Magento

Hi all,

After pouring over the Designer’s Guide to Magento , watching the screencasts and compiling what should be a helpful Magento cheatsheet as I venture into Magento for the first time, I have a couple of questions before I begin.

The company I work for is building an eCommerce site for a motorcycle company. For reference, I’ve been given the following website and told to emulate the structure (not design) as closely as possible: View Site.

For those of you well acquainted with Magento’s templating system, what is your opinion of customizing Magento to reflect a layout similar or identical to the one I linked to above? Incidentally, does anyone know what that website is using as its eCommerce solution? It wouldn’t surprise me if it were Magento.

When I started reading the designers guide and learning about customizing the appearance of Magento, I was surprised at how convoluted the templating system feels. Is this just the misconception of a novice or a commonly shared opinion? Case in point, Exercise #2 at the end of the Designer’s Guide to Magento steps the user through consolidating the two sets of navigational links into one set which involves a staggering 7 individual steps. It seems, at least to me, that a modification as seemingly straight-forward as changing the position of a couple of links wouldn’t involve such a lengthy process. Maybe I’m crazy? You can say it if I am.

For now, that’s all I’ve got. You’ll undoubtedly be hearing more for me as I become further entangled in the process of customizing Magento (I kid)

-Mason

its daunting at first, but it definitely gets easier.

iblastoff - 25 February 2008 10:10 AM

its daunting at first, but it definitely gets easier.

That’s reassuring, thanks.

ohminu - 25 February 2008 10:15 AM

Hi Mason-

Are you inquiring whether the Harley store can be replicated using Magento? If so, the answer is yes- To the T If you’re asking about the actual steps to do it, there’s a lot of references you can find throughout the site to help you on your way.

You will definitely need to adapt to a new way of working with templates when you work with Magento. The application itself a very modular system and the templating system is created to parallel the flexibility. It’s no brain surgery, however(unlike an impression you may have had) and believe me, you’ll pick it up (as proven by the sheer amount of members here) There’s also a lot of tools and trick that you will learn about when you start asking more specific questions.

p.s. When you start changing anything in Magento, make sure you DISABLE the cache (via the Admin -> Cache Management). That’s a first super valuable tip for ya!

Welcome to the community!!

- Minu

I was hoping you’d respond, Minu and thank you for the warm welcome. Yes, I was inquiring about whether the Harley store could be re-created using Magento and am happy to learn that it can be. I’ll continue doing my homework and pop back in with more questions as I get them. Thanks for the cache tip. I’ve disabled all of them.

I think it’s time I get busy making skeleton templates. Talk soon.

-Mason