Magento Developer Certification Preparation Study Group

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• Andreas Mautz
• programmiert seit 16 Jahren
• macht magento seit 2008
• beschäftigt sich mit Deployment-Prozessen, Entwicklungsinfrastrukturen und Wissensmanagement seit 2011
• Vorbereitung Zertifizierung
• Lehren und Lernen Stoff zusammenzufassen

Locationcation

brandung

Compendium

• Basics (5)
• Request FLow (7)
• Rendering (8)
• Database (12)
• EAV (10)
• Adminhtml (8)
• Catalog (10)
• Checkout (15)
• Sales and Customer (12)
• Advanced features (13)

Basics | Allgemeines

• Describe and apply basic principles and processes of Object Oriented Programming (OOP) and Model-View-Controller (MVC) to build Magento websites
• Identify and describe the principles of Event-Driven Architecture (EDA)

• Describe module architecture
• List steps to add new modules
• Describe module limitations

Basics | Magento directory structure

• Describe the Magento directory structure, including naming conventions, code pools, and namespaces
• Describe the Magento module structure
• Describe/identify the code pools used in Magento
• Locate templates, layout XML, skins, javascript, and temporary directories within the Magento directory structure
• Configuration XML
• Create and register a module
• Specify option in the config file
• Operate website/stores/stores views
• Add different values for different stores
• Functional and factory class groups
• Instantiate main Magento objects

Basics | Allgemeines

• Get different instances from different places
• Class overrides in Magento
• Replace Model, Helper, and Block classes
• Override a class
• Event observer
• Register an Observer
• Configure an Observer to work in only frontend or backend
• Configure an Observer to work in both frontend and backend
• Set up a cron job

Basics | Allgemeines

• Identify the function and proper use of automatically available events, including *_load_after, etc.
• Describe methods for resolving module conflicts.
• Internationalization
• Describe how to plan for internationalization of a Magento site
• Describe the use of Magento translate classes and translate files
• Describe the advantages and disadvantages of using subdomains and subdirectories in internationalization

Request Flow

• This topic comprises approximately 7% of the exam. Questions are drawn randomly from the following objectives:
• Application initialization
• Describe the steps for application initialization
• Change a website from within index.php
• Front Controller
• Locate Front Controller class
• List all events that Front Controller fires
• Explain Front Controller responsibilities
• URL rewrites

Request Flow

• Describe URL structure/processing in Magento
• Describe URL rewrite process
• Rewrite a catalog/ product/ view to a different URL
• Request routing
• Describe request routing/flow in Magento
• Create a module with controller
• Override an existing controller
• Module initialization

Request Flow

• Describe/identify the steps needed to create and register a new module
• Describe/identify module dependencies
• Describe/identify the steps needed to create a controller in a module
• Describe/identify the steps needed to enable and disable a module
• Design and layout initialization
• Identify the steps in the request flow in which:
• Design data is populated
• Layout configuration files are parsed
• Layout is compiled
• Output is rendered

Request Flow

• Describe the module layout XML schema
• Describe layout fallback
• Describe admin and frontend scopes
• Structure of block templates
• Define root template, non-output block
• Describe how to render a root template
• Describe how to remove a child from the template page
• Flushing data (outputs)
• Describe how and when Magento renders content to the browser
• Describe how and when Magento flushes output variables using Front_Controller

Rendering

• Template structure
• Define, and describe the use of, themes in Magento
• Define, and describe the use of, design packages3
• Define, and describe the use of, fallbacks Blocks
• Describe the structure of blocks
• Describe the relationship of templates and blocks
• Describe the stages in the lifecycle of a block
• Describe events fired in blocks
• Identify different type of blocks
• Instantiate a block

Rendering

• Disable block output
• Describe how a typical block is rendered
• Design layout, XML schema, CMS content directives
• Describe the elements of the Magento layout XML schema, including the major XML directives
• Register Layout XML files
• Create and add code to pages
• Pass variables from layout to block
• Add and customize Javascript

Working with Database in Magento

• Models, resource models, and collections
• Define/describe the basic concepts of models, resource models, and collections
• Configure a database connection
• Create and register new entities
• Load and save an entity from a database
• Filter and implement group save for a set of records
• Describe how to use the Zend_Db classes to query the Database

Working with Database in Magento

• Describe how to filter, sort and specify the selected values for collections
• Describe how the DB abstraction layer for Magento is implemented
• Describe how to use and resolve existing table names without hardcoding them
• Magento Object Relational Mapping
• Describe Magento Object Relational Mapping
• Install and upgrade scripts
• Describe the Install/Upgrade Workflow
• Write install and upgrade scripts using set-up resources
• Write downgrade (rollback and uninstall) scripts
• Identify how to use the DDL class in setup scripts

Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) Model

• Define basic EAV concepts
• Describe the EAV hierarchy structure
• Describe how EAV data storage works in Magento
• Describe the EAV data access process in Magento
• Describe the database tables for EAV entities, and how to create them
• Describe the key differences between EAV and Flat Table collections
• Given a new entity, identify the factors that influence the choice of the resource type to use (EAV vs. flat)
• EAV entity, load and save

Entity-Attribute-Value (EAV) Model

• Describe EAV entity structure and its difference from the standard core resource model
• Describe the EAV Load and Save process and its differences from the regular Load and Save process
• Attributes management
• Describe EAV attributes, including Frontend-Source-Backend structure
• Identify the purpose and describe how to implement the interface of attribute frontend models
• Identify the purpose and describe how to implement the interface of attribute source models
• Identify the purpose and describe how to implement the interface of attribute backend models
• Create and customize attributes

Adminhtml

• Common structure/architecture
• Describe the difference between adminhtml and frontend
• Describe the components of Admin structure
• Create a controller for admin router
• Describe how to operate with cache clearing
• Identify how to clear the cache using code (instead of the User Interface)
• Form and Grid Widgets
• Define form structure, form templates, grids in Magento, and grid containers and elements
• Describe grid workflow

Adminhtml

• Create a simple form and grid for a custom entity
• Describe how to implement advanced Adminhtml Grids and Forms, including editable cells, mass actions,
• totals, reports, custom filters and renderers, multiple grids on one page, combining grids with forms, and
• adding custom javascript to an admin form
• System configuration XML and configuration scope
• Define basic terms and elements of system configuration XML, including scopes, website/store/store view
• Create an option in system configuration and output its value in a form

Adminhtml

• Fetch a variable from System config
• Access Control Lists (ACL) permissions
• Define/identify basic terms and elements of ACL
• Use ACL to:
• Set up a menu item
• Create appropriate permissions for users
• Check for permissions in permissions management tree structures
• Enabling and configuring extensions
• Define Magento extensions and describe the different types of extension available (Community, Core, Commercial)

Adminhtml

• Describe how extensions are installed and configured
• Describe how to decouple extensions from Magento
• Describe how Magento extensions connect with and inherit functionality from the rest of the system, including Payment Methods, etc.

Catalog

• Product Types
• Identify/describe standard Product Types (simple, configurable, bundled, etc.)
• Identify/use standard Magento tools for Product Types
• Create custom Product Types from scratch or modify existing Product Types
• Identify how custom Product Types interact with Indexing, SQL, underlying data structures.
• Price Generation

Catalog

• Identify basic concepts of price generation in Magento
• Modify and adjust price generation for products, e.g. during integration of third party software
• Categories Structure
• Dynamically alter the category tree structure
• Choose the best-practice approach to project implementations and upgrades
• Describe the Category Hierarchy Tree Structure implementation (the internal structure inside the database), including: the meaning of parent_id 0, the construction of paths, and the attributes required to display a new category in the store
• Catalog Rules

Catalog

• Identify how to implement catalog Price rules
• Troubleshoot catalog Price rule implementations
• Other Skills
• Choose optimal catalog structure (EAV vs. Flat) for given implementation
• Troubleshoot, customize, and extend the Magento Catalog DB Structure
• Implement, troubleshoot and modify Magento tax rules
• Modify, extend and troubleshoot the Magento layered (aka “filter”) navigation
• Troubleshoot and customize the Magento Indexes
• Use custom product options to implement new features

Checkout

• Quote, Quote Item, Address and Shopping cart rules in checkout:
• Modify these models and effectively use them in customizations
• Total models schema:
• Add custom Total models or modify existing ones

Checkout

• Shopping Cart:
• Implement shopping cart rules
• Troubleshoot shopping cart price rules
• Extend shopping cart price rules
• Shipping/payment methods in Magento
• Implement shipping methods
• Troubleshoot shipping methods
• Troubleshoot payment methods

Checkout

• Perform advanced modifications to the shipping rate calculation
• Identify possibilities and limitations of the Magento multishipping implementation
• Implement extensions of the Magento multishipping implementation
• Payment Method Architecture: Implement new payment methods

Sales and Customer

• Modify Order Processing and integrate it into ERP integrations
• Integrate Magento sales architecture with other systems (SAP, NetSuite, etc.)

• Add to, delete, or customize Customer and Address attributes

Advanced features | Widgets

• Create frontend Widgets

Advanced features | API

• Use the Magento API to implement third party integrations
• Extend the existing Magento API to allow for deeper integrations into third party products
• Describe the different Web Service APIs available within the Magento Core
• Describe the advantages and disadvantages of the available Web Service APIs in Magento
• Identify the configuration files used for the v2 SOAP API
• Describe the purpose of the configuration files related to the API

Advanced features | Other Skills

• Integrate Google features (Google base, checkout, adword, analytics) into Magento implementation
• Advanced Grid/Forms: Design, use, and implement new advanced grids and forms
• Advanced system configuration: Implement interactive and highly customized system configuration interfaces

Zertifizierungen

• Magento Certified Frontend Developer
• Magento Certified Developer
• Magento Certified Developer Plus

Magento Certified Developer Plus

• The Plus form additionally includes 20 questions drawn from the following objectives and topics:
• Customize, extend, and troubleshoot Enterprise Edition catalog target rules
• Customize, extend, and troubleshoot the Enterprise Edition reward point system
• Implement, customize, and troubleshoot Enterprise Edition website restrictions
• Identify the elements and functioning of Enterprise Edition Full Page Cache

Magento Certified Developer Plus | Challenge questions on:

• Advanced Grids/Form
• Advanced System Configuration
• EAV concepts
• Form and grid widgets
• Catalog product types
• Total models schema
• Magento indexes