This post outlines some of our thoughts about the state of the Magento module community, and an idea for how Magento can improve the quality of that community. This post outlines some of our thoughts about the state of the Magento module community, and an idea for how Magento can improve the quality of that community. Here at Classy Llama Studios we create our own Magento modules every day and have high standards for any module that we write.  These standards include having properly commented code, adhering to Zend programming standards, and having both the code and functionality of the module reviewed before it is released.  Magento is great because, instead of having to write every module that we use, there are numerous other quality development companies whose modules we can draw from...

There is a lot of functionality in Magento that is hard to get to or tedious to work with.  There are so many tasks that developers, designers, and administrators do on a daily basis that require time-consuming trips to the Magento backend.  If you happen to want to do more than one of those operations, you end up having do each of those tasks one after the other... if only there was a better way! It is my pleasure to announce Wiz: a command-line interface tool for working with Magento installations.  It was built to make your work (and subsequently your life) much easier! Wiz has a whole bunch of great features, but here are some you're sure to like: Create an admin user (tested in CE & PE) Toggle template hints Enable/disable module names Enable/disable module output...

In this post we will be exploring the integration of Interapptive's ShipWorks with Magento. ShipWorks is a Windows-only desktop application that integrates a number of different shopping carts with the most common shipping services.  It uses the Microsoft SQL server as it's data storage engine, allowing it be installed on multiple computers on the same network. ShipWorks currently has support for the following shipping methods: UPS (direct integration) UPS Worldship DHL (direct integration) Fedex USPS (Label printing, w/out postage) USPS (via Stamps.com desktop application - domestic shipping only) USPS (via Endicia desktop application) Benefits of using ShipWorks Fast shipping fulfillment Less error-prone than copy-and-pasting Integration with multiple...

Magento has a little-publicized feature called the "Global Record Search", located at the top right of every admin page. It allows you to quickly search for Products, Customers, and Orders in the system. If you need to quickly find one of these types of records, using the Global Record Search is much quicker than going to the Product, Customer, or Order listing pages.  Here are the attributes you can use to search: Product Name Customer First Name Customer Last Name Customer Company Customer Postal Code Customer Phone Number Orders by Billing or Shipping address (using the same information as Customer fields listed above) Order Number (Increment ID) - must be exact number, no partial matches [caption id="attachment_78" align="alignnone" width="718" caption="Example Global Record...