Editing Prestashop themes and modules

Question

I started using Prestashop yesterday so I’m a total beginner, but I've got some questions.

1. Is there absolutely no API for this? I mean I found the wiki but it holds no good information.

2. I want to edit my theme completely, as I wish. Edit html, add/remove JavaScript, just being able to do what I want, but when I edit the tpl files in my active theme, NOTHING happens. The site remains exactly the same. Why is this, or where do I change it without hacking the core? Do I have to recompile these .tpl files in some way for the changes to take affect?

3. I also want to edit a lot of the modules to match my demands, but same here, if I edit their tpl files nothing seems to happen or rather I don’t want to hack the core, since I suppose these will be affected if I update the platform.

4. Where do I find my products page, I want to create a menu with a link to a page called products or something with an overview of the products available in my store.

I’m very confused, but I guess you just have to get through this, I’m used to developing in WordPress or without any CMS for that matter.

Answer 1

Did you clear the cache after editing your templates? Prestashop uses caching system to speed up the shop loading, so empty the cache directory to compile the new templates

Answer 2

API and documentations are a completely different things.

The team has updated the documentation (no more wiki) which can be found at http://doc.prestashop.com/

You should also check out the forum (forum.prestashop.com), you can find a low of questions / answers there.

Answer 3

Unsure if topic is dead, but here we go anyway. Make sure you have the theme you are working on loaded to start. You'll find this under Back Office > Modules > Themes.

As previous posters have mentioned head to Back Office > Preferences > Performance and enable "Force compile" and disable "cache".

There is a bit if an API available, but in my opinion start from the bottom up mate, there is reasonable documentation (again, as mentioned above: http://doc.prestashop.com/) available that will at least give you some questions to start asking.

Answer 4

Just deleting the cache not worked for me. I had to delete /themes/<current_theme>/modules/<edited_module>/ directory.

Answer 5

you can disable cache Advanced Parameters >> Performance.

Answer 6

As mentioned the cache is an issue here so always clear it. Also you can completely structure the template system how you want it, even editing the controllers if need be. As this is MVC you have to think about the whole system when customising it.

Have a look into VQMOD, this allows you to have xml files that edit the controllers on the fly for added functinality i.e. added filters or product rollover images on the category page. VQMOD is perfect as then the core system can still be updated.