Tag: Components

This article will explain how to develop customized components for Joomla in the 1.0.x version, showing the files and basic steps, as well as some useful methods such as access to the database, paged results, etc. It is recommended to have knowledge of PHP and HTML to read this article.

Directory structure

Joomla has a directory structure divided into 2 big groups. Administrator, where are all the files needed for the backend to work and the various directories that are located in the root directory.

The directories of interest are the components, both within the administrator directory, as in the root directory, since here is where the files for each component are, which in turn are in sub-directories as follows, com_componentName, example com_users.

If we want to see the files corresponding to the users component, must look at

• Administrator/components/com_users (backend)
• Components/com_users (frontend)

Another important is the includes directory, since within it we find files that have classes that are going to be used in the component, for example to connect the database (database.php), to manage user data, paging, etc (joomla.php).

The components are stored in the database, more precisely in the jos_components table.

Files that make up a component

A component to be installed must be compressed in a zip file, with the following format com_ComponentName.zip example com_users.zip.

This file must have at least 8 files that are going to be described in brief:

• admin.componentName.php (backend)
• admin. componentName.html.php (backend)
• toolbar. componentName.php (backend)
• toolbar. componentName.html.php (backend)
• componentName.xml (backend)
• componentName.class.php (opcional)
• componentName.php (frontend)
• componentName.html.php (frontend

The following describes each file.