Extension’s Developer Guide

The extension subsystem of the AbanteCart is an essential part of the shopping cart application. Extensions allow an efficient way to add new features to the cart and allow scalability and flexibility of eCommerce application. The extension subsystem of the AbanteCart allows the shopping cart project to grow indefinitely together with rapidly changing technologies, standards and techniques.
Lots of effort lays on the development of the system and extensions to allow shopping cart administrators and owners a smooth and worry-free cart experience.
The extension can be installed and managed in the control panel of AbanteCart. If you use marketplace to purchase extensions inside the control panel, extensions are downloaded and installed seamlessly without leaving your control panel and web browser. 
Our extension architecture is partially based on Plexus API concept (http://code.google.com/p/phpplexus/ ) and blend with our own concepts described below.

Glossary

Extension – Collection of directories and files under one main directory that can be added to the shopping cart to offer additional features or functions. The extension can be enabled and configured in the admin of shopping cart application
Extension Configuration – Collection of settings that can control the extension functionality of behavior. Configuration can be default (provided with the original installation of the extension) and custom, after installation once the admin user changes the settings.
Hook – This is the tool used in the extension subsystem to connect the extension to a particular section in the application.
Core Hook – This is the hook to the core function of the application that allows extending functionality, effect data structures and values.
Template Hook - This is the hook to extend display of the particular page on the front end or admin. This is usually implemented within the template file.
Dataset - Ability to save, access and manage data specific for the extension. See more details later on.