Magento is the robust and flexible open-source shopping cart. It is
ecommerce web application launched on 31st March, 2008 and created by
Varien. It is built on components of Zend Framework. As Magento is
powerful and flexible, it has steep learning curve. If you have
knowledge of HTML and CSS and know somewhat of PHP and MySQL then you
can have enterprise class shopping cart running in no time. Magento is
available under the Open Software License version 3.0. Varien is now
Magento Inc. Varien, the company that owns Magento, formerly worked with
osCommerce. They originally planned to split osCommerce but later
decided to rewrite it as Magento. Magento officially started development
in early 2007. Seven months later the first public beta version was
released. On May 30, 2010 Magento mobile was released, it allows store
owners to create native mobile storefront apps. Magento supports
installation of modules through a web-based interface accessible through
the administration area of a Magento installation. Modules are hosted
on the Magento e-Commerce website as a PEAR server. Any community member
can upload a module through the website and is made available once
confirmed by a member of the Magento team. Modules are installed by
entering a module key, available on the module page, into the web based
interface.
Magento developers are familiar with the MVC (Model View Controller) design pattern that is everywhere throughout web frameworks. In the code of Magento, there are many other components besides the M's the V's and the C's. Each module contains the Controller and Model. Within each module, there are no Views. You will find extra tidbits, such as "helper", "etc" and "sql". In these modules there is also the sort of files which we very often work with. This article will try to describe just what a Block is and how it is used. A top priority of Object Oriented Programming is the decoupling of code which means that code should have the least amount of dependency on other code as possible. Blocks are part of Magento solution to keep the application loosely coupled.
A quick introduction on MVC: When a page in Magento is called, the URL tells Magento what code to run. This is done via a "router" which calls upon a selected Controller to do its work. The URL gets "routed" to a particular Controller, which in turns tells Magento what to do. The Catalog controller, for example, is responsible for telling Magento to load a product collection and then show those products to us. The Controller tells Magento which layout is to be used. This determines which modules are put into place, which in turn tells Magento what Views to output. The data from the Models are given to the Views to be displayed. In the scheme of things here, Blocks fit roughly between the View and the Model.
Magento has sets of modules. Modules act as their own little entities, each containing their own M's V's and C's. These modules create the separate areas within a typical Magento page; the header, header links, mini cart, recently viewed products, static HTML blocks, footer, and so on. Basically, comprised within any given web page are multiple modules, each of which call their own Views.
Magento developers are familiar with the MVC (Model View Controller) design pattern that is everywhere throughout web frameworks. In the code of Magento, there are many other components besides the M's the V's and the C's. Each module contains the Controller and Model. Within each module, there are no Views. You will find extra tidbits, such as "helper", "etc" and "sql". In these modules there is also the sort of files which we very often work with. This article will try to describe just what a Block is and how it is used. A top priority of Object Oriented Programming is the decoupling of code which means that code should have the least amount of dependency on other code as possible. Blocks are part of Magento solution to keep the application loosely coupled.
A quick introduction on MVC: When a page in Magento is called, the URL tells Magento what code to run. This is done via a "router" which calls upon a selected Controller to do its work. The URL gets "routed" to a particular Controller, which in turns tells Magento what to do. The Catalog controller, for example, is responsible for telling Magento to load a product collection and then show those products to us. The Controller tells Magento which layout is to be used. This determines which modules are put into place, which in turn tells Magento what Views to output. The data from the Models are given to the Views to be displayed. In the scheme of things here, Blocks fit roughly between the View and the Model.
Magento has sets of modules. Modules act as their own little entities, each containing their own M's V's and C's. These modules create the separate areas within a typical Magento page; the header, header links, mini cart, recently viewed products, static HTML blocks, footer, and so on. Basically, comprised within any given web page are multiple modules, each of which call their own Views.
