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Introduction
In this tutorial I would like to share how I setup and use PhpED for Joomla 1.0.x development. PhpED is an excellent tool for general PHP development, and with the right settings it can help your Joomla coding go smoothly. In this tutorial I will show how I set up PhpED for Joomla development.
Joomla coding is mainly creating or modifying the different parts that make up the Joomla CMS. There 5 main areas of development when it comes to Joomla:
- Templates: Provide a flexible way to display the output that you site visitors see. The template is how you organize the look of your site.
- Modules: Small code fragments that can be set to display the output in key positions around the template. Module can display menus, pictures, popular news titles, etc.
- Mambots/Plugins: Small code fragments that can be configured to be executed at the specific points in the processing of the site output. Mambots can be used to for output but are mainly used for "behind the scenes" tasks like replacing specific tags in content with images, performing some additional processing when a user logs in, etc.
- Components: Probably the most complex of Joomla "add-ons" to develop, a component can be a full application designed to run "inside" the Joomla CMS. Components can have front-end views, which site visitors see, and back-end (admin) views for the site administrators to see. Components make Joomla very flexible, and while it is more complex to develop a good Joomla component, in the end it is very satisfying to see it being used by others on their Joomla sites.
- Joomla Core code: Modifying Joomla's core code, or the basic code that makes it work, is possible and, in some cases, necessary. While there is nothing stopping you from going and changing the code, it's usually not a good idea. In my opinion, modifying Joomla core code should be avoided at all costs and if in that rare situation you must make a core code modification, backup your original files and keep good documentation.
With the exception of Core code development I will go through how I setup PhpED for the development of different parts of Joomla. We will setup a development environment on a PC running Windows XP Pro, PhpED, XAMPP and Joomla.
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