Please don’t edit those originals!

I came across this little gem a while ago on the Prestashop forum, and thought I would draw attention to it in the hopes that it will help someone, somewhere.

Continue reading "Customising Prestashop Module Templates"

Form Validation and Security

Introduction

While being sufficiently functional for what it does, the module we created in Part 2 does present us with some issues to consider when implementing “real world” modules to extend Prestashop. In particular the user input we captured with our form was written directly to the configuration entry without any checking to determine whether it was valid, nor did we take account of the type of data being entered.

In this tutorial we will look at the general issue of form input checking and security, both for Back Office and Front Office forms and user input as well as looking at improving our code both functionally and aesthetically.

Updated for Prestashop version 1.4 onwards.

Continue reading "Writing your own Prestashop Module – Part 4"

Storing Module Configuration

Introduction

In the third part of this series we’ll look at how we can store configuration data for our modules in the Prestashop database, and how we can allow users to interact with this data to control the module’s behaviour. We will also briefly touch on how we can generate output from our module to provide visual feedback of the configuration changes.

Updated for Prestashop version 1.4 onwards.

Continue reading "Writing your own Prestashop Module – Part 3"

Creating a basic module

Introduction

In this second part of the series we will look at creating our first basic Prestashop module that can be controlled from the Back Office.

The Module class

Similar to the ObjectModel base class, all Prestashop modules are extended from a common base class used to define their basic functionality. The “Module” class provides the interface between the administration screens and your module as well as providing internationalisation and “hook” management functionality.

Updated for Prestashop version 1.4 onwards.

Continue reading "Writing your own Prestashop Module – Part 2"

So you want to write a module?

Introduction

There has always been a little bit of Voodoo associated Prestashop modules. This has been mainly down to a lack of documentation available, but never fear — this series of tutorials aim to introduce module writing to the PHP programming masses. This series will look at building our very own fully functional module which will provide all the standard functionality that is the basis for many of the most common modules. It will also provide a basic framework that you can use as a  template for your own code. Later articles will look at creating Payment Modules and extending the Administration interface, but initially we’ll look at the class of modules which deal mainly with inserting content into your pages, as this best demonstrates the fundamental basic concepts of developing for PrestaShop.

Updated for Prestashop version 1.4 onwards.

Continue reading "Writing your own PrestaShop Module – Part 1"

I was browsing the prestashop forum and ended up on a thread concerning an issue with people stealing a site design by downloading the template files from the theme directory. It struck me that this is probably something that those of you who use other template systems with your sites may also face, so thought I’d post the solution here too.

The problem is that although php files cannot be viewed directly on your browser, other source files can be e.g. files ending in .tpl

For example take a look at the following file that has the default permissions:

Unprotected template file

The best way to protect your site is to change the permissions on these files to 600. This will make them accessible only by your own code on the server and present anyone nosey enough to try and look at them with a 403 (forbidden) error. The same is true for php files (although these shouldn’t display the source unless your server configuration is broken).

Have a look at this file with the permissions set to 600:

Protected template file

Simple.