Think Different

Time to move on to some more serious stuff concerning Magento. My last few posts were about understanding a way to use Magento functions. Functions like getModel, getData, getSingleton and so on. Most important it was a way of showing you how to find the available functions ascreend how to extract the data from objects. Not sure if I fully seceded in that but hopefully I helped a bit. Before I start with the explanation on how to actually write a module let’s take a deeper look at the module philosophy. You can look at the module as your application (that’s the way I look at it) within the main application (Magento). Just for the consistency let’s stick to the module terminology. Each module is comprised of various parts working together for the common goal. If your module is named, let’s say, SomeCoolPaymentServiceModule then the common goal of the module parts is to achieve full integration (inner workings) of Magento system with the SomeCoolPaymentService service. So what are the ...

There’s a little confusion among some on how to import products into a Magento ecommerce store . I spent some time today researching and trying to find the best method on doing this. The reason for my research is because there was no simple documentation anywhere that I could find on how to import products. Magento actually has built a pretty robust import/export mechanism into the ecommerce cms that has a ton of flexibility to do many things. I’m not going to cover all of those. This is just for those of you who simply just want to import products into their Magento cart. Step 1 – Add a new product manually add a new product manually to the catalog, assign it to a category, and fill out all fields that will be necessary to your store. The obvious ones are price, description, quantity etc. It’s important that you fill out all fields that you know you are going to need for all the products you import. Step 2 – Export Your Products Now we want to export your product to a .csv file so t...

T he Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, has set the ball rolling for web addresses in scripts other than Latin. This will allow uniform resource locators, as web addresses are called in virtual parlance, in languages other than English, including Hindi, Tamil or Bhojpuri. About half of the world's 1.6 billion Internet users use languages based on scripts other than Latin and may cheer the move. India, which has 50 million Internet users, speaks hundreds of languages. Icann, the non-profit group that oversees domain names, is meeting representatives from all over the world this week in Seoul to decide on this change, which will be one of the biggest in the 40 years of Internet. If it is cleared, Icann will begin accepting applications for non-Latin domain names and the first entries into the system are expected in the middle of next year. Icann is also to decide whether it can give users freedom on global top-level domain names. "If this happens, ...

This tutorial will explain how to create Wordpress widget from scratch. We will make widget using PHP5 OOP. You will also learn how to implement configuration page for your widget. Getting started You should already have Wordpress installed, either on your local machine or on a testing server. For this tutorial we will use the Wordpress version 2.7. You should also have a theme that support widgets. You could use the default one or make a wordpress theme from scratch and widgetize it. Widget name The first task in creating a Wordpress widget is to think about what the widget will do, and make a (hopefully unique) name for your widget. Check out Plugins and the other repositories it refers to, to verify that your name is unique; you might also do a Google search on your proposed name. The name can be multiple words. Widget files We will start by creating a folder widget-name in our wp-content/plugins/ directory, where Wordpress stores all it’s plugins. It’s a good idea to alwa...

In this tutorial, I will explain the basics of how WordPress theme works and show you how to convert a static HTML template into a theme. No PHP skill is required, but you need Photoshop and CSS skills to create your own design. 1. The Blog Frontend Before you start, let’s take a look at the WordPress default theme and see how it is structured. Take note of the elements (header, post title, search form, navigation, footer, etc.). Default Frontpage (index.php) Default Single (single.php) 2. Photoshop Mockups Based on the information gathered from the default theme, design a Photoshop mockup of your blog. Here I’m using GlossyBlue , one of my free WordPress themes , as an example. 3. HTML + CSS After the PSD design is done, create a static HTML+CSS template of each page. Why Create a Static HTML File First? Mainly because it will make the development process a lot easier. I usually create a HTML file for every template that I need, test it across all browsers, validate bo...

Overview Fiat Group SpA is a diversified global company in business for over a century and is one of the top fifteen automobile manufacturers in the world, even larger than Daimler AG. Producing more than 85% of the automobiles that the Fiat Group manufactures and sells, the Fiat Group Automobiles SpA (FGA) subsidiary produces about 1.98 million automobiles/year. Over 42,000 Fiat users channel over $30 Billion (USD) in revenue (24 billion euros) through their PHP-based Fiatlink system which is now the primary access point for all of FGA's dealers and service centers to enter car orders and access information across the Fiat Auto enterprise. This is business-critical PHP. Improving sales performance and customer relations by exploiting back-end and point-of-use technology in the sales, service, and support processes they engage in was the goal for Fiat. Fiatlink addresses both sales and after sales that FGA processes, and currently handles 100% of the ordering and logistics and 6...