Magento News Roundup #17

The best of wishes for 2015! After finishing the 52-week-count, the Magento News Roundup will now simply be identified with incremental numbers. All (previous) roundups are categorized under the roundup tag.

Magento

• With the Magento Extension File Finder you can quickly generate a list of an extension its files. Useful for automatically generating modman-files.
• Magento Pace has been updated to version 0.6.0 which most notably updates the underlying pace.js library to 1.0.2. Adds a nifty loading bar to your Magento store.
• Simon wrote about his experience with taking the Magento Certified Solution Specialist exam.
• Rick Buczynski posted some thoughts on the Magento admin workflow and ideas which could improve it.
• Apparently one of these is voice-activated tasks and he has a cool demo video to demonstrate the concept.
• Though not solely related to Magento, PracticalEcommerce published an overview of 10 Google Analytics reports for helping with finding where customers abandon you.

Magento 2

• If you haven’t already subscribed to Alan Kent’s blog in 2015… well, you should. He recently wrote about the recent changes regarding GitHub interactivity and published thoughts on the options available for storing configuration settings.
• The same Alan noted that there’s a “big commit coming with updated copyright year” which should solve the problem of having to update all files their copyright notice each year.
• Magento 2 contributors are getting advised to include tests in their pull requests.
• Hands are starting to get dirty; here are some Magento 2 extensions people are working on:
  • James Cowie is working on a port of MageSpec for Magento 2
  • The earlier referenced Magento Pace module is also available for Magento 2.
  • Cyrill (author of Magento Pace) is also working on a more advanced approach to permissions for Magento 2 its REST API.
  • Fooman is working on a port of his SameOrderInvoiceNumber module.
  • Ash Smith’s simple Magento 2 Controller Module (which he earlier wrote about).
  • Rick Hogge is the author of the most minimal Magento 2 extension.
  • Something more than the absolute bare minimal, is the minimal Magento 2 reference extension which Dale Sikkema wrote about on Alan’s blog.
• Cyrill Schumacher’s blog is quickly ramping up on Magento 2 content. He published lists of all dispatched events and coreRegistry calls, wrote about sending requests to the search REST API and about his experience with REST API permissions (which includes an interesting introduction to his Wanderlust project).
• We took a quick look at Magento 2 its NoRouteHandler system.
• Fooman pointed out where you can find the Magento 2 migration tools.
• Karen (from WebShopApps) published a rough overview of the various Magento 2 directories.
• For anyone working with the testsuite, it might be nice to know that all modules are always active.
• BelVG continues its efforts to create user manuals for Magento 2 with its latest article describing the autosettings feature.

Community

• The MageUnconference is on! The financial status tracker on the homepage has been updated and it looks like they are well on track.
• The second edition of MageStackDay is coming on the 13th and 14th of February. If you are planning to participate, don’t forget to sign up.
• MageHero got a new look and seems to be receiving traction again. Though we wonder what happened to this plan, at least it’s getting better.

Though we are out of sync regarding the edition number, we are still basing the Magento News Roundup on Matthias Zeis’ German Magento-Neuigkeiten. He’s also on Twitter and often tweets in English; be sure to follow him. In 2015 feedback continues to be welcome. You can leave a comment below, send an email or mention us on Twitter. Thanks for reading! Header image background by Stefano Corso (Pensiero)