Customizing Magento
Some good starting points for customizing Magento--themes, extensions, custom module development.
Theming Tutorials
- Magento Designers Guide
- Designers Guide from Magento
- Intro to Theming Webinar
- Intro webinar from Magento
- Demystifying Magento’s Layout XML Series
- A deeper look at Magento’s XML layout system when you’re ready for it.
Inspiration
- Magento Spotting
- From the Magento blog–newly launched Magento websites from around the world
- 25 Great Magento Themes
- Top X list from Practical eCommerce
- Magento Gallery
- Some beautiful Magento websites out there
- Showcase of Beautiful (or Creative) E-Commerce Websites
- Not all are Magento stores, but it’s good for inspiration
Sources of Magento Themes
- Magento Connect
- Magento’s marketplace for themes and extensions.
- Theme Forest
- This is our favorite site for ready-made themes. Good quality control. Nice themes overall.
- Template Monster
- Growing selection of Magento themes. We haven’t assessed the quality, but good to check out.
- Templates Master
- Magentist
- Magik Commerce
Module Dev Tutorials
- Magento for Developers Series
- Eight-part series by Alan Storm on Magento.com
- Writing a Custom Magento Module
- Good write up that includes config system.
- Creating Custom Modules Series
- Series from SpinOneSolutions
- Introducing Magento Widgets
- Nice intro on widgets and how to develop them.
Dev and Design Books
- Magento 1.4 Themes Design
- Good walkthrough of theming in Magento.
- php/architect’s Guide to E-Commerce Programming with Magento
- Specific examples are dated now, but a nice introduction and overview of the overall architecture of Magento and its impact.
- The Definitive Guide to Magento
- Not our fave, but fills in some blanks if you’re just getting started.
- Magento 1.4 Development Cookbook
- Some nice examples, largely pulled from the forums, so check out the table of contents to see if you’re interested in the examples shown.
- Zend Framework 1.8 Web Application Development
- Not specific to Magento, but ultimately understanding more about Zend framework application development helps clarify some of what’s going on in Magento.
Blogs We Follow
- mage-page
- RSS/Blog aggregator. If you only have time to read one blog to catch up on all the others.
- Alan Storm
- Inchoo
- Magebase
Q/A & Forums
- Magento Forums
- The forums are still a good place to search for general answers and to float specific questions. Take answers and posts older than 2010 with a grain of salt, Magento has changed considerably.
- Magento Go Forum
- Nice community support forum for Go. Most questions are answered both by the Magento team and community members.
- Stack Overflow
- Diverse developer group on SO who can answer most types of Magento questions. Skews technical, so save your how-to admin questions for the Magento forums.
- Magento Answers
- Hard to use Q/A system, but may get you specific answers. Worth a try.
Courses
- Core Principles for Theming in Magento
- Introduction to Magento’s templating system and best practices. Developed, and sometimes taught, by Kara here at Brillig House.
- Fundamentals of Magento Development
- Introduction to development in Magento. Course covers Magento architecture, MVC and data models, how to work with Magento modules, and how to customize and extend Magento.