Aug24th
Written by Jon Webb on July 24th, 2009, Posted in New Projects, News |
Well done to Devour Design for getting www.bagkandi.co.uk up and running. It’s a great looking Magento store with heaps of customisation – with a little help from me.
Aug17th
Written by Jon Webb on July 17th, 2009, Posted in Development Ramblings |
Well – it has to be said that I thoroughly enjoy Magento development, but today I came across an issue I’d never seen before.
This problem is down to extending Magento to observe certain events in the administration interface, call it hooking into events or whatever – but your essentially observing events which are triggered within Magento – these events then call your code and you can then manipulate Magento to your hearts content.
The problem I experienced was very simple. I just couldn’t work out why my code was not being triggered by an event. I knew that the event existed, and that my code was sound, and that my module config was correct. However in my method signature I had explicitly set the data type I was expecting, and the data type that Varien (the company who develops Magento) had documented – so my method signature should have been the following
public function emailSupplierFromInvoicePayment(Varian_Object $ob)
{
die("event-trace");
}
When I’d actually set it to:
public function emailSupplierFromInvoicePayment(Varian_Event_Observer $ob)
{
die("event-trace");
}
So much for explicit declaration.
Aug24th
Written by Jon Webb on March 24th, 2009, Posted in Advice |
Even if we’re not the providers of your new content managed website or ecommerce solution here is some free advice to stop you from making the wrong decision:
1.) Make sure you do not buy a solution which is developed “in-house” because you may lock yourself into using that vendor for the rest of the life of your project. Make sure your solution can be supported by a 3rd party by ensuring that your solution is built on the foundations of Open Source, or Commercially available software such as Wordpress, Drupal, Magento, RedDot, or Ektron for which their is an incredible 3rd party support base.
2.) Make sure that you own the rights to the graphic design, software, and bespoke developments which are written by your solution provider – if they will not give you ownership of those components, or at least grant you a non-exclusive licence to be able to use, modify and give to a 3rd party to manage, then you should look elsewhere.
3.) On completion of any project you should, for example, be handed a CD which contains all the source code (including database schema, and data), original design files (e.g Photoshop and illustrator files) and documentation onboard which can serve as a backup for you incase things go wrong, contractually, or financially with your solution provider.