About Plugins

From ZenMagick Wiki

Introduction

ZenMagick plugins are, similar to zen-cart modules, a way of separating functionality into smaller, optional blocks. The ZenMagicks plugin architecture is loosely based on modules but are designed to be more generic. That allows plugins to implement a variety of different things without the need for new plugin types.

Plugin Types

Right now three types of plugins supported. All types extend from the same ZMPlugin base class.

request

The most general type of plugins. Request plugins typically add new functions or classes which then can be used in templates.

They also can add new pages (for example the locator).

init

Small, single file plugins that extend core functionality; examples are category path setup or additional authentication activities

admin

Pure admin plugins. Right now all admin plugins add features to the ZenMagick Catalog Manager.

Use Cases

Plugins may be used to:

• Add configuration options to ZenMagick and zen-cart
• Receive and process zen-cart and ZenMagick events
• Add (side-)boxes with dynamic contents (based on configuration settings)
• Add new pages to the storefront
• Add new admin pages with custom forms
• Replace existing ZenMagick classes to change the default behavior of ZenMagick
• Modify ZenMagick to allow existing zen-cart mods to work in ZenMagick
• Filter the generated HTML (The Google Analytics plugin does that in order to add JavaScript without the need to modify templates!)