Prepare your extension for
Joomla 4
Allon Moritz
JAB17 2. June 2017
https://joomla.digital-peak.com
J and Beyond 2017
About Me
Allon Moritz
@digitpeak / @laoneo
Founder Digital Peak GmbH
Doing Joomla extensions since 2007
Developer Joomla 4
Team Lead Media Manager
GsoC Mentor
https://joomla.digital-peak.com
J and Beyond 2017
Agenda
● Namespaces in PHP
● Dependency injection
● MVC Layer
● Component
○ Namespacing
○ Dispatcher
○ Form
● Modules
● Plugins
● Backwards compatibility
● Questions
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Namespaces in PHP
● Organising classes in a defined structure
● Autoloaded through the classloader, no manual include or require anymore
● Example ContentModelArticles becomes
\Joomla\Component\Content\Administrator\Model\Articles
● JLoader can handle the namespaces automatically
● We can distinguish between front end and back end classes
● Files can be found in /libraries/src/Joomla/CMS
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Namespaces in PHP
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Dependency Injection
● No woodoo
● Better unit testing
● Application and Input get injected into the dispatcher and the MVC layer
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MVC Layer: Introduction
● Basically the legacy layer becomes the default MVC in Joomla 3
● Convert your “New MVC” component to the namespaced MVC, it was done
with com_config
● “New MVC” layer will be deprecated
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MVC Layer: Libraries
● The old classes still exist but the real files do exist in
● JControllerLegacy is now \Joomla\CMS\Controller\Controller
● JModelLegacy is now \Joomla\CMS\Model\Model
● JViewLegacy is now \Joomla\CMS\View\AbstractView
● JTable stays is now \Joomla\CMS\Table\Table
● JPlugin is now \Joomla\CMS\Plugin\CMSPlugin
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Component: Namespacing
● A Joomla 4 component will have the
structure as in the picture
● Uppercase folders have classes
● Lowercase folders do hold the rest like
forms or template files
● Dispatcher is not namespaced
● Root classes become a \ and front
● Controller and Model need an additional
parameter MvcFactory
● Front end namespace is
\FooVendor\Component\Bar\Site
● Back end namespace is
\FooVendor\Component\Bar\Administrator
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Component: Namespacing Todo
● Helpers are need to be done on a case
per case basis
○ ContentHelper
○ RouteHelper
○ QueryHelper
○ AssociationsHelper
● JHtml
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Component: Dispatcher
● Replacement single entry file content.php in root
● Get the application injected
● Dispatches the controller
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Component: Form
● Forms are in the folder forms under root in the extension on, eg.
/forms/article.xml
● Extra fields are registered with addfieldprefix attribute which adds the
namespace
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Modules
● Module file stays as single entry file
● Namespacing is done on the additional classes
● Modules namespace is \FooVendor\Module\Bar\Administrator for front end
● Modules namespace is \FooVendor\Module\Bar\Site for front end
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Plugins
● Plugin file stays the same not namespaced
● When you have additional classes, they can be namespaced
● Plugin namespace is \FooVendor\Plugin\Content\Bar
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Backwards compatibility
● Target is that a Joomla 3 extension will run on Joomla 4
● Target is that a Joomla 4 extension will run on Joomla 3.9
● Classmapping for libraries so JForm still exists and maps to
\Joomla\CMS\Form\Form
● Changes are added not replaced to make sure the old code works
● Support Joomla 3 extensions during full Joomla 4 lifecycle
● Changing to a more service oriented architecture
● No Class overloading anymore
● Event system has changed completely
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Questions?
Slides on https:/joomla.digital-peak.com/jab17
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Thank you and enjoy the day :-)
