Question

We are developing a Magento extension, that is stored in a git repository. This is the workflow we are currently using … and it sucks:

1. Clone/pull the remote repository to my local repository
2. Copy the extension files from the local repository to my local Magento installation
3. Work/edit on my local Magento installation

4. Copy the extension files from the local Magento installation to the local repository – there are four specific paths we copy:

   • app/etc/modules/OurModule_Base.xml
   • app/code/local/OurModule
   • app/design/adminhtml/default/default/layout/OurModule.xml
   • skin/adminhtml/default/default/OurModule

5. Commit & push

Are there any suggestions for a better workflow where I can just test locally and commit, without worrying about copying files back & forth between folders?

Edit – Modman seems like a viable option, the only trouble is that it doesn’t seem to support Windows as far as I could gather.

I guess I might just manually setup a few symlinks.

Answer 1

Yes, I would say the modman post is kind of relavant. Essentially modman is a tool used to help you create symlinks. The basic workflow with modman would be to:

1. Add a .modman configuration file to your extension repository.
2. Clone your extension repository into a .modman folder inside your
   test Magento stores route directoy.
3. Run the modman command to install your module (I think it’s deploy, I’m currently only vaguely familiar with modman.

At this point you have all your extension code sat in it’s own repository where you can easily edit the files and commit them, without interfering with Magento core files etc. You can also easily clone and deploy the module into directories for multiple Magento versions.

You could do the same approach without modman by manually creating the symlinks, but I’d recommend leveraging modman if possible. It’s something I’d love to introduce in our workflow (just haven’t found the time to fit it in).