How To Create Your First Module On OpenCart

Amigoways Explain how to create your first module on OpenCart with these easy step-by-step instructions.

We need to create our extension folder in the folder extensions which is located in the root folder.

The folder structure will be shown below.

{

"name": "Module name - Module Name",

"version": "1.0",

"author": "amigoways",

"link": "https://www.amigoways.com"

}

The admin folder is for the admin panel functionalities. As OpenCart is an MVC framework, it contains a model, view and controller as usual.

We should give a namespace for each controller we created.

namespace Opencart\Admin\Controller\Extension\Modulename;
class ClassName extends \Opencart\System\Engine\Controller {

The controller will contain install and uninstall functions to install/uninstall the extension.

public function install() {
//to do code
}

public function uninstall() {
//to do code
}

To load the model and call the model function in the controller, code goes like this

$this->load->model('extension/modulename/foldername/modelfilename');

$this->model_extension_modulename_foldername_modelfilename->function_name();

To load the view file the code should be like below.

$this->response->setOutput($this->load->view('extension/module/$filepath', $data));

To add style , the style.css file should be in the folder /extension/module/admin/view/css/.

$this->document->addStyle(HTTP_CATALOG . '/extension/module/admin/view/css/style.css');

To register the model into the system, the namespace should be like this

namespace Opencart\Admin\Model\Extension\Modulename;
class ClassName extends \Opencart\System\Engine\Model {

The view file format should be twig i.e. filename.twig

And the file location should be /extension/module/admin/view/filename.twig

The same procedure is going for the catalog i.e. frontend side functionality.

But the namespace and location will vary from the admin.

namespace Opencart\Catalog\Controller\Extension\Modulename;

class ClassName extends \Opencart\System\Engine\Controller {

namespace Opencart\Catalog\Model\Extension\Modulename;

class ClassName extends \Opencart\System\Engine\Model {

The folder system is for loading any third-party library.

Finally, to build the module, files should be compressed and named as module name.ocmod

Amigoways publishes tutorial blog posts on Module & Plugin development. Stay tuned for updates and advanced module-building tips.