Synopsis

OPEXDK (Opencart Extension Development Kit) is a tool that helps developers creating Opencart extensions.

OPEXDK helps you in all the steps required to create, develop and package your extension.

Installation

Clone the project and cd into, then install globally:

sudo npm uninstall -g ; sudo npm install -g .

Test quickly:

opexdk test

Output:

Required param args.m not found. Aborting!
✘ Extension: undefined not found.
Going to call task:  test
inside the test task

If you see this, then the command is installed successfully.

Then create environment variables:

# OPEXDK env definition inside ~/.bashrc
export OPEXDK_SRC_PATH=/path/to/your/extensions-workspace
export OPEXDK_VHOST_PATH=/path/to/your/www
export OPEXDK_SERVERS_INVENTORY=/path/to/your/servers/inventory

• OPEXDK_SRC_PATH

  Example: /path/to/your/extensions-workspace. This variable accepts multiple paths comma separated.

• OPEXDK_VHOST_PATH

  Example: /home/reda/www

• OPEXDK_SERVERS_INVENTORY

  Example: /path/to/ftp-servers-inventories

• OPEXDK_OUTPUT_DIR

  By default, it is in a custom directory in the OS temp directory: /tmp/opexdk-output

You can export variable in your .bashrc. Example:

export OPEXDK_SRC_PATH=/path/to/your/extensions-workspace

Extension format

Inside your workspace, you can have several extensions.

An extension must be in a folder, eg: myextension which contains a public/module folder, inside which we find the usual opencart structure:

• admin folder
• catalog folder
• system folder
• vqmod folder (for extensions using vqmod)

Moreover, vqmod files must have the .vqmod.xml suffix in their name.

Usage

• Watch changes in my-extension folder and push changes to www folder (inside OPEXDK_VHOST_PATH)

opexdk watch -m my-extension -o www

# Use the `--yes`           flag to skip the confirmation.
# Use the `--vq2oc2sys`     flag to convert vqmod files to ocmod and push them to the `system` folder
# Use the `--exclude-vqmod` flag to skip/ignore/exclude vqmod files.
# Use the `--oru="URL"`     flag to call the URL that refreshes OCMOD after ocmod file modification (used in conjunction with `vq2oc2sys`). ORU stands for Ocmod Refresh Url.

• Watch changes in my-extension folder and push to FTP server:

opexdk watch-ftp -m my-extension --server my-ftp-server.ftp.xml 

• Watch changes in my-extension folder and push to SFTP server:

opexdk watch-sftp -m my-extension --server my-sftp-server.sftp.xml 

• Deploy all files from my-extension folder:

opexdk deploy -m my-extension -o www 

• Deploy all files from my-extension to ftp:

opexdk deploy-compiled-ftp -m my-extension --server server.ftp.xml

The deploy-compiled-xxx will compile the extension before deploying it. Compilation means for example, replace the __VERSION__ variable in various places by its real value so that in admin dashboard displays nicely.

• Deploy all files from my-extension to sftp server:

opexdk deploy-compiled-sftp -m my-extension --server server.sftp.xml

• Package extension

opexdk package -m my-extension --ocmod

Notes

watch tasks (local, ftp or sftp) need to be restarted on file creation. This needs to be fixed.

Run tasks using node command:

If you don’t want to install opexdk globally you can run it using this style:

node lib/main.js -t package -m my-extension --ocmod --cloud

Integration with phpstorm

Examples above must be run from the terminal. If you want opexdk to be run from phpstorm directly, vote here:

https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-112256?_ga=2.20275761.820340710.1605016380-1934743903.1584903037

Phpstorm supports running gulp tasks. You can create gulp task to run opexdk tasks by calling gulp directly, see below.

Run tasks using gulp from command line

Either run from a terminal. Make sure gulp is installed globally.

# cd opexdk where there is the gulpfile.js
# gulp deploy-compiled-sftp -m my-extension --server server.sftp.xml
node bin/index-global.js translate-to-vqmod --path /path/to/files 

Run tasks using gulp from phpstorm

Create a Gulp run configuration in Phpstorm, name it for example watch my extension

• Gulpfile: Specify the gulpfile.js found in the opexdk repository
• Task: watch
• Arguments: -m my-extension -o www
• Gulp package: opexdk/node_modules/gulp
• Environment: Enter all the environment variables described above.

Click on save. Now you can watch files while developing by hitting ALT+SHIFT+F10 and select watch my extension

Debugging

We use the https://www.npmjs.com/package/debug module.

To enable verbose log for the package task (See task-package.js)

DEBUG=package,xxx gulp package -m testsimple

This package uses natives (system) dependencies. Be careful, with errors due to package-lock.json

Extension generator

We have our own extension-duplicator, some similar projects:

• https://github.com/eykrehbein/cook

There are two types of scaffolding: light and fully fledged

Create an extension from a light scaffolding

This kind of extension will not have an admin controller nor a setting page.

• Useful to create file structure that will hold your php files and vqmod files to get started testing things.
• Useful also for library extensions.

opexdk create-simple -m my-lib-extension

Output:

tree
.
├── manifest.json
└── public
    └── module
        ├── admin
        ├── catalog
        ├── system
        └── vqmod
            └── xml

7 directories, 1 file

Create an extension from the fully fledged scaffolding

Here you will have an extension ready to use with a setting page, controller, model etc, ... Once deployed to Opencart, the extension will be visible in the extension → modules. You can click on the install button to enter setting page.

gulp create --skel skel_oc30 \
            --displayName "My Extension" \
            --finalName my-extension-oc3 \
            --shortName myext \
            --capitalCamel Myext \
            --underscore my_ext

Available skeletons are:

• skel_oc22: produces an extension compatible with opencart 2.2 and below (opencart 2.0)
• skel_oc23: produces an extension compatible with all opencart 2.3.x.y versions
• skel_oc30: produces an extension compatible with all opencart 3.x versions
• skel_crud_oc3: work in progress, produces an extension that allow creating/updating/deleting records in the database.

opex manifest schema

See opex/_commons/ide-libs/opex-manifest-schema.json

The schema was generated on: https://jsonschema.net/home

Make extension depends on other extension

{
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "finalName": "my-extension",
    "shortName": "my-extension",
    "dependencies": [
        "my-lib",
        "!my-excluded-lib-thanks-to-exclamation-mark"
    ]
} 

• my-lib is the shortname of the lib extension.

• By adding the ! you can quickly skip the dependency from being included.

Make files common for both admin and catalog

Use the suffix: -coca

-coca which means Common On Catalog and Admin.

Example:

reda@xps15:~/Work/WorkspaceOpencart/opex/codemaster-for-opencart/codemaster-coca$ tree
.
├── manifest.json
└── public
    └── module
        └── common
            ├── language
            │   ├── de-de
            │   │   └── module
            │   │       └── codemaster_pdf_common.php
            │   └── english
            │       └── module
            │           └── codemaster_pdf_common.php
            └── model
                ├── catalog
                │   └── codemaster_customer_common.php
                └── module
                    ├── codemaster_dao_order_product_common.php
                    ├── codemaster_dao_product_common.php
                    ├── codemaster_dao_redeem_templates_common.php
                    ├── codemaster_pdf_common.php
                    └── codemaster_quantity_manager.php

11 directories, 9 files

When changes are detected or when packaging, files in public/module/common will be copied to both admin and catalog