5 Magento Techniques that Never Cease to Work
Strafing smooth and dynamic frameworks, Magento facilitates website development characterized by exactitude and pertinence. But there is an understanding that creating a new theme, or for that matter an extension, is a convoluted process, one that requires an in-depth expertise. While the latter part of the theory is true, the former can be dealt with using a variety of tips and tricks to create comprehensible codes.
Provide a Hint to Template Paths
Many Magento users complain that they aren’t able to update their Magento themes. To address this, you need to enable the template path hints. It goes a long way in helping you to determine which templates are being called by the theme you selected. Go to the “Developer” tab on the “System > Configuration>Advanced” to accomplish this. Once you reach here, change the configuration scope as per your choice. The debug menu also shows tabs ‘Template path hints’. Enable it to have a clear view of all the template files used.
Enable logging
Magento is powered with an integral logging method. Leveraging this method, you can log a variety of variable types to a log file. The method we are talking about here is Mage::log(). It rules out the use of var_dump’ing for extracting the content output and proves to be of a great assistance in building Magento modules. Debugging manually is a time taking process, and the enabled logging helps you steer clear of it when checking the variables in local scope. You first have to enable logging by using the path: System > Configuration > Advanced > Developer. You have to put “yes” in the ‘Enabled’ list of iLog Setting’. This function also helps you log the behavior of extensions. This leads to a higher capability to deal with discrepancies.
Keep a Record of Your Code
This is a practice followed by good developers around the globe. Documenting your code as you develop is highly recommended. If you are employed by a software enterprise, the code would most likely be documented without you having to worry about it. But if you are working as a freelancer, keep a copy of the code with yourself as a reference for the future projects.
Use the standard CSS classes
There is no dearth of classes that combine to form the Magento CSS. There is also a whole lot of Magento extensions available, and each of these have an inherent connection with generic CSS classes. Hnce, experts recommend that you must make sure that you use generic Magento CSS more often than not, if you wish to gain compatibility with the installations.
Do not override Magento Core files
This can lead to serious issues, particularly at the time you are attempting to run an upgrade on the current theme you have. Measuring each override against the new core file is a painfully long and time consuming procedure, which you would like to avert under all circumstances.
With a whole bevy of features and capabilities, Magento professes to be the ideal eCommerce application for businesses worldwide. How you use it to your advantage depends entirely on you. If you are a non-programmer in the business of Magento development, you can hire a Magento development company that has a pool of expertise to address your requirements.
While hiring individual freelancers is also recommended, the level of trust doesn’t remain the same with them. However, for the reason that they aren’t restricted as per the company policies, they work with a greater flexibility. The factors like quality of the application and the total cost to be incurred is directly proportional to the expectations you set out to the developer.