Module Creation tutorial?

New Member Joined: Jan 03, 2007 Posts: 2

Hey. Totally new at this webmaster stuff. Got basic knowledge in alot of programming languages -- nothing spectacular -- but totally new to PHP and Nuke.

Was wondering if there was a better, more in-depth tutorial on module creation besides the one found in the Nuke HOWTO. One that would take into consideration the reader not knowing PHP would be great, but I'll read anything; I'm bound to figure it out eventually given enough sources of information.

Sells PC To Pay For Divorce Joined: Posts: 5661

nope...thats it..
but there's not more to it realy....
or buy the php nuke book....

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 7:01 am

What exactly are you trying to do?

Display some basic HTML, or something which pulls out data from the DB?

If it's the later you will need to know something about PHP and there's a few good books out there.
Guardian is currently putting together a series of tutorials on PHP and security. See here: [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ]

I must admit I'm relatively new to all this and recently on Guardians site I posted a discussion about creating a basic module, which may help.
See here: [ Only registered users can see links on this board! Get registered or login! ]

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 8:00 am

nice links posted jakec,but thats just php and doesnt explain how a module is created ....

simple said.....
first part of the module is this :

Code:




<?php


if ( !defined('MODULE_FILE') )


{


die("You can't access this file directly...");


}





require_once("mainfile.php");


$module_name = basename(dirname(__FILE__));


get_lang($module_name);





include("header.php");

Then we reach the part where we wanna show any junk we have in mind...

that starts by :

OpenTable();
echo "here comes the content...";

then after that we close it again....

CloseTable();
include("footer.php");

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:08 am

The How-To is really pretty good at explaining the basics of module creation.

There is also the book "Building Websites with PHP-Nuke" that walks through a lot of this stuff.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 9:44 am

@gremmie

let me quote myself......

Quote:

or buy the php nuke book

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 10:41 am

Well since you failed to mention the title, I thought I would reply with that information. Please excuse me for trying to be helpful.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:41 pm

no problem... Laughing

but php nuke book also goes to packtpub via google....but still .....chances that somebody will actualy buy the book for the howto modules story is like null.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:58 pm

hitwalker wrote:

nice links posted jakec,but thats just php and doesnt explain how a module is created ....

Although I perhaps didn't explain how a module is created I thought the link to the discussion on the Code Authors site would be helpful, as it gives an example of a very basic module. Wink

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 2:58 pm

hitwalker wrote:

but php nuke book also goes to packtpub via google....

I still don't understand the reason for your post. I provided a specific title whereas you provided a vague google search term. So why are you on my case for being more specific?

hitwalker wrote:

but still .....chances that somebody will actualy buy the book for the howto modules story is like null.

I bought it for that reason, that and the tutorial on making themes.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 3:16 pm

im not on your case,...i dont know what gives you that idea..
personaly i feel this topic was answered good enough...
whatever term was posted,that doesnt matter....it was clear enough.

Client Joined: Oct 07, 2003 Posts: 735 Location: Ohio

You can read all you want to and you will pick up the basic idea. Me on the other hand, had to roll up my sleaves and deconstruct a module and see how it works before I understood. Get yourselve a development server and dive in.

Only way I learn is by example, and trial and error. For example I am finding it much eaiser to get data written to the database by using functions than by _POST in a form.

Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 6:20 pm

I agree with Donovan. You only learn by doing...

Take a sample module that does something close to what you're after and hack it up. We call it at work "stealing shamelessly".

Posted: Thu Jan 04, 2007 8:45 am

Just be aware that there are modules and there are modules. The admin program recognizes modules based on the files that are in the /modules directory. So if you have a directory called xxx and an index.php file in there admin will think you have a module. It will create an entry in the modules table for that module and you will be able to go to modules administration in the admin panel and customize settings for it (active, inactive, groups that can see it, etc). The simple module example that was given earlier in the thread would work ... you can have it do nothing but echo "hello world" and it's still a module.

But as I said, then there are modules. If you look at the admin directory of a typical nuke module you will see that there are case and links files. The admin panel looks at them, if they exist to determine whether you have set up administration functions for the module and if so what to do. To really understand this you need to work thru admin.php and trace what happens. It's not for the faint of heart nor is it documented that I know of (but I haven't looked at the book that's posted, that's on my list).

In my view one of the biggest p.i.t.a.'s with dealing with nuke modules is understanding how the action attribute of a submit on a form works. You need to look at several modules to get that straight, the form has to communicate with whatever "action" takes place when a submit is done thru modules.php. In standard PHP programming you'd just go direct to the action program or function but in Nuke you need to go thru modules. It's fine once you get it but understanding it and doing it well is something else. Also, whenever you go from one screen to another in Nuke you are likely, like it or not, to be going thru mainfile and header and sentinel and a bunch of other stuff. All those programs are there to help you but if you do something they don't like they are likely to step on your toes. And tracing the execution path can be another p.i.t.a.

Hope that helps and it's definitely not meant to be discouraging. You can start by creating a module that doesn't have an administrative component and then move up as you gain experience.

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:16 am

Wow, I post something and forget about it for two days and it's full of information. Shocked

Thanks guys!

How does Opentable(); and closetable(); work? Where are they defined at? Apparently, besides those two and the line you have to include at the beginning, the rest of the code is regular PHP and HTML. I had figured that there was alot more to it, but it looks like I'll need to find a PHP tutorial instead!

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:24 am

The functions are required to be a part of every theme.php script (or somehow included in a file from there).

Besides those, the only real "infrastructure" that you should re-use is the database calls. Look at how one of the modules is doing this -- through the db abstraction layer class -- and then you are ready to "rock and roll".

Have fun! It is a journey they will not leave you the same... Wink

Client Joined: Jul 19, 2005 Posts: 68

Hi,
Im more a zen cart person but nukephp does have it advantages.
so i got an empty module that i borrowed from another and have removed the copyright only to shortan the post. i could do with a bit of advice here from the usual team. forget about the sql calls and the switch in the case file I know the problems there.

the public index page code is;

?php

if ( !defined('MODULE_FILE') )
{
die("You can't access this file directly...");
}
require_once("mainfile.php");
$module_name = basename(dirname(__FILE__));
get_lang($module_name);
$pagetitle = "- "._EMPTY."";
global $prefix, $db, $sitename, $admin, $multilingual, $module_name, $admin_file;
include("header.php");
title("$sitename: "._EMPTY."");

echo "public section";

include("footer.php");

?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

the admin index page code is;

?php

if ( !defined('ADMIN_FILE') )
{
die ("Access Denied");
}
global $prefix, $db, $admin_file;
$aid = substr("$aid", 0,25);
$row = $db->sql_fetchrow($db->sql_query("SELECT title, admins FROM ".$prefix."_modules WHERE title='Encyclopedia'"));
$row2 = $db->sql_fetchrow($db->sql_query("SELECT name, radminsuper FROM ".$prefix."_authors WHERE aid='$aid'"));
$admins = explode(",", $row['admins']);
$auth_user = 0;
for ($i=0; $i < sizeof($admins); $i++) {
if ($row2['name'] == "$admins[$i]" AND !empty($row['admins'])) {
$auth_user = 1;
}
}

if ($row2['radminsuper'] == 1 || $auth_user == 1) {

/*********************************************************/
/* Sections Manager Functions */
/*********************************************************/

global $admin, $bgcolor2, $prefix, $db, $currentlang, $multilingual, $admin_file;

include("header.php");

echo "admin section";

include("footer.php");

}

else {
include("header.php");
GraphicAdmin();

include("footer.php");
}

?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

the case code is;

?php

if ( !defined('ADMIN_FILE') )
{
die ("Access Denied");
}
$module_name = "Empty";
include_once("modules/$module_name/admin/language/lang-".$currentlang.".php");

switch($op) {

case "empty":
include("modules/$module_name/admin/index.php");
break;

}

?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

the links code is;

?php

if ( !defined('ADMIN_FILE') )
{
die ("Access Denied");
}
global $admin_file;
adminmenu("".$admin_file.".php?op=empty", ""._EMPTY."", "empty.gif");

?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

i have omitted the lang- files,
the big question is will i be opening a hole in my site if i creat a module using the above code as a template. and if so what would be the cure.

Posted: Tue Feb 06, 2007 5:56 pm

pinkbeef, this is just slightly over the border of

OffTopic

In my opinion... this thread was a question around "is there a tutorial on how to create a module".

Please post this elsewhere, however, I can tell you that you may or may not get someone to comment on it. No-one is going to want to stake their "reputation" on partial code, and probably not even full code. JMO.