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Learning Joomla! 1.5 Extension Development: Creating Modules, Components, and Plugins with PHP View Larger Image | Joseph LeBlanc
PACKT Publishing, Paperback, Published June 2007, 200 pages, ISBN 1847191304 | List Price: $34.99
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Joomla! is the world's hottest open-source content management system, and the
winner of the 2006 Open Source CMS Prize.
While Joomla! is packed with features, its greatest quality is that it is
extremely extensible, allowing any number of complex applications to be cleanly
integrated. Shopping carts, forums, social networking profiles, job boards,
and real estate listings are all examples of extensions developers have written
for Joomla!. All of these can run off one Joomla! site, while only one database,
template, and core need to be maintained. When you build an extension to Joomla!,
it will inherit the look and feel of the overall site. Any type of program that
can be coded in PHP is a potential component waiting to be written!
If you're eager to start creating extensions for Joomla!, this book is for
you. Walk through the development of complete Joomla! components and modules
with this tutorial for PHP programmers. Written for Joomla! version 1.5 and
tested against pre-final releases, this book will get you started coding your
first extensions as quickly as possible, and adds the features that will make
your work look professional!
The book builds example extensions to create, find, promote, and cross-link
restaurant reviews. A component will handle common data items seen across all
reviews such as price range, reservations, cuisine type, and location. Your
visitors will be able to search and sort through the reviews; adding their own
criteria to zero in on their dining options for the evening.
Your modules will highlight new reviews, drawing the attention of frequent
visitors. Finally, plugins will pull pieces of the reviews into feature articles
and others will integrate them into searches. Even if you don't own a restaurant,
you will still find the code applicable to your own development projects, and
the skills you develop will make you a Joomla! developer to be reckoned with!
What you will learn from this book
* Code Joomla! components, modules, and plugins from the ground up
* Create toolbars, list screens, and menu items
* Maintain a consistent look and reduce repetitive code using HTML functions
* Automate database record management
* Validate input and resist hack attempts
* Configure your modules through XML parameters
* Package and distribute your extensions
Approach
A practical tutorial, based around the development of coherent example throughout
the book. Each chapter walks you through the steps to add a required feature
to the extension.
Who this book is written for
This book is suitable for PHP programmers who want to take their first step
in customizing and extending the features of Joomla! through custom PHP development.
It is not a reference guide for advanced Joomla! developers.
You need only the basics of PHP programming; no experience of developing Joomla!
extensions is assumed. You are expected to be familiar with the general operation
of Joomla!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 introduces Joomla! extensions, and gives an overview of how Joomla!
can be extended through components, modules, and plugins.
In Chapter 2, you will learn about the architecture, design, and requirements
of a general component. You will also see how the component gets executed and
is registered with the database. At the end, you will learn to create toolbars.
Chapter 3 takes you through a tour of back-end development. The chapter deals
with creating a database table to hold the reviews of the restaurant, setting
up a basic form for data entry, and processing data and adding it to the database.
You will see how to list your existing reviews and modify your reviews.
Chapter 4 deals with the front-end development. You will see how to list and
display your reviews, and add and display comments for your reviews.
Chapter 5 is about module development. Starting with registering your module
in the database, the chapter then shows you how to create and configure a basic
module using helper classes to centralize data access and output, and how to
display the latest reviews or a random review.
Chapter 6 deals with expanding your project with the Model, View, and Controller
pattern. You will learn how to build data models, how to migrate to views, and
how a controller is used to handle the logic flow of the component. It also
introduces you to the concept of pagination and shows you how to add pagination
and at the end how to display additional toolbars.
Chapter 7 is completely dedicated to plugins. You will create a link plugin,
and an information box plugin. At the end, you will see how to use plugins to
enable searching of your reviews.
In Chapter 8, you will see the configuration settings for extensions; modules,
components, and plugins.
In Chapter 9, you will see how to package a completed component and module
for deployment.
About the Author
Joseph L. LeBlanc started with computers at a very young age. His independent
education gave him the flexibility to experiment and learn computer science.
Joseph holds a bachelor’s degree in Management Information Systems from
Oral Roberts University.
Joseph is currently a freelance Joomla! extension developer. He released a
component tutorial in May 2004, which was later translated into French, Polish,
and Russian. Work samples and open-source extensions are available at www.jlleblanc.com.
In addition to freelancing, he is a board member of the DC PHP Conference. He
has also worked as a programmer for a web communications firm in Washington,
DC.
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