Magento is a complex open source eCommerce platform. It’s open source nature and welcoming community means anyone can pick it up, learn it and launch it. After working on over 300 different Magento sites in the past 6 years, however, I’ve learned that many of the misconceptions about Magento - it’s slow, hard to work with, buggy or unstable come from projects that were built by first-timers who weren’t aware of Magento best practices. In this tutorial, I walk you through the entire process of creating, testing and deploying a high-performing, fast Magento-based eCommerce website.

1. magento tutorial
presented by joshua warren
@joshuaSWarren

2. introductions

3. About me
magento developer
5000+ hours magento dev work
would take 2.5 work years of 8 hours/day

4. About me
founder of creatuity, magento agency
mentor magento developers

5. About this tutorial
creating, testing, deploying a magento site

6. About this tutorial
focused on real-world experience
saving you some trial and error pain

7. About this tutorial
can’t cover everything in 3.5 hours
give you a foundation
point you in the right direction

8. About this tutorial
roughly split into 3 one-hour sessions
10 minute breaks after hour 1 & 2

9. About this tutorial
10 minute Q&A at the end

10. About this tutorial
let’s interact

11. About YOU
php experience?
magento experience?
what do you want to learn today?

12. About magento
magento isn’t slow
magento isn’t buggy

13. About magento
bad implementations of magento
are slow and buggy

14. About magento
based on zend framework v1
model view controller pattern
event observer pattern
many others

15. About magento
built by a development agency in 2007
response to poorly designed systems of time

16. pre-development preparation

17. do your homework
before you write a line of code, plan

18. know magento’s features
don’t reinvent the wheel

19. know magento’s features
user’s guide
designer’s guide

20. know magento’s features
know the differences between community and
enterprise editions

21. know magento’s features
enable layered navigation for categories
don’t implement product reviews - they’re
already there

22. know what to buy vs build
pre-made themes
pre-made extensions

23. finding quality extensions
magento connect

24. finding quality extensions
judge.nr-apps.com
www.magekarma.com
magento.stackexchange.com
@joshuaswarren / @ benmarks

25. finding quality extensions
avoid encrypted extensions
avoid cheap knock-offs

26. buy or build theme?
build a fully custom theme
customize a purchased theme
purchase a theme

27. building a theme
build on top of the magento 1.9 rwd base
sass and other front-end best practices

28. building a theme
get or make mockups
mockups should be made by a designer with
magento knowledge

29. customizing a theme
most purchased themes don’t use sass
most purchased themes don’t support ee

30. know your objectives
budget?
timeline?
features?

31. know your tools
enable dev mode in magento - index.php
turn on logging in admin panel
disable caching in admin panel

32. know your tools - frontend work
enable template path hints in admin panel

33. know your tools - backend work
magerun
commercebug
magicento plugin for phpstorm

34. know the ground rules
never, ever modify app/code/core/*
don’t modify app/design/frontend/base/
default/*

36. know the ground rules
follow the magento patterns - they are there
for your benefit

37. getting started

38. setup your development environment
download magento
install it

39. getting fancier with your dev environment
install virtualbox
www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
install vagrant
www.vagrantup.com/downloads.html

40. getting fancier with your dev environment
cd <project directory>
git clone https://github.com/joshuaswarren/
simple-magento-vagrant

41. getting fancier with your dev environment
vagrant up

42. getting fancier with your dev environment
frontend: http://127.0.0.1:8080
backend: http://127.0.0.1:8080/admin
User: admin Password: password123123

43. getting fancier with your dev environment
to ssh in: vagrant ssh
to shut down vm: vagrant halt

44. first up - install extensions and theme
install purchased extension
install purchased theme

45. installing paid extensions
follow provided instructions
usually involves unzipping an archive

46. installing open source extensions
modman:
modman clone git@github.com:GordonLesti/
Lesti_Fpc.git

47. check for extension conflicts
when two extensions rewrite same code

48. check for extension conflicts
one extension wins
other extension may or may not work

49. check for extension conflicts
mr dev:module:rewrite:conflicts

50. check for extension conflicts

51. Resolving extension conflicts
easy way - ask extension author for help
or
make one extension dependent on other
or
merge the code into a new extension

52. begin development work
if working with a team, split up the work
easiest split is theme work vs backend work

53. begin development work
even if working alone, use git

54. looking for the perfect dev workflow?
check out “rock solid magento development”
presented by Fabrizio Branca
3PM, Ash Grove c, Thursday

55. theming magento

56. two ways - old way and the right way
both start with a similar foundation
app/design - XML, html
skin - css, javascript

57. app/design/frontend
theme folders
base/<theme-name>
rwd/default

58. theme folder contents
etc - theme config file
layout
template

59. layout folder contents
xml files
xml controls what blocks appear

60. template folder contents
phtml files
html and php code making up your views

61. skin/frontend
similar set of theme folders
base/<theme-name>
rwd/default

62. skin base/<theme-name>
css
images
js
lib

63. skin rwd/default
css
images
js
scss

64. homework
manuals.gravitydept.com/platforms/magento
alanstorm.com/
magento_infinite_fallback_theme_xml

65. checkpoint

67. modifying magento

68. just a reminder…

70. all joking aside…
core mods make magento projects harder to
maintain
harder to update
harder to support

71. how do we modify magento, then?
extensions

72. extensions modify core behavior via
class rewrites
events/observers

73. class rewrites
module’s config.xml specifies item to be
overridden

74. class rewrites
module’s config.xml specifies item to be
overridden
requests to the core class is then rewritten
to your module

75. class rewrites
before every call, magento checks if there is
a rewrite for the class
replaces the core class with your class

76. class rewrites - example
from codegento.com
example - display “loves magento” after the
customer’s name

77. class rewrites - example class
class Super_Awesome_Model_Customer extends Mage_Customer_Model_Customer
{
public function getName()
{
$name = parent::getName();
$name = $name . ' loves Magento';
return $name;
}
}

78. class rewrites - example config.xml
<global>
<models>
<customer>
<rewrite>
<customer>Super_Awesome_Model_Customer</customer>
</rewrite>
</customer>
</models>
</global>

79. class rewrites - example
that’s it!
see, no need to modify core

80. class rewrites - drawback
rewrite conflicts
know how to solve them
ideally, avoid them with…

81. observers
magento allows you to attach observers to
events

82. observers & events
there’s many, many events
www.nicksays.co.uk/magento-events-cheat-sheet-
1-8/

83. events
checkout_cart_product_add_after
checkout_cart_update_items_before
checkout_cart_update_items_after
checkout_cart_save_before
checkout_cart_save_after
checkout_cart_product_update_after
custom_quote_process
checkout_quote_init
load_customer_quote_before
checkout_quote_destroy
checkout_type_multishipping_set_shipping_items

84. events
wishlist_add_product
wishlist_update_item
wishlist_share
wishlist_items_renewed
wishlist_item_collection_products_after_load
wishlist_item_add_after
wishlist_add_item
wishlist_product_add_after
review_controller_product_init_before
review_controller_product_init

85. events
that was 20 out of over 400 events
find an event that matches your needs

86. observer example
from stackoverflow
Every time someone purchases a product I
need Magento to deduct that quantity from
certain child skus behind the scenes

87. observer example - config.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
<modules>
<YourCmpany_YourModule>
<version>1.0.0</version>
</YourCmpany_YourModule>
</modules>

88. observer example - config.xml, continued
<frontend>
<events>
<checkout_type_onepage_save_order_after>
<observers>
<yourmodule_save_order_observer>
<class>YourCompany_YourModule_Model_Observer</class>
<method>checkout_type_onepage_save_order_after</method>
</yourmodule_save_order_observer>
</observers>
</checkout_type_onepage_save_order_after>
</events>
</frontend>

89. observer example - config.xml, continued
<global>
<models>
<yourmodule>
<class>YourCompany_YourModule_Model</class>
</yourmodule>
</models>
</global>
</config>

90. observer example - class
class YourCompany_YourModule_Model_Observer
{
public function checkout_type_onepage_save_order_after(Varien_Event_Observer $observer)
{
$order = $observer->getEvent()->getOrder();
/**
* Grab all product ids from the order
*/
$productIds = array();
foreach ($order->getItemsCollection() as $item) {
$productIds[] = $item->getProductId();
}

91. observer example - class, continued
foreach ($productIds as $productId) {
$product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')
->setStoreId(Mage::app()->getStore()->getId())
->load($productId);
if (! $product->isConfigurable()) {
continue;
}

92. observer example - class, continued
/**
* Grab all of the associated simple products
*/
$childProducts = Mage::getModel('catalog/product_type_configurable')
->getUsedProducts(null, $product);
foreach($childProducts as $childProduct) {

93. observer example - class, continued
/**
* in_array check below, makes sure to exclude the simple product actually
* being sold as we dont want its stock level decreased twice :)
*/
if (! in_array($childProduct->getId(), $productIds)) {
/**
* Finally, load up the stock item and decrease its qty by 1
*/
$stockItem = Mage::getModel('cataloginventory/stock_item')
->loadByProduct($childProduct)
->subtractQty(1)
->save()

94. observer example - class, continued
/**
* Finally, load up the stock item and decrease its qty by 1
*/
$stockItem = Mage::getModel('cataloginventory/stock_item')
->loadByProduct($childProduct)
->subtractQty(1)
->save()
;
}
}
}
}
}

95. events & observers
why doesn’t everyone use them?
lack of knowledge
seeking shortcuts
lack of event matching their needs

96. config.xml
with both rewrites and observers,
config.xml is important

97. config.xml
magento merges all config.xml files into one
xml document at runtime

98. config.xml dependencies
you can use dependencies in config.xml to
control the order your xml is merged

99. config.xml - dependency example
<!-- File: app/etc/modules/Mage_Bundle.xml -->
<config>
<modules>
<Mage_Bundle>
<active>true</active>
<codePool>core</codePool>
<depends>
<Mage_Catalog />
</depends>
</Mage_Bundle>
</modules>
</config>

100. config.xml dependencies
without proper dependencies you may see
unexpected results

101. config.xml homework
alanstorm.com/magento_config_tutorial
alanstorm.com/
magento_config_declared_modules_tutorial

102. walkthrough of a real-life example
goal: require users to login before viewing
products or categories

103. walkthrough of a real-life example
github.com/Vinai/loginonlycatalog

104. checkpoint

106. testing magento

107. see my testing talk on thursday
thursday morning, 10AM, this room

108. in the meantime…
github.com/MageTest
watch the magento fireside chats on testing

109. a brief overview of testing magento
a good start:
manual QA review

110. a brief overview of testing magento
even better:
automated Functional testing

111. a brief overview of testing magento
best:
test/behavior driven development

112. conducting manual qa
check the basics - core mods, code smell
complete user acceptance testing
basic regression testing

113. conducting more advanced QA
come to my testing talk on thursday
in the meantime, if you install & use vagrant,
you have behat, behatmage, phpspec,
magespec, phpunit

114. deploying magento

115. now the fun begins
deploying a magento site - easier than rails,
harder than wordpress

116. first things first
place the production server in maintenance
mode
avoid multiple hits to the site before
deployment is complete

117. multiple approaches
tar, transfer, untar
git
deployhq, etc

118. one result
files and database are present on production
server

119. next step
run any setup/upgrade scripts
magerun:
sys:setup:run
sys:setup:incremental --stop-on-error

120. test
test the functionality of the site

121. TEST - admin functionality
changes to admin functionality may require
logging out and logging back in
when in doubt, clear the cache

122. go live!
disable maintenance mode
watch var/report and var/log folders
did you disable maintenance mode?

123. magento performance

124. we’re live, now what?
make sure it’s fast
in ecommerce, speed = money

125. check the basics
$5/month hosting probably won’t cut it
enable all the caches
disable developer mode

126. caching is important
use a full page cache - included in ee
for ce, use lesti fpc
gordonlesti.com/lestifpc/

127. caching is important
make sure your php instance has an opcode
cache - apc, etc
check your local.xml and configure for redis
caching and sessions

128. some options can be risky
magento compiler

129. learn much, much more
wednesday, 3PM, potomac room
“Making magento go fast” presented by Thijs
Feryn

130. community advice

131. Some advice from the community
clear the cache

134. Some advice from the community
clear the cache
don’t hesitate to ask for help

135. what about magento 2?

136. magento 2 - see for yourself
github.com/magento/magento2

137. magento 2 talk
wednesday morning, ash grove b, 10AM
tobias zander presents
what’s new in magento 2?

138. magento 2 release dates
dev beta next month (december 2014)
dev RC First half 2015
merchant beta mid-2015
general release end 2015

139. magento 2
similar to magento 1, but different

140. magento 2 - similarities
same inspiration - apply best design patterns
to the problem of ecommerce

141. magento 2 - differences
composer
service layer
even more modular and easier to adapt

142. magento 2 - differences
testing built in from the start

143. magento 2 - differences
documentation!
for more technical details:
alankent.wordpress.com/

144. magento 2 - timelines
magento 1 will be around for a long time
magento 2 won’t be a popular choice for new
sites until 2016

145. magento 2 - next steps for devs
learn magento 2
give feedback to the magento 2 team

146. your next steps

148. read
alanstorm.com/category/magento
grokking magento:
shop.vinaikopp.com/grokking-magento/

149. read
magento-quickies.alanstorm.com
store.pulsestorm.net/products/no-frills-magento-
layout

150. watch
magento u
fundamentals of magento development
40 hours of magento dev goodness

151. participate
twitter - #realmagento
@benmarks
@joshuaswarren

152. participate
reddit - r/magento
web - mageunity.com

153. participate
stack exchange - magento.stackexchange.com

154. attend
magento imagine - april 2015, vegas
imagine2015.magento.com
local meet magento events
www.meet-magento.com

155. questions?

156. thank you!
joshuawarren.com
@joshuaswarren
josh@creatuity.com