Today, we are going to give you a Magento framework tutorial.
As you may know, Magento is an e-commerce platform written in PHP, created using the Zend framework. Initially released in 2008, Magento has become a popular platform that owners can experience advanced technology to run their businesses smoothly.
Among Magento’s concepts, the Magento framework may be difficult to understand, even for skillful developers. Therefore, this article provides information about the Magento framework, specially written for beginners who are getting used to Magento.
Don’t overlook this tutorial as you can know about:
- An overview of the framework: What it is & its role in a website
- Introduction to Magento framework
- Magento framework tutorial
Let’s get started!
What Is Framework?
Overview of Framework
Simply saying, a framework is a kind of software creating an environment for developers to build applications. Frameworks are evaluated to be flexible, powerful, and effective as they are usually tested, customized, optimized, and built by skilled programmers.
Developing applications via software frameworks enables you to concentrate on advanced functionality rather than low-level ones, which are taken care of by the framework itself.
Why Does Framework Matter?
To build software or a website is extremely complicated because the process includes various challenging tasks that require professional, namely, coding, designing, testing, etc.
Each task contains many smaller skills.
For that reason, the framework makes it easier to manage the whole process.
There are many benefits when using the framework:
- Better programming practices are supported
- The framework helps to enhance the level of security while coding
- Developers can avoid repetitive and unnecessary codes
- Save time developing applications
- Reduce bugs happening when coding
- Applications are more reliable
- More comfortable to test and debug code
- Easier to deal with advanced technologies
Types of Framework
There are many types of frameworks. Here below are some trending choices that may meet your demands.
#1. Web Application Framework
Web application framework, so-called web framework, is a framework type that is specifically designed to support web applications such as web resources, web services, and web APIs.
You can develop your applications more easily, quickly, and smartly with this type of framework. Some particular examples are Django, Laravel, Angular, to name but a few.
#2. DataScience Framework
This kind of framework is for those who need to process large-scale data, especially for online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, etc.
DataScience frameworks usually contain advanced technologies in statistic analytics that store owners can manage their data more effectively. Apache Spark, PyTorch, Tensor Flow are some specific examples.
#3. Mobile Development Framework
In this modern world, where people tend to move from using desktops to using mobile devices for shopping, the mobile development framework has a role to play.
The framework helps to develop mobile applications; hence, online businesses can quickly approach their target customers to boost sales.
Some mobile development frameworks we can mention are Iconic, Xamarin, Flutter, etc.
What to Do Before Using Software Framework?
First things first, you need to improve your professional skills in website development such as coding, testing as dealing with the framework is a challenging task.
If your ability is not enough, it is necessary to at least have a good understanding of codes that power the framework. Then, you may find it more straightforward when running into difficult tasks.
Magento Framework Tutorial
Now, we’re done with the general understanding of the framework. Let’s continue with our main topic today, Magento framework tutorial.
In this section, we will give you a clear explanation of the Magento Framework and some important factors.
Introduction to Magento Framework
In definition, the Magento framework manages the connection between application components, namely, request flow, routing, indexing, caching, and exception handling.
Magento framework provides services to effortlessly create modules that contain business logic to make Magento code more modular and reduce dependencies.
In this concept, you need to pay attention to a term called “libraries”. “Libraries” are logical groups where essentially PHP software components are organized into. The framework does contain libraries, even though there is no resource model included in the framework.
Magento Framework’s Roles
Magento framework has several responsibilities in operations that are effective for all modules:
- Handling HTTP protocols
- Interacting with the database and filesystem
- Rendering content
Structure
This is a basic organization of Magento framework folder:
vendor/
../magento
../framework
lib/
../internal
../LinLibertineFont
../web
In which:
- /vendor/magento/framework: contains only PHP code.
- /lib/internal: contains several non-PHP and PHP components.
- /lib/web: contains JavaScript and CSS/LESS files.
Essential Functionalities
The Magento framework has a large number of powerful functionalities. In this part, we will give you explanations of the most important ones.
#1. DataObject
DataObject is a standard function of the Magento framework, which provides the ability to store and retrieve data through magic methods, which are functions starting with 2 underscores. For example, __construct(), __set(), __call(), and some similar things are magic methods.
Among Magento classes, DataObject is the base for many others.
#2. Controller
In the Magento framework, the controller contains classes to help return some distinctive outcomes; for instance, JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) or redirection.
There are 2 different types of controller: Front-end controller and back-end controller. The controller, in general, receives requests from users, and then route controllers through execute() method.
#3. App
App includes system code that related to the Magento application. The functionality is used for many purposes in Magento:
- Boots the application and reads in the early configuration
- Contains entry point to the command line tools, the web application, and cron job
- Routes requests while deploying
#4. API
API is another standard functionality in Magento. It is useful for advanced features of extendable objects, objects that can be extended to add new data through Magento extensions.
In other words, API is an effective method for developers to optimize web services to communicate well with the Magento system. Key features of API is support for REST (Representational State Transfer) and SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).
#5. Other Functionalities
Those 4 above are the most common that we want to explain clearly. However, there are many more, including Model, AbstractModel, Config, Filesystem, etc.
You can click HERE for more information.
Wrapping Up
To summarize, dealing with the Magento framework is not easy at all. It requires many specialized skills.
This article provides the initial step to get to know Magento Framework. If you want more tutorials on the Magento framework, please let us know! We will respond as soon as possible.
Thanks a lot for reading!