The php simpleXML object is my preferred way of working with XML, but it has some unusual quirks that can drive you up the wall. One of these is that, by default, it will not read CDATA within an XML file, and will just leave the node blank. If you need to access this data [...]
One of the things that can catch you out if you have a paranoid server admin is that various magento extensions will contact external servers (such as SagePay or Mailchimp). If the server admin has blocked outbound web traffic (to avoid DDoS attacks and other malicious traffic), these extensions will slow you down at every [...]
If you use Netbeans along with Xdebug to facilitate step through debugging when coding PHP then you may come across this issue. It’s possible to get it into a semi working scenario where you can have working breakpoints and see variable values but you have no idea which bit of code you are actually stepped [...]
Ever need to quickly test some HTML that you copied from some where? If you have Firebug installed, you can open a new tab, go the the HTML tab in Firebug, click edit and paste your HTML and Firefox will render it. This is faster than having to open a text editor, paste the contents [...]
I in the middle of carrying out an upgrade for a client, which is causing the usual compatibility problems… Normally I rely on Developer mode to point me in the right direction with these, but in this case no matter what I did, I could not get magento to display errors. Finally I came across [...]
Continuing with trying to improve the developer experience with Magento a key element has been my quest for a detailed exception dump that can also handle the various object recursion issues in Magento that can cause all kinds of issues when developing. Here is my most up to date version of the detailedExceptionDump method. Its [...]
One of the first stumbling blocks newcomers to Magento might find is that when things go wrong, they don't know how to find out what it is that's actually going wrong. This is because Magento does an excellent job of keeping all of the error information away from people browsing the site. This is without [...]
If you need to work collaboratively on some Javascript then check out JS Bin It's just like pastebin, but with Javascript compatability, handy. More Reading:Adding Confirm E-mail Address Field to Magento Frontend FormsGot the Insecure Content on a Secure HTTPs Page Problem – Easy SolutionConsole Log not working in Magento + solutionPHP SimpleXML CData not [...]