How to Easily Choose the Right Web Hosting for Your Business?

If you have had made the decision to get online and are looking for business web hosting to get your regular brick and mortar business on the internet, congratulations, it’s about time!
Seriously, if you don’t have a web presence for your business on the internet you are missing out on a lot of business and much of it is free!

With the proliferation of business web hosting companies available to choose from it can be a confusing process to sort through them all but if you just take it a step at a time and first identify the web hosting needs for your business it will be easier. You need to ask yourself questions such as, “Do I need a dedicated server or can I get by with a shared server?” Unless you do a large volume of business on the internet chances are you don’t need a dedicated server, which can cost you anywhere from $150 to $500 a month. Most businesses can get by with just a regular shared server or virtual server and have web hosting expenses under $30 a month. The price will vary from around $10 a month to as much as $50 depending on how much bandwidth and disk space you need.

If all you are doing is basically putting up an informational site or a blog about your business you will not require much space and probably not a shopping cart although I cannot imagine putting a business website up without one.

Don’t deal with any fly by night web hosting companies that are running their hosting out of their bedroom. You want to be able to get 24/7 support in case you have any problems and you want to be sure that they have minimal or nonexistent down time. Remember that if their servers are down so is your business website. Make sure they have a money back guarantee, all of the reputable web hosting providers do. The company should also make it very easy for you to upgrade or downgrade your services and most will offer you a discount if you pay annually or quarterly instead of monthly. This can make a large difference in your annual web hosting expenses so definitely check into it.

The choice of a business web hosting company is not one to be taken lightly. As we move more and more into the progression of total internet business that is sure to come it will become even more crucial to have the right web hosting, it can very well be a life or death decision for your business.

How to Make Money Online During this Long Recession – There are Ways

It is no real secret that many parts of the world including the United States is in an what is seeming to be a very long and drawn out recession. This recession has affected and continue to affect millions upon millions of people on a daily basis.

If you are reading this article you most likely are being effected by this cruel recession. I am writing this article to let you and others know that there are ways to make some extra money to help you get through these tough times.

Despite what you may have heard or think, You can make money online!

Many people who are desperate to find some ways to bring in some more money ignore the possibility of using the internet to do this because of many misconceptions that are associated with making money online.

Many feel that anything that involves making cash via the internet must be some sort of scam or just something that flat out won’t work.

Yes, I will tell you that there are what some will call “money making scams” out there but the truth is that there are scams everywhere online and off.

There are real money making opportunities online you just have to know how to find them and use them.

Here are some real ways that you can make some money online. Look at these and decide what may work for you.

Online Paid Surveys – This is one of the most debated methods for earning money online. Many will tell you that this is not a real way to get cash and it just doesn’t work. The truth about online paid surveys is this. No you will not make 6 figures a year with this method, but you can earn some cash.

Those who are dedicated paid survey takers can earn anywhere from an extra $25 to a couple hundred dollars a month.

eBay- This is a very well known method for adding to one’s income. Throughout the last few years eBay has mace a lot of changes but people still are making a fairly decent amount of cash with this monster auction site.

I always recommend that people start off selling things that they already own just to get the hang of how eBay works. Then once you start making a little cash you can hookup with some quality wholesale drop shippers and start a your own full fledged eBay business. Yes, this is very possible to do.

Affiliate Marketing – This is definitely the most popular online money making methods out there. Affiliate Marketing is nothing more then the promotion of someone else’s product in which a commission is earned for every sell generated by the promoter.

There are many full-time affiliate marketers making well over a full-time income. Affiliate Marketing can seem tough at first but luckily there are tons of great courses out there that teaches people just like us how to do it to earn the big bucks.

Do not let the recession stop you from living the life that you want to live. Just know that there are ways to make some money besides your traditional 9-5.

Magento Models and Object Relational Mapping Basics

The implementation of a “Models Tier” is a huge part of any MVC framework. It represents the data of your application, and most applications are useless without data. Magento Models play an even bigger role, as they typically contain the “Business Logic” that’s often (right or wrong) relegated to the Controller or Helper methods in other PHP MVC frameworks.

The following is part of a longer series about Magento aimed at developers familiar with PHP MVC development. While each article can be read stand alone, each article does build on concepts covered in previous articles. If you’re confused, be sure to catch up on the older stuff first.

Traditional PHP MVC Models

If the definition of MVC is somewhat fuzzy, the definition of a Model is even fuzzier. Prior to the wide adoption of the MVC pattern by PHP developers, data access was usually raw SQL statements and/or a SQL abstraction layer (such as AdoDB). Developers would write queries and not think too much about that objects they were modeling.

In 2009 raw SQL is mostly frowned upon, but many PHP frameworks are still SQL centric. Models will be objects that provide some layer of abstraction, but behind the scenes developers are still writing SQL and/or calling SQL like abstraction methods to read and write-down their data.

Other frameworks eschew SQL and take the Object Relational Mapping (ORM) approach. Here, a developer is dealing strictly with Objects. Properties are set, and when a save method is called on the Object, the data is automatically written to the database. Some ORMs will attempt to divine object properties from the database, others require the user to specify them in some way, (usually in an abstract data language such as YAML). One of the most famous and popular implementations of this approach is ActiveRecord.

This definition of ORM should suffice for now, but like everything Computer Science these days, the strict definition of ORM has blurred over the years. It’s beyond the scope of this article to settle that dispute, but suffice it say I’m generalizing a bit and probably asking to be jumped by a couple of Java developers when I leave the house.

Magento Models

It should be no surprise that Magento takes the ORM approach. While the Zend Framework SQL abstractions are available, most of your data access will be via the built in Magento Models, and Models you build yourself. It should also come as no surprise that Magento has a highly flexible, highly abstract, sometimes confusing concept of what a Model is.

Anatomy of a Magento Model

Most Magento Models can categorized in one of two way. There’s a basic, ActiveRecord-like/one-object-one-table Model, and there’s also an Entity Attribute Value (EAV) Model. There’s also Model Collections. Collections are PHP objects used to hold a number of individual Magento Model instances. The Varien team has implemented the PHP Standard Library interfaces of IteratorAggregate and Countable to allow each Model type to have it’s own collection type. If you’re not familiar with the PHP Standard Library, think of Model Collections as arrays that also have methods attached.

Magento Models don’t contain any code for connecting to the database. Instead, each Model has two modelResouces, (one read, one write), that are used to communicate with the database server (via read and write adapter objects). By decoupling the logical Model and the code that talks to the database, it’s theoretically possible to write new resource classes for a different database platform while keeping your Models themselves untouched.

Creating a Basic Model
To begin, we’re going to create a basic Magento Model. PHP MVC tradition insists we model a weblog post. The steps we’ll need to take are

1.Crete a new “Weblog” module

2.Create a database table for our Model

3.Add Model information to the config for a Model named Blogpost

4.Add Model Resource information to the config for the Blogpost Model

5.Add A Read Adapter to the config for the Blogpost Model

6.Add A Write Adapter to the config for the Blogpost Model

7.Add a PHP class file for the Blogpost Model

8.Add a PHP class file for the Blogpost Model

9.Instantiate the Model

Create a Weblog Module

You should be an old hat at creating empty modules at this point, so I’ll skip the details and assume you can create an empty module named Weblog. After you’ve done that, we’ll setup a route for an index Action Controller with an action named “testModel”. As always, the following examples assume a Package Name of “Alanstormdotcom”.

In Alanstormdotcom/Weblog/etc/config.xml, setup the following route

standard

Alanstormdotcom_Weblog

weblog

And then add the following Action Controller in

class Alanstormdotcom_Weblog_IndexController extends Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action {

public function testModelAction() {

echo ‘Setup!’;

}

}

at Alanstormdotcom/Weblog/controllers/IndexController.php. Clear your Magento cache and load the following URL to ensure everything’s been setup correctly.

http://example.com/weblog/index/testModel

You should see the word “Setup” on a white background.

Creating the Database Table

Magento has a system for automatically creating and changing your database schemas, but for the time being we’ll just manually create a table for our Model.

Using the command-line or your favorite MySQL GUI application, create a table with the following schema

CREATE TABLE `blog_posts` (

`blogpost_id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,

`title` text,

`post` text,

`date` datetime default NULL,

`timestamp` timestamp NOT NULL default CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,

PRIMARY KEY (`blogpost_id`)

)

And then populate it with some data

INSERT INTO `blog_posts` VALUES (1,’My New Title’,'This is a blog post’,’2009-07-01 00:00:00′,’2009-07-02 23:12:30′);

The Global Config and Creating The Model

There are four individual things we need to setup for a Model in our config.

1.Enabling Models in our Module

2.Enabling Model Resources in our Module

3.Add an “entity” to our Model Resource. For simple Models, this is the name of the table

4.Specifying a Read Adapter for our specific Model Resource

5.Specifying a Write Adapter for our specific Model Resource

When you instantiate a Model in Magento, you make a call like this

$model = Mage::getModel(‘weblog/blogpost’);

The first part of the URI you pass into get Model is the Model Group Name. Because of the way Magento __autoloads classes, this also has to be the (lowercase) name of your module. The second part of the URI is the lowercase version of your Model name.

So, let’s add the following XML to our module’s config.xml.

Alanstormdotcom_Weblog_Model

weblog_mysql4

The outer tag is your Group Name, which should match your module name. is the BASE name all Models in the weblog group will have. The tag indicates which Resource Model that weblog group Models should use. There’s more on this below, but for now be content to know it’s your Group Name, followed by a the literal string “mysql4”.

So, we’re not done yet, but let’s see what happens if we clear our Magento cache and attempt to instantiate a blogpost Model. In your testModelAction method, use the following code

public function testModelAction() {

$blogpost = Mage::getModel(‘weblog/blogpost’);

echo get_class($blogpost);

}

and reload your page. You should see an exception that looks something like this (be sure you’ve turned on developer mode).

include(Alanstormdotcom/Weblog/Model/Blogpost.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory
By attempting to retrieve a weblog/blogpost Model, you told Magento to instantiate a class with the name

Alanstormdotcom_Weblog_Model_Blogpost

Magento is trying to __autoload include this Model, but can’t find the file. Let’s create it! Create the following class at the following location

File: app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Weblog/Model/Blogpost.php

class Alanstormdotcom_Weblog_Model_Blogpost extends Mage_Core_Model_Abstract

{

protected function _construct()

{

$this->_init(‘weblog/blogpost’);

}

}

Reload your page, and the exception should be replaced with the name of your class.

All basic Models should extend the Mage_Core_Model_Abstract class. This abstract class forces you to implement a single method named _construct (NOTE: this is not PHP’s constructor __consutrct). This method should call the class’s _init method with the same identifying URI you’ll be using in the Mage::getModel method call.

The Global Config and Resources

So, we’ve setup our Model. Next, we need to setup our Model Resource. Model Resources contain the code that actually talks to our database. In the last section, we included the following in our config.

weblog_mysql4

The value in will be used to instantiate a Model Resource class. Although you’ll never need to call it yourself, when any Model in the weblog group needs to talk to the database, Magento will make the following method call to get the Model resource

Mage::getResourceModel(‘weblog/blogpost’);

Again, weblog is the Group Name, and blogpost is the Model. The Mage::getResourceModel method will use the weblog/blogpost URI to inspect the global config and pull out the value in (in this case, weblog_mysql4). Then, a model class will be instantiated with the following URI

weblog_mysql4/blogpost

So, if you followed that all the way, what this means is, resource models are configured in the same section of the XML config as normal Models. This can be confusing to newcomers and old-hands alike.

So, with that in mind, let’s configure our resource. In our section add

Alanstormdotcom_Weblog_Model_Mysql4

You’re adding the tag, which is the value of the tag you just setup. The value of is the base name that all your resource modes will have, and should be named with the following format

Packagename_Modulename_Model_Mysql4

So, we have a configured resource, let’s try loading up some Model data. Change your action to look like the following

public function testModelAction() {

$params = $this->getRequest()->getParams();

$blogpost = Mage::getModel(‘weblog/blogpost’);

echo(“Loading the blogpost with an ID of “.$params['id']);

$blogpost->load($params['id']);

$data = $blogpost->getData();

var_dump($data);

}

And then load the following URL in your browser (after clearing your Magento cache)

http://example.com/weblog/index/testModel/id/1

You should see an exception something like the following

Warning: include(Alanstormdotcom/Weblog/Model/Mysql4/Blogpost.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream: No such file ….
As you’ve likely intuited, we need to add a resource class for our Model. Every Model has its own resource class. Add the following class at at the following location

File: app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Weblog/Model/Mysql4/Blogpost.php

class Alanstormdotcom_Weblog_Model_Mysql4_Blogpost extends Mage_Core_Model_Mysql4_Abstract{

protected function _construct()

{

$this->_init(‘weblog/blogpost’, ‘blogpost_id’);

}

}

Again, the first parameter of the init method is the URL used to identify the Model. The second parameter is the database field that uniquely identifies any particular column. In most cases, this should be the primary key. Clear your cache, reload, and you should see

Loading the blogpost with an ID of 1

array

empty

So, we’ve gotten things to the point where there’s no exception, but we’re still not reading from the database. What gives?

Each Model group has a read adapter (for reading from the database) and a write adapter (for updating the database). Magento allows a Model to use the default adapter, or for developers to write their own. Either way, we need tell Magento about it. We’ll be adding a new tag section named to the section of our module config.

core_write

core_read

We’re adding two sub-sections to . One for writing, and one for reading. The tag names ( and ) are based on the Group Name we defined above (“weblog”).

OK, surely with our adapter’s in place we’re ready. Let’s clear our cache, reload the the page, and …

Can’t retrieve entity config: weblog/blogpost

Another exception! When we use the Model URI weblog/blogpost, we’re telling Magneto we want the Model Group weblog, and the blogpost Entity. In the context of simple Models that extend Mage_Core_Model_Mysql4_Abstract, an entity corresponds to a table. In this case, the table named blog_post that we created above. Let’s add that entity to our XML config.

Alanstormdotcom_Weblog_Model_Mysql4

blog_posts

We’ve added a new section to the resource Model section of our config. This, in turn, has a section named after our entity () that specifies the name of the database table we want to use for this Model.

Clear your Magento cache, cross your fingers, reload the page and …

Loading the blogpost with an ID of 2

Loading the blogpost with an ID of 1

array

‘blogpost_id’ => string ’1′ (length=1)

‘title’ => string ‘My New Title’ (length=12)

‘post’ => string ‘This is a blog post’ (length=19)

‘date’ => string ’2009-07-01 00:00:00′ (length=19)

‘timestamp’ => string ’2009-07-02 16:12:30′ (length=19)

Eureka! We’ve managed to extract our data and, more importantly, completely configure a Magento Model.

Basic Model Operations

All Magento Models inherit from the the Varien_Object class. This class is part of the Magento system library and not part of any Magento core module. You can find this object at

lib/Varien/Object.php

Magento Models store their data in a protected _data property. The Varian_Object class gives us several methods we can use to extract this data. You’ve already seen getData, which will return an array of key/value pairs. This method can also be passed a string key to get a specific field.

$model->getData();

$model->getData(‘title’);

There’s also a getOrigData method, which will return the Model data as it was when the object was initially populated, (working with the protected _origData method).

$model->getOrigData();

$model->getOrigData(‘title’);

The Varien_Object also implements some special methods via PHP’s magic __call method. You can get, set, unset, or check for the existence of any property using a method that begins with the word get, set, unset or has and is followed by the camel cased name of a property.

$model->getBlogpostId();

$model->setBlogpostId(25);

$model->unsetBlogpostId();

if($model->hasBlogpostId()){…}

For this reason, you’ll want to name all your database columns with lower case characters and use underscores to separate characters. More recent version of Magento have depreciated this syntax in favor of implementing the PHP ArrayAccess interface

$id = $model->['blogpost_id'];

$model->['blogpost_id'] = 25;

//etc…

That said, you’re likely to see both techniques used throughout the Magento code base, as well as third party extensions.

CRUD, the Magento Way

Magento Models support the basic Create, Read, Update, and Delete functionality of CRUD with load, save, and delete methods. You’ve already seen the load method in action. When passed a single parameter, the load method will return a record whose id field (set in the Model’s resource) matches the passed in value.

$blogpost->load(1);

The save method will allow you to both INSERT a new Model into the database, or UPDATE an existing one. Add the following method to your Controller

public function createNewPostAction() {

$blogpost = Mage::getModel(‘weblog/blogpost’);

$blogpost->setTitle(‘Code Post!’);

$blogpost->setPost(‘This post was created from code!’);

$blogpost->save();

echo ‘post created’;

}

and then execute your Controller Action by loading the following URL

http://example.com/weblog/index/createNewPost

You should now see an additional saved post in you database table. Next, try the following to edit your post

public function editFirstPostAction() {

$blogpost = Mage::getModel(‘weblog/blogpost’);

$blogpost->load(1);

$blogpost->setTitle(“The First post!”);

$blogpost->save();

echo ‘post edited’;

}

And finally, you can delete your post using very similar syntax.

public function deleteFirstPostAction() {

$blogpost = Mage::getModel(‘weblog/blogpost’);

$blogpost->load(1);

$blogpost->delete();

echo ‘post removed’;

}

Model Collections

So, having a single Model is useful, but sometimes we want to grab list of Models. Rather than returning a simple array of Models, each Magento Model type has a unique collection object associated with it. These objects implement the PHP IteratorAggregate and Countable interfaces, which means they can be passed to the count function, and used in for each constructs.

We’ll cover Collections in full in a later article, but for now let’s look at basic setup and usage. Add the following action method to your Controller, and load it in your browser.

public function showAllBlogPostsAction() {

$posts = Mage::getModel(‘weblog/blogpost’)->getCollection();

foreach($posts as $blog_post){

echo ‘

‘.$blog_post->getTitle().’

‘;

echo nl2br($blog_post->getPost());

}

}

Load the action URL,

http://example.com/weblog/index/showAllBlogPosts

and you should see a (by now) familiar exception.

Warning: include(Alanstormdotcom/Weblog/Model/Mysql4/Blogpost/Collection.php) [function.include]: failed to open stream
You’re not surprised, are you? We need to add a PHP class file that defines our Blogpost collection. Every Model has a protected property named _resourceCollectionName that contains a URI that’s used to identify our collection.

protected ‘_resourceCollectionName’ => string ‘weblog/blogpost_collection’
By default, this is the same URI that’s used to identify our Resource Model, with the string “_collection” appended to the end. Magento considers Collections part of the Resource, so this URI is converted into the class name

Alanstorm_Weblog_Model_Mysql4_Blogpost_Collection

Add the following PHP class at the following location

File: app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Weblog/Model/Mysql4/Blogpost/Collection.php

class Alanstormdotcom_Weblog_Model_Mysql4_Blogpost_Collection extends Mage_Core_Model_Mysql4_Collection_Abstract {

protected function _construct()

{

$this->_init(‘weblog/blogpost’);

}

}

Just as with our other classes, we need to init our Collection with the Model URI. (weblog/blogpost). Rerun your Controller Action, and you should see your post information.

Wrapup and a Quick Note on Core Magento Models
Congratulations, you’ve created and configured you first Magento Model. In a later article we’ll take a look at Magento’s Entity Attribute Value Models (EAV), which expand on what we’ve learned here.

Also, there’s a little fib we had to tell you earlier. In this article we indicated that all basic Magento Models inherit from Mage_Core_Model_Abstract. This isn’t 100% true. This Abstract method hasn’t existed for Magento’s entire life, and there are still many Models in the system that inherit directly from Varien_Object. While this shouldn’t affect any Models you create, it is something you’ll want to be aware of while working with Magento code.

Magento Controller Dispatch and Hello World

The Model-View-Controller (MVC) architecture traces its origins back to the Smalltalk Programming language and Xerox Parc. Since then there have been many systems that describe their architecture as MVC. Each system is slightly different, but all have the goal of separating data access, business logic and user-interface code from one another.

The architecture of most PHP MVC frameworks will look something like this.

1.A URL is intercepted by a single PHP file (usually called a Front Controller)

2.This PHP file will examine the URL, and derive a controller name and an action name (a process that’s often called routing)

3.The derived controller is instantiated

4.The method name matching the derived action name is called on the controller

5.This action method will instantiate and call methods on models, depending on the request variables

6.The action method will also prepare a data structure of information, which is passed on to the view

7.The view then renders HTML, using the information in the data structure it has received from the controller

While this pattern was a great leap forward from the “each php file is a page” pattern established early on, for some software engineers, it’s still a hack. Common complaints are

•The Front Controller PHP file still operates in the global namespace

•Convention over configuration leads to less modularity.

◦URLs routing is often inflexible

◦Controllers are often bound to specific views

◦Even when a system offers a way to override these defaults, the convention leads to applications where it’s difficult/impossible to drop in new a new model, view, or controller implementation without massive re-factoring.

As you’ve probably guessed, the Magento team shares this world view and has created a more abstract MVC pattern that looks something like this.

1.A URL is intercepted by a single PHP file

2.This PHP file instantiates a Magento application

3.The Magento application instantiates a Front Controller object

4.Front Controller instantiates any number of Router objects (specified in global config)

5.Routers check the request URL for a “match”

6.If a match is found, an Action Controller and Action are derived

7.Action Controller is instantiated and the method name matching the Action Name is called

8.This action method will instantiate and call methods on models, depending on the request

9.This Action Controller will then instantiate a Layout Object

10.This Layout Object will, based some request variables and system properties (also known as “handles”), create a list of Block objects that are valid for this request

11.Layout will also call an output method on certain Block objects, which start a nested rendering (Blocks will include other Blocks)

12.Each Block has a corresponding Template file. Blocks contain PHP logic, templates contain HTML and PHP output code

13.Blocks refer directly back to the models for their data. In other words, the Action Controller does not pass them a data structure

We’ll eventually touch on each part of this request, but for now we’re concerned with the Front Controller -> Routers -> Action Controller section

Hello World

Enough theory, it’s time for Hello World. We’re going to

1.Create a Hello World module in the Magento system

2.Configure this module with routes

3.Create Action Controller(s) for our routes

Create Hello World Module

First, as we did before, we’ll create a directory structure for this module

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/Block

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/controllers

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/etc

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/Helper

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/Model

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/sql

and then a configuration file (config.xml) for the module

PATH: app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/etc/config.xml

0.1.0

and a file to activate the module

PATH: app/etc/modules/Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld.xml

true

local

Finally, ensure the module is active

1.Clear your Magento cache

2.In the Magento Admin, go to

System->Configuration->Advanced

3.Expand “Disable Modules Output” (if it isn’t already)

4.Ensure that Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld shows up

Configuring Routes

Next, we’re going to configure a route. A route will turn a URL into an Action Controller and a method. Unlike other PHP MVC systems, you need to explicitly define a route in the global Magento config.

In your config.xml file, add the following section

…

standard

Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld

helloworld

…

We have a lot of new terminology here

What is a ?

The tag refers to a Magento Area. For now, think of Areas as individual Magento applications. The “frontend” Area is the public facing Magneto shopping cart application. The “admin” Area is the the private administrative console application. The “install” Area is the application you use to run though installing Magento the first time.

Why a tags if we’re configuring individual routes?

There’s a famous quote about computer science, often attributed to Phil Karlton

There are only two hard things in Computer Science: cache invalidation and naming things

Magento suffers from the naming problem in spades. You’ll find there are are many places in the global config, and the system in general, where the naming conventions seem unintuitive or even ambiguous. This is one of those places. Sometimes the tag will enclose configuration information about routers, other times it will enclose configuration information about the actual router objects that do the routing. This is going to seem counter intuitive at first, but as you start to work with Magento more and more, you’ll start to understand its world view a little better. (Or, in the words of Han Solo, “Hey, trust me!”).

What is a ?

When a router parses a URL, it gets separated as follows

http://example.com/frontName/actionControllerName/actionMethod/

So, by defining a value of “helloworld” in the tags, we’re telling Magento that we want the system to respond to URLs in the form of

http://example.com/helloworld/*

Many developers new to Magento confuse this frontName with the Front Controller object. They are not the same thing. The frontNames belong solely to routing.

What’s the tag for?

This tag should be the lowercase version of you module name. Our module name is Helloworld, this tag is helloworld.

You’ll also notice our frontName matches our module name. It’s a loose convention to have frontNames match the module names, but it’s not a requirement. In fact, a single module could define multiple and therefore have multiple frontNames.

What’s Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld for?

This module tag should be the full name of your module, including its package/namespace name. This will be used by the system to locate your controller files.

Create Action Controller(s) for our routes

One last step to go, and we’ll have our Action Controller. Create a file at

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/controllers/IndexController.php
That contains the following

class Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld_IndexController extends Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action {

public function indexAction() {

echo ‘Hello Index!’;

}

}

Clear your config cache, and load the following URL

http://exmaple.com/helloworld/index/index

You should also be able to load

http://exmaple.com/helloworld/index/

http://exmaple.com/helloworld/

You should see a blank page with the text “Hello World”. Congratulations, you’ve setup your first Magento controller!

Where do Action Controllers go?

Action Controllers should be placed in a module’s controllers (lowercase c) folder. This is where the system will look for them.

How should Action Controllers be named?

Remember the tag back in config.xml?

Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld

An Action Controller’s name will

1.Start with this string specified in config.xml (Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld)

2.Be followed by an underscore (Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld_)

3.Which will be followed by the Action Controller’s name (Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld_Index)

4.And finally, the word “Controller” (Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld_IndexController)

All Action Controller need Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action as an ancestor.

What’s that index/index nonsense?

As we previously mentioned, Magento URLs are routed (by default) as follows

http://example.com/frontName/actionControllerName/actionMethod/

So in the URL

http://exmaple.com/helloworld/index/index

the URI portion “helloworld” is the frontName, which is followed by index (The Action Controller name), which is followed by another index, which is the name of the Action Method that will be called. (an Action of index will call the method public function indexAction(){…}.

If a URL is incomplete, Magento uses “index” as the default, which is why the following URLs are equivalent.

http://exmaple.com/helloworld/index/

http://exmaple.com/helloworld/

If we had a URL that looked like this

http://exmaple.com/checkout/cart/add

Magento would

1.Consult the global config to find the module to use for the frontName checkout (Mage_Checkout)

2.Look for the cart Action Controller (Mage_Checkout_CartController)

3.Call the addAction method on the cart Action Controller

Other Action Controller tricks

Let’s try adding a non-default method to our Action Controller. Add the following code to IndexController.php

public function goodbyeAction() {

echo ‘Goodbye World!’;

}

And then visit the URL to test it out.

http://example.com/helloworld/index/goodbye

Because we’re extending the Mage_Core_Controller_Front_Action class, we get some methods for free. For example, additional URL elements are automatically parsed into key/value pairs for us. Add the following method to your Action Controller.

public function paramsAction() {

echo ‘

‘;

foreach($this->getRequest()->getParams() as $key=>$value) {

echo ‘

Param: ‘.$key.’

‘;

echo ‘

Value: ‘.$value.’

‘;

}

echo ‘

‘;

}

and visit the following URL

http://example.com/helloworld/index/params?foo=bar&baz=eof

You should see each parameter and value printed out.

Finally, what would we do if we wanted a URL that responded at

http://example.com/helloworld/messages/goodbye

Here our Action Controller’s name is messages, so we’d create a file at

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Helloworld/controllers/MessagesController.php

with an Action Controller named

Alanstormdotcom_Helloworld_MessagesController

and an Action Method that looked something like

public function goodbyeAction()

{

echo ‘Another Goodbye’;

}

And that, in a nutshell, is how Magento implements the controller portion of MVC. While it’s a little more complicated than other PHP MVC framework’s, it’s a highly flexible system that will allow you build almost any URL structure you want.

How to Implement The Magento Config File

The config is the beating heart of the Magento System. It describe, in whole, almost any module/model/class/template/etc than you’ll need to access. It’s a level of abstraction that most PHP developers aren’t used to working with, and while it adds development time in the form of confusion and head scratching, it also allows you an unprecedented amount of flexibility as far as overriding default system behaviors go.

To start with, we’re going to create a Magento module that will let us view the system config in our web browser. While this is all wrote copying and pasting, it’s worth going through on your own as a way to start getting comfortable with things you’ll be doing while working with Magento, as well as learning key terminology.

Setting up a module Directory Structure

We’re going to be creating a Magento module. A module is a group of php and xml files meant to extend or override core system behavior. This may meaning adding additional data models to track sales information, changing the behavior of existing classes, or adding entirely new features.

It’s worth noting that most of the base Magento system is built using the same module system you’ll be using. If you look in

app/code/core/Mage

each folder is a separate module built by the team at Varien. Together, these modules form the community shopping cart system you’re using. Your modules should be placed in the following folder

app/code/local/Packagename

“Packagename” should be a unique string to Namespace/Package your code. It’s an unofficial convention that this should be the name of your company. The idea is to pick a string that no one else if the world could possibly be using.

app/code/local/Microsoft

When I’m working on my own Magento projects, I use a version of my domain name, “Alanstormdotcom”.

So, to add a module to your Magento system, create the following directory structure

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Configviewer/Block

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Configviewer/controllers

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Configviewer/etc

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Configviewer/Helper

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Configviewer/Model

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Configviewer/sql

You won’t need all these folder for every module, but setting them all up now is a smart idea.

Next, there’s two files you’ll need to create. The first, config.xml, goes in the etc folder you just created.

app/code/local/Alanstormdotcom/Configviewer/etc/config.xml

The second file should be created at the following location

app/etc/modules/Alanstormdotcom_Configviewer.xml

The naming convention for this files is Packagename_Modulename.xml.

The config.xml file should contain the following XML. Don’t worry too much about what all this does for now, we’ll get there eventually

0.1.0

Finally, Alanstormdotcom_Configviewer.xml should contain the following xml.

true

local

That’s it, you now have a bare bones module that won’t do anything, but that Magento will be aware of. To make sure you’ve done everything right

1.Clear your Magento cache

2.In the Magento Admin, go to

System->Configuration->Advanced

3.Expand “Disable modules output” (if it isn’t already)

4.Ensure that Alanstormdotcom_Configviewer shows up

Congratulations, you’ve built your first Magento module!

Creating a Module Config

Of course, this module doesn’t do anything yet. When we’re done, our module will

1.Check for the existence of a “showConfig” query string variable

2.If showConfig is present, display our Magento config and halt normal execution

3.Check for the existence of an additional query string variable, showConfigFormat that will let us specify text or xml output.

First, we’re going to add the following section to our config.xml file.

…

singleton

Alanstormdotcom_Configviewer_Model_Observer

checkForConfigRequest

Then, create a file at

Alanstormdotcom/Configviewer/Model/Observer.php

and place the following code inside

<?php

class Alanstormdotcom_Configviewer_Model_Observer {

const FLAG_SHOW_CONFIG = ‘showConfig’;

const FLAG_SHOW_CONFIG_FORMAT = ‘showConfigFormat’;

private $request;

public function checkForConfigRequest($observer) {

$this->request = $observer->getEvent()->getData(‘front’)->getRequest();

if($this->request->{self::FLAG_SHOW_CONFIG} === ‘true’){

$this->setHeader();

$this->outputConfig();

}

}

private function setHeader() {

$format = isset($this->request->{self::FLAG_SHOW_CONFIG_FORMAT}) ?

$this->request->{self::FLAG_SHOW_CONFIG_FORMAT} : ‘xml’;

switch($format){

case ‘text’:

header(“Content-Type: text/plain”);

break;

default:

header(“Content-Type: text/xml”);

}

}

private function outputConfig() {

die(Mage::app()->getConfig()->getNode()->asXML());

}

}

That’s it. Clear your Magento cache again, and then load any Magento URL with a showConfig=true query string

http://magento.example.com/?showConfig=true

What am I looking at?

You should be looking at a giant XML file. This describes the state of your Magento system. It lists all modules, models, classes, event listeners or almost anything else you could think of.

For example, consider the config.xml file you created above. If you search the XML file in your browser for the text

Configviewer_Model_Observer

you’ll find your class listed. Every module’s config.xml file is parsed by Magento and included in the global config.

Why Do I Care?

Right now this may seem esoteric, but this config is key to understanding Magento. Every module you’ll be creating will add to this config, and anytime you need to access a piece of core system functionality, Magento will be referring back to the config to look something up.

A quick example before we move on to more practical things. As an MVC developer, you’ve likely worked with some kind of helper class, instantiated something like

$helper_sales = new HelperSales();

One of the things Magento has done is abstract away PHP’s class declaration. In Magento, the above code looks something like

$helper_sales = Mage::helper(‘sales’);

In plain english, the static helper method will

1.Look in the section of the Config.

2.Within , look for a section

3.Within the section look for a section

4.Instantiate the class found in #3 (Mage_SalesRule_Helper)

While this seems like a lot of work (and it is), the key advantage is by always looking to the config file for class names, we can override core Magento functionality without changing or adding to the core code. This level of meta programming, not usually found in PHP, allows you to cleanly extend only the parts of the system you need to.

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