Secret feature of Magento 1.3: Sharing same route name for different modules!

I have already talked about flexible architecture of Magento Commerce in my previous posts. As Magento allows to customize its default behavior without touching and modifying the existing code, we can override any of the existing class by defining our own in our out of the box extensions. I have also played with Magento by creating variety of extensions, and believe me, it was a real fun of programming. Magento allowed me to change everything I desired.

But I was still feeling that something is missing! And that missing thing was provision for sharing of route names which is now available since Magento 1.3 released yesterday. Now, the first question may arise here that "what is sharing of route names?". 'Sharing of route names' is not a functional feature. So if you'll try to find it in Magento features list, you may be disappointed. Actually it is a feature for developers. It is not even mentioned in Magento 1.3 Release Notes. I found this secret feature in newer version of Magento when I was roaming inside the code to search the difference between 1.2 and 1.3. Let me explain this feature in more detail.

Sometimes, I was supposed to develop extensions which required extra pages or forms in existing modules. For example, adding extra features to Admin Panel. I needed some extra controllers and actions for Admin Panel. This seems OK. I could easily create a local module for it as explained in this Wiki. But an uncomfortable part in this way is this configuration:

<admin>
 <routers>
   <sintax>
     <use>admin</use>
     <args>
       <module>Mage_Sintax</module>
       <frontName>sintax</frontName>
     </args>
   </sintax>
 </routers>
</admin>

Here, all URLs of my additional pages will be started by /sintax/ while all other admin panel pages will be started by /admin/. I am forced to use other routes for my additional modules. I cannot just add more URLs to 'admin' route! This can be fare for Admin Panel pages as they will never be visible by public. But what if I want to add more pages to frontend? If I add any extra page to 'catalog' module, I can't define URLs for my pages starting with /catalog/. I have to define a route something like /mycatalog/ which I don't like!

One solution for this to use URL rewrite from /catalog/mypage/ to /mycatalog/mypage/. But unfortunately, URL helpers will still generate URLs like /mycatalog/mypage/.

The problem with the older version of Magento was mapping one to one relationthip with module front name to module real name i.e. 'catalog' => 'Mage_Catalog', 'admin' => 'Mage_Adminhtml' etc. So I could not map my additional module to existing front name. But Magento 1.3 allows to map additional modules to existing front names. How? Just by changing router configuration for module shown above to the following:

<admin>
 <routers>
   <adminhtml>
     <args>
       <modules>
         <sintax before="Mage_Adminhtml">Mage_Sintax</sintax>
       </modules>
     </args>
   </adminhtml>
 </routers>
</admin>

This configutation will add Mage_Sintax module to admin frontname. An attribute before can be added to give more priority then existing module in finding controllers. For example in this case, /admin/catalog/ URL will call a controller class Mage_Sintax_CatalogController, if it is defined and if not then it will call Mage_Adminhtml_CatalogController. Similarly, after attribute will assign less priority then the existing module. We can add as many modules as we need to the same front name using this way.

Sounds good? Then try it yourself...!

-By Parthiv Patel

Parthiv Patel

Bhaishri Info Solution

Sr. PHP Developer

Limdi Chowk, AT PO. Nar, Di. Anand

Nar, Gujarat

388150

India

pparthiv2412@gmail.com

7383343029

DOB: 12/24/1986