Question

If writing a module to add and modify some catalog logic. Is there anything wrong or against any standards/best practices in creating a module named “Catalog” that lives in the app/code/local directory?

example:

app/
--code/
----local/
------Catalog/
--------controllers/
--------etc/

-or should it be prefixed, something like: Foo_Catalog

I’m specifically looking if best practices/standards for Magento exist for this. (not just opinion)

Answer 1

Best practices would be to in essence extend Catalog via your Module and its specific purpose. So if you are adding/modifying Product’s image gallery functionality within the Catalog module your module might be named CompanyName_NewGallery, thereafter you could have a folder structure like the such:

app/
--code/
----local/
------CompanyName/
--------NewGallery/
----------Block/Catalog/Product/Gallery.php
----------controllers/Catalog/
----------etc/

In your config.xml you would set it up so that your Gallery.php would overwrite magento’s in the following way:

<global>
        <blocks>
            <sales>
                <rewrite>
                    <product_gallery>CompanyName_NewGallery_Block_Catalog_Product_Gallery</product_gallery>
                </rewrite>
            </sales>
        </blocks>
</global>

Then declare your class and you can either totally overwrite the class and extend the original class’ parent (Mage_Core_Block_Template) or the original class (Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Gallery)