Top 10 Free Magento Extensions/Modules

admin — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 04:15:02 +0000

Magento grows very fast and now there are thousands free extensions. In this artilce I please list top 10 best free magento extension

1. Magento Developer Toolbar

Here is the best extension for magento developer. It allow you access quickly to regular used functions without logging in to admin.

2. Blog Extension

This Module allow you create categories, artlice as blog. It also allow customer leave comment on article. Support URL friendly.

3.Easy CMS/Block – Free Version

Easy CMS allow to put any HTML content to any position on Magento site. You can put text, banner, advertisement, images, flash, music, video, product…

4.Exploded menu

Magento default use single column dropdown, with this module you can use multi-column dropdown. It is very good for your website if your website have many categories and subcategories.

5.Magento Easy Lightbox

Here is very simple extension. It is very easy to install and use. The module allow you to show your product image with lightbox jquery effect

6. Delete Order

Normally before live a site, you make many test order so you maybe want to delete these test order. Magento does not allow to delete them, so you need to use this module to do.

7. Free Quick Contact

Quick Contact allow customers send the feadback to your site in easiest and fastest way. This is FREE version, just check out and download FREE. This extension is developed and supported byMage-World.com.

8. Fooman Speedster

As you know Magento is quite slow and need strong Server to run. However You also can speed up your website by use this module. The module will combining, compressing and caching JS and CSS.

9. Easy Tab

Small and Simple module. It allow you easy to add informational tabs on product page.

10. MT FaceBook

An Social Module. It allow you to to display Facebook Fanbox, Stream, Recommendations, Activity Feed into Magento Store.

Packaging a Magento Extension

admin — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 03:53:35 +0000

This admin page will help to package your extensions, such as modules, add-ons, language packs, interfaces and themes, into PEAR packages which you could upload to MagentoConnect and share with other community members.

For starting on extension packaging process, log in to Magento Admin panel and go to :

Admin Panel: » System » Magento Connect » Package Extenssions

You can easily follow the 5 step process there to generate the extension that are described in the remaining article.

The extension packaging process includes generation of package.xml file with information about the package collected by the 5 steps below, and archiving content files and folders specified by the Contents step.

After package release is uploaded to MagentoConnect, it will be available for download and installation for other members, by pasting extension key into MagentoConnect downloader.

Extension key

Is constructed from

PEAR channel nickname (magento-core or magento-community)
Short package name (Mage_Core_Modules)
Numeric release version (1.2.3) or release stability (beta) – optional

So the extension key could look like this:

magento-core/Mage_Core_Modules-1.2.3 – specific release version will be installed
magento-core/Mage_Core_Modules-beta – latest beta release will be installed
magento-core/Mage_Core_Modules – latest release for local stability settings will be installed

NOTES

Make sure that downloader/pearlib/php and var/pear folders exist and have writable permissions for the web service.

In version 1.0 you should run these commands before packaging extensions, to initialize PEAR packager:

cd downloader
./pear mage-setup

In all Channel fields use:
- CORE packages: connect.magentocommerce.com/core (nickname magento-core)
- COMMUNITY packages: connect.magentocommerce.com/community (nickname magento-community)

Any Suggestions on what to do in version 1.2?

Packaging an extension

Is divided into 5 steps, detailed below.

After all steps have been completed, you can click “Save” button to save package information info into var/pear/.ser file for future retrieval by clicking “Load” button.

Also you can generate the release package by clicking on “Save data and Create Package” button, which will validate information and create .tar.gz file in var/pear that you can upload to MagentoConnect.

Package Info

Here is general information about package without regards to releases or versions

Name: PEAR short package name, ( Mage_Oscommerce )
Channel: For community packages use (connect.magentocommerce.com/community)
Summary: Short package definition
Description: Extended package definition
License: Extension license name (OSL v3.0)
License URI: Web URL for license text (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/osl-3.0.php)

Release Info

In this tab provide release/version specific information

Release Version: Major, minor, revision and stability for the release (1.1.20123)
API Version: Major and minor version for API used in this release (1.0)
Release Stability: Stability of this release (alpha)
API Stability: Stability of the API used in this release (stable)
Notes: Release notes for users and developers

Maintainers (required)

Maintainers of the package, user names the same as in MagentoConnect Only LEAD maintainers can upload releases The User field is your magentocommerce.com user name (found under My Account, User Name and Password). Don’t use your screen name here.

Dependencies

PHP Version: this setup will work only with PHP5 >= 5.2.0
- Minimum: 5.2.0
- Maximum: 6.0.0
- Exclude: 6.0.0

Packages

Dependencies for current package

Package: short package name (Mage_Core_Modules)
Channel:
Min: minimum supported version of dependent package
Max: maximum supported version of dependent package
Recommended: downloader will try to use this version even if newer available
Exclude: comma separated list of versions that are not supported
Type:
- Required: this dependency required for successful installation
- Optional: this package will be shown during installation as available option
- Conflicts: this package versions conflict with current package

Subpackages

Used when new release of current package was splitted into 2 or more packages.

In general no packages can share same files, but subpackages can contain files that were used in previous version of current package.

Fields: same as in packages

Extensions

PHP/PECL extensions dependencies

Extension: dropdown with currently installed PHP extensions
Min, Max, Recommended, Exclude, Type: same as in packages

Contents (required)

Role: Location of the files to include
Path: Path within the role (location)
Type: File or Recursive Directory
Include: Regular expression for file pattern to include (requires pattern delimiter, like ‘#’) – ex. #^Mage#
Ignore: Regular expression for file pattern to ignore (requires pattern delimiter, like ‘#’)

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Asia Connect Technology JSC » Magento Extensions

Top 10 Free Magento Extensions/Modules

Packaging a Magento Extension