Table of Contents for
Magento 2 - Build World-Class online stores

Version ebook / Retour

Cover image for bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition Magento 2 - Build World-Class online stores by Jonathan Bownds Published by Packt Publishing, 2017
  1. Cover
  2. Table of Contents
  3. Magento 2 - Build World-Class online stores
  4. Magento 2 - Build World-Class online stores
  5. Credits
  6. Preface
  7. 1. Module 1
  8. 1. Magento Fundamentals
  9. XAMPP installation
  10. Magento
  11. Summary
  12. 2. Magento 2.0 Features
  13. An introduction to the Magento order management system
  14. Magento 2.0 command-line configuration
  15. The command-line utility
  16. Summary
  17. 3. Working with Search Engine Optimization
  18. Store configuration
  19. SEO and searching
  20. SEO catalog configuration
  21. Google Analytics tracking code
  22. Optimizing Magento pages
  23. Summary
  24. 4. Magento 2.0 Theme Development – the Developers' Holy Grail
  25. Magento 2.0 theme structure
  26. The Magento Luma theme
  27. Magento theme inheritance
  28. CMS blocks and pages
  29. Custom variables
  30. Creating a basic Magento 2.0 theme
  31. Summary
  32. 5. Creating a Responsive Magento 2.0 Theme
  33. Composer – the PHP dependency manager
  34. Building the CompStore theme
  35. CSS preprocessing with LESS
  36. Applying new CSS to the CompStore theme
  37. Creating the CompStore logo
  38. Applying the theme
  39. Creating CompStore content
  40. Customizing Magento 2.0 templates
  41. Summary
  42. 6. Write Magento 2.0 Extensions – a Great Place to Go
  43. Using the Zend framework
  44. Magento 2.0 extension structure
  45. Developing your first Magento extension
  46. The Twitter REST API
  47. The TweetsAbout module structure
  48. Using TwitterOAuth to authenticate our extension
  49. Developing the module
  50. Summary
  51. 7. Go Mobile with Magento 2.0!
  52. Adjusting the CompStore theme for mobile devices
  53. The Magento 2.0 responsive design
  54. The Magento UI
  55. Implementing a new CSS mixin media query
  56. Adjusting tweets about extensions for mobile devices
  57. Summary
  58. 8. Speeding up Your Magento 2.0
  59. Indexing and caching Magento
  60. Indexing and re-indexing data
  61. The Magento cron job
  62. Caching
  63. Fine-tuning the Magento hosting server
  64. Selecting the right Magento hosting service
  65. Apache web server deflation
  66. Enabling the expires header
  67. Minifying scripts
  68. Summary
  69. 9. Improving Your Magento Skills
  70. Magento knowledge center
  71. Improving your Magento skills
  72. Summary
  73. 2. Module 2
  74. 1. Magento 2 System Tools
  75. Installing Magento 2 sample data via GUI
  76. Installing Magento 2 sample data via the command line
  77. Managing Magento 2 indexes via the command line
  78. Managing Magento 2 cache via the command line
  79. Managing Magento 2 backup via the command line
  80. Managing Magento 2 set mode (MAGE_MODE)
  81. Transferring your Magento 1 database to Magento 2
  82. 2. Enabling Performance in Magento 2
  83. Configuring Redis for backend cache
  84. Configuring Memcached for session caching
  85. Configuring Varnish as the Full Page Cache
  86. Configuring Magento 2 with CloudFlare
  87. Configuring optimized images in Magento 2
  88. Configuring Magento 2 with HTTP/2
  89. Configuring Magento 2 performance testing
  90. 3. Creating Catalogs and Categories
  91. Create a Root Catalog
  92. Create subcategories
  93. Manage attribute sets
  94. Create products
  95. Manage products in a catalog grid
  96. 4. Managing Your Store
  97. Creating shipping and tax rules
  98. Managing customer groups
  99. Configuring inventories
  100. Configuring currency rates
  101. Managing advanced pricing
  102. 5. Creating Magento 2 Extensions – the Basics
  103. Initializing extension basics
  104. Working with database models
  105. Creating tables using setup scripts
  106. Creating a web route and controller to display data
  107. Creating system configuration fields
  108. Creating a backend data grid
  109. Creating a backend form to add/edit data
  110. 6. Creating Magento 2 Extensions – Advanced
  111. Using dependency injection to pass classes to your own class
  112. Modifying functions with the use of plugins – Interception
  113. Creating your own XML module configuration file
  114. Creating your own product type
  115. Working with service layers/contracts
  116. Creating a Magento CLI command option
  117. 3. Module 3
  118. 1. Planning for Magento
  119. Technical considerations
  120. Global-Website-Store methodology
  121. Planning for multiple stores
  122. Summary
  123. 2. Managing Products
  124. Managing products the customer focused way
  125. Creating products
  126. Managing inventory
  127. Pricing tools
  128. Autosettings
  129. Related products, up-sells, and cross-sells
  130. Importing products
  131. Summary
  132. 3. Designs and Themes
  133. The concept of theme inheritance
  134. Default installation of design packages and themes
  135. Installing third-party themes
  136. Inline translations
  137. Working with theme variants
  138. Customizing themes
  139. Customizing layouts
  140. Summary
  141. 4. Configuring to Sell
  142. Payment methods
  143. Shipping methods
  144. Managing taxes
  145. Transactional e-mails
  146. Summary
  147. 5. Managing Non-Product Content
  148. Summary
  149. 6. Marketing Tools
  150. Promotions
  151. Newsletters
  152. Using sitemaps
  153. Optimizing for search engines
  154. Summary
  155. 7. Extending Magento
  156. The new Magento module architecture
  157. Extending Magento functionality with Magento plugins
  158. Building your own extensions
  159. Summary
  160. 8. Optimizing Magento
  161. Indexing and caching
  162. Caching in Magento 2 – not just FPC
  163. Tuning your server for speed
  164. Summary
  165. 9. Advanced Techniques
  166. Version control
  167. Magento cron
  168. Backing up your database
  169. Upgrading Magento
  170. Summary
  171. 10. Pre-Launch Checklist
  172. System configurations
  173. Design configurations
  174. Search engine optimization
  175. Sales configurations
  176. Product configurations
  177. Maintenance configurations
  178. Summary
  179. Index

Chapter 7. Extending Magento

One of Magento's strengths is the fact that the platform can be extended to provide additional features and functions. These extensions—or add-ons—number in the thousands. They include themes, payment gateway integrations, site management enhancements, utilities and many, many more features.

In this chapter, we will discuss the two primary ways of extending Magento:

  • Extending existing Magento functionality to meet your own needs
  • A quick overview of the current iteration of Magento Connect
  • Creating your own Magento extensions

By learning how Magento can be enhanced, you will find that the power of Magento can be broadened to meet almost any specific e-commerce need you might imagine.

Magento Connect

Third-party extensions that are offered to the Magento community are, for the most part, listed in a special section of the Magento website called Magento Connect (http://www.Magentocommerce.com/Magento-connect/):

Magento Connect

Let's now review some of the features of Magento Connect, as they relate to researching possible add-ons for your Magento installation.

Searching Magento Connect

At the center-right of the Magento Connect home page is a search field. As with any intuitive search, simply enter in one or more keywords. You can also select the specific version – which Magento calls a platform—in the drop-down menu to the right of the keyword entry field. As shown in the following screenshot, we are searching for any extensions relating to sales:

Searching Magento Connect

Search field in Magento Connect

Furthermore, we can narrow our search to the specific Magento platform, such as the one on which this book is focused: Community.

The results of our search can be further refined by identifying extensions that are free versus paid, or, if paid, fall within a certain price range.

You can also browse the extensions using the categories in the top navigation bar, or the groupings listed below the search form on the main Magento Connect page.

Why developers create free extensions

Magento extensions take time to create, test, package and distribute. Additionally, responsible developers provide support to those who install their extensions. Considering this investment of time and effort, why would any developer offer a free extension?

  • In some case, the free extension is a light, or less-featured, version of a paid extension. If you like how the light version works in your Magento installation, you might pay to get additional functionality.
  • Some extension developers provide other paid extensions as well. Again, if you like how the free extension works, you might be more trusting of the developer's paid extensions. This is particularly popular among theme developers who create one or more free themes with modest features, but sell much more feature-laden themes.
  • I downloaded an extension once that did exactly what it promised, but I needed it to do something slightly different. Rather than change the code myself, I hired the extension developer to create a modified version to meet my needs. I ended up paying a lot less than if I had hired a developer to create the entire extension from scratch.
  • Finally, there are developers who simply like to share. Amazing as it may seem, some people actually like to contribute to the overall success of Magento. Of course, I'm being cheeky here, but in many cases a developer has created a solution for their own needs that they realize could benefit others in the world of Magento. By providing a free extension, or theme, the developer is also validating their expertise. If I need to hire a developer for a specific Magento need, I would first look to developers who have solved similar issues. For example, if I need a payment gateway extension that doesn't already exist, I would first look to those developers who have demonstrated their ability to successfully create payment gateway integrations for Magento. A free extension, therefore, becomes a portfolio piece for a developer.

    Note

    At the time of writing this, the Magento Connect site for 2.0 was still evolving, and there were no protocols available for uploading extensions to the Connect marketplace. In its current iteration, the Connect site is a module catalog that directs the user to different developer websites. For the latest information on submitting extensions, go to http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/create_your_extension. The packaging process here is still specific to 1.0 extensions, but will be updated with information when Magento Connect for 2.0 comes online.