS page

http://www.magentocommerce.com/design_guide/articles/intro-to-layouts

Change view files and see how your changes are applied. Remember flushing the cache if enabled!

 Create your first module: Start by using the Magento module creator.
http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/modulecreator.html

This will create a basic skeleton of a module for you. Play with it! Important: Model: create your own and instantiate it from anywhere Controller: create your actions and do some tests Helper: instantiate it and see what you can do, not only playing with i18n Sql upgrade scripts: you are able to interact with the DB as your module gets upgraded. Blocks: see what you can do, and test the cache capabilities

Modifying Magento
Now its time to override Magento core elements Overriding a model:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/16829/

Overriding a controller , 2 examples, depending on what you want to do exactly:

Override the whole controller:
http://web-magician.blogspot.com/2009/06/overriding-controllers-and-actions-in.html

Override an action:
http://www.spinonesolutions.com/2010/03/magento-controller-override/

Overriding a block
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/14692/

Overriding a helper:
http://magedev.com/2009/06/03/magento-overriding-model-block-or-helper/

Keeping a Maintainable Magento

Use Magentos ORM, dont launch SQL queries to the DB. (it might make sense under some circunstantes, but less than you might think) Avoid extending core classes, work with Magento events and observers instead.
Learn how to create an observer: http://bit.ly/dby1mw Discover all the existing events in Magento, theres an event for everything!
http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/development/reference/event-list?do=diff

Your code will be easily installable in any other Magento setup, installing others modules will also be easier, and any upgrade wont be that painful.

Magento Ninja! (1/2)

If you already work as an Event-driven developer, and want to get deeper, try:
Creating cronjobs:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/wiki/1_-_installation_and_configuration/how_to_setup_a_cron_job

Using Magento cache. Remember to use tags, and what tags are affecting your cached object.
http://www.nicksays.co.uk/2010/07/developers-guide-magento-cache/

Creating configuration settings:

http://alanstorm.com/custom_magento_system_configuration

Creating attributes programatically if you need them in your modules

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3459424/how-to-add-an-attribute-programmatically

Magento Ninja! (2/2)

Creating new payment method: http://bit.ly/ckekRU Creating new shipping method: http://bit.ly/d59xR8 Using Magento transactions: http://bit.ly/tuCBZg Creating Magento widgets: http://bit.ly/m22By

Performance tips
Enable Magento code compilation: Make sure not to include files from others, and to develop healthy magento code. http://alanstorm.com/magento_compiler_path Boost up users experience by enabling JS/CSS merge. This will also not work if you include missing files in your layout XML If you work with Community Edition, use any Full Page Cache system: Either you create your own or purchase anyone on the market.

Performance tips
Profile your site continuously: Xhprof: https://github.com/preinheimer/xhprof Zend Server: http://www.zend.com/products/server/ Lucierna Antorcha: http://www.lucierna.com/ Use CDNs and/or reverse proxies for as much content as you can. Find more about performance and scalability at http://slidesha.re/rwZ7hZ

References & Links

http://www.magentocommerce.com/knowledge-base http://magento4u.wordpress.com/ ( maybe this site has been closed? ) http://alanstorm.com/ http://magetool.co.uk/ https://github.com/alistairstead Fernando Palomo's Slideshare Presentation