Presentation for EAAA ITDays October 2012. Introducing the Magento eCommerce platform on conceptual level and the practical level, taking both administration and development into consideration.

1. Introduction to the Magento
eCommerce Platform
EAAA ITDays October 2012
Jarne W. Beutnagel
jwb@eaaa.dk
www.beutnagel.dk/itdays2012/

2. PURPOSE
Give a general introduction to Magento

3. “Introduce the system on the
conceptual level and practical level
regarding administration and
development”

4. Overview
1. What is Magento?
2. Core Concepts
3. Technical Overview

5. WHAT IS MAGENTO?
Killer features and pitiful drawbacks

6. http://www.magentocommerce.com/

7. Powerful Open Source (read FREE)
eCommerce System

8. The World’s Fastest Growing
eCommerce System

9. Owned by eBay

10. Started in the osCommerce
development community

11. Comes in three versions:
Community, Enterprise & Go

12. Try it out online

13. Enterprise: http://www.magentocommerce.com/demo
Community: http://demo.magentocommerce.com/

14. Killer Features
Multi store
Powerful price rules
SEO friendly
Flexible theming
Expandable through plugins
Huge Community

15. Downsides
High server requirements (especially RAM)
Can be difficult, at times illogical
Weak Content Management
Requires custom development
Upgrading is not automatic

16. DEMONSTRATION
Because looking at slides is boring

17. CATEGORIES
Organizing products

18. Custom Design
It is possible to apply a different design for a given
time period

19. Is Anchor
Allows for layered navigation with attribute filtering

20. Warning: URLS
Automatic 301 redirects are set up for categories
Each unique URL is limited for one time usage
Can’t change and then change back

21. ATTRIBUTES
Controlling product information

22. Attribute sets
Defines which information is available for a product

23. PRODUCT TYPES
The difference between them

24. 1) Standalone Products

25. Simple Products
A physical product with a single SKU

26. Virtual Products
A non-physical product, e.g. warranty or service

27. Downloable Products
A digital product that will be made available for
download after purchase

28. 2) Product Collections

29. Grouped Products
A collection of simple products sold in a group

30. Configurable Products
A single product that have configurable options,
where each option represent a simple product

31. Bundle Products
Lets the customer build their own collection,
selecting between simple products (e.g. gift basket)

32. SCOPE
The hierarchy and reach of settings

33. Different Levels
Websites, Stores, Store Views
Global/Default

34. Websites
Consists of one or more stores that can share
customer data
Operates at the Business level

35. Stores
Contains the product catalogue and categories
Operates at the Webshop level

36. Store Views
Contains the localization of a webshop, with
translations and localized content
Operates at the localized level

37. Global / Default
This is the top level that is shared between all
websites
Operates at the installation level

38. EMAILS
Requires setup in several different places

39. How to setup
Admin Add email addresses
Files Download language package
Editor Load template files
Admin Select templates

40. TECHNICAL OVERVIEW
Developing for Magento

41. The Specs
LAMP (recommended, but not required)
PHP 5+ OOP
• Zend Framework
• PEAR
• Apache Solr PHP Client
JS
• Prototype, script.aculo.us & jQuery
• TinyMCE

42. MVC
Model
View Controller

43. Model View Controllers
Business Logic Presentation Logic Event Observers
Functionality Themes Routing
Data control Layouts
Templates
Skins
Known as “Blocks”

44. PLUGINS/MODULES
Extending the functionality

45. Installation
• Manual
• Magento connect

46. Manual
Upload files to serve
Clear cache
Log out of admin / log in again

47. Magento connect
magentocommerce.com/magento-connect/
example:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/magento-
connect/catalogsearch/result/?q=matrix+rates&pl=0

48. Modules
Consist of
• Configuration
• Blocks (ala views)
• Models
• Controllers
• Database schema

49. File Structure
Understanding where to find what

50. Functionality
/app/code/

51. /app/code/core/
Core functionality developed by the Magento team
DO NOT TOUCH!

52. /app/code/community/
Functionality developed by the open source
community
DO NOT TOUCH!

53. /app/code/local/
Local development files and installed modules
Place your files here

54. Presentation
/app/design/

55. /app/design/frontend/
Root folder for all presentation files for the client
side

56. /app/design/frontend/base/
All the basic hooks into the core functionality that
are required by a theme

57. /app/design/frontend/default/
Default themes – blank, default, iphone & modern

58. /app/design/frontend/yourtheme/
Create a new folder for your own them and start
building on top of the existing files

59. The Design Fallback
If Magento can’t find a file in your them, it falls back
to the base folder in the following order
1. custom_package/custom_theme/
2. custom_package/default/
3. base/default/

60. Localization
/locale/

61. /locale/language_id/
Within this folder are the translation files in csv
format and a folder for email templates

62. THE CACHE
General concept of performance optimazation

63. Cache storage
Save the result of a calculation and serving it to the
following clients
A calculation only happens once

64. Example:
A user requests a page from the server and Magento
calculates everything to display this page. This
result is then saved so that the next user will get the
saved (cached) version instead of having Magento
calculate it again.

65. Experiencing problems?
Then flush!

66. THE INDEX
Keeping the database optimized

67. Why Index?
The Magento database is HUGE!

68. Database

69. Why Index?
The Magento database is HUGE!
Data is spread out between different tables

70. Why Index?
The Magento database is HUGE!
Data is spread out between different tables
This leads to slow performance when gathering data
from many tables

71. The Solution?
Create extra tables in the database where the data
is store together
Serves as an abstraction, giving fast data response
Only needs to be updated when something changes
Only the area of change needs update

72. Experiencing problems?
Reindex solves 90% of them!

73. Translation
Possible to do from file or on the fly

74. Translation can be done by either:
Adding a translation file (best)
Translate Inline (easy)

75. Any Questions?

76. Thank you
www.beutnagel.dk/itdays2012/