Magento Articles for Professional Developers

A growing list of articles plumbing the depths of the enigmatic, and increasingly dominant, Magento eCommerce System.

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Magento for PHP MVC Developers

This was the original series of article I wrote on the functionality I thought a PHP developer coming to Magento would want to know about. While some of the details have changes (these were the CE 1.3/CE 1.4 days after all), working through these articles is still the best way to come up to speed on the system.

  1. The Magento Config

  2. Magento Controller Dispatch and Hello World

  3. Layouts, Blocks and Templates and Addendum

  4. Magento Models and ORM Basics

  5. Magento Setup Resources

  6. Magento Advanced ORM: Entity Attribute Value; Part 1

  7. Custom Magento System Configuration

  8. In Depth Magento System Configuration

  9. Varien Data Collections

  10. Magento System Overrides and Upgradability

  11. Magento Default System Configuration Values

The Magento Config, Revisited

  1. The Magento Config, Revisited; Loading the Base Config

  2. Loading Installed Modules and Module Config

  3. Loading Default, Store, and Website Configuration

Posts inspired by Magento Imagine

A short series spawed by my participation in Magento’s 2011 Imagine conference.

  1. Widgets at Magento Imagine Unconference

  2. Magento 1.5.0.1 Security Fix

Developing The Magento Admin Console

I began this series wanting to get in-depth into the Magento Admin Console, but I severely underestimated how what in-depth would mean here. I’m still struggling with the best way to present Admin Console development that’s useful to both newbies and experienced developers. Still, these articles contain useful information that might help you through a specific problem, or give you a jumping off point for your own research.

  1. Magento Admin Hello World

  2. Magento Access Control Lists

  3. Validating System Configuration Values

In Depth Magento Dispatch

An incredibly deep dive on how Magento handles URL routing. This series started because I wanted to write a quick article on Magento URL rewrites, and it turned out you couldn’t teach people about rewrites without explaining their place in Magento’s routing system.

  1. Top Level Routers

  2. The Standard Router

  3. Stock Routers

  4. Request Rewrites

  5. Advanced Request Rewrites

Magento Projects

Project posts! Most of these cover modules I’ve uploaded to Magento Connect.

Pulse Storm LLC Posts

Post about the software company I own and operate, and without which none of this would be possible.

Miscellaneous Magento Articles

The everything else bucket. Typically when I post a stand alone article it’ll end up here.

Modules used in the Magento for PHP MVC Developers Series

When I started writing Magento articles, I tried to post finished code for a particular module. I quickly found the thought of creating, and then testing these finished modules was sapping my motivation to write, so I stopped.