CS-Cart Developer Documentation

This web resource is aimed at those who want to improve or complement CS-Cart functionality. It covers different aspects of programming and gives a clear idea of architecture peculiarities and standards. The provided material will be of great help to you in customizing CS-Cart or developing new addons. All the documents are grouped into thematic units, so that it will be easy to find the desired information. General programming and formatting rules are also given here.

Introduction to API

• CS-Cart API Overview - a brief introduction into CS-Cart application programming interface and its technology

CS-Cart 2.0 architecture peculiarities

• Architecture tools - general information on tools allowing to extend the software functionality (code hooks, precontrollers, postcontrollers, template hooks)
• Database - specifies placeholders used in requests to the database
• Special classes - a list of classes that are used to minimize a CSS file size

Core methodology

• Initialization - gives the steps of initialization
• Controllers - details the controller structure and describes how a controller works
• Microformats - description of a microformat and its structure
• AJAX - a reference with examples for creating AJAX requests
• Notifications - information on notification pop-ups

 Addons

• Addons - structure of an addon directory
• Addon XML - description of an addon.xml file
• Connecting addon - explains how to connect an addon with the help of hooks

Design and Layout

• Design changes - gives basic knowledge about the CS-Cart design system and explains how to make minor design changes
• Storefront design template scheme - gives the general idea of the storefront template scheme
• Smarty debug console - explains what Smarty debug console is and what data it provides
• Examples of design changes - most frequently asked design changes
• HTML basics - gives general knowledge of main HTML tags
• CSS basics - shows how you can improve content accessibility by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
• Smarty basics - basic information about Smarty, web template system written in PHP

CS-Cart architecture standards

• Programming standards - some basic CS-Cart programming standards
• Object selection standards - search form standards
• Heading and text formats - general hints on heading and text formatting