Magento

I’ve spent a few days with Magento trying to understand how the skinning/templating/layout works exactly.  It is a very nice system that allows you to rearrange things by simply copying and pasting with a bit of <div> glue here and there.  However you have to know what calls what to understand where to do these simple edits.  For example, getting things to show up on the homepage has been a real adventure.  If you add code via the admin it is shown within a column layout.  If you disable Home in the admin, it will call home from /template/sms/default/home/phtml.. and when it does it only calls that file, so it doesn’t end up in a column layout.  This is ok, since it lends to flexibility, but inconsistencies like this make learning very difficult and tricky.

I think to clear things up it would be very helpful to have a map / flowchart of how exactly and where exactly files are called.

A full breakdown of the default included pages that have major differences, and the reason for the differences.  If I want to create a block myself, what references need to be made and where..  Will it be global across the site or only show up on a specific page.

Thank you!

One tip. Disable all caching.

Naturally Caching is Disabled.  That certainly is a good tip though.

You’re not the only one who’s having a hard time getting their head around it. I’ve just finished reading the Designer’s guide and while I understood the basic concepts, when it came to actually looking at the code in the files and how they relate to each other made my head spin.

I’m also having that problem.
For example.. I’m trying to set up a webshop, but it really needs a custom design, and I’m having ALOT of problems with finding documentation for how to enable/disabled properties, and how to places them where I wan’t them.