One of Magento's strengths is the fact that the platform can be extended to provide additional features and functions. These extensions—or add-ons—number in the thousands. They include themes, payment gateway integrations, site management enhancements, utilities and many, many more features.
In this chapter, we will discuss the two primary ways of extending Magento:
- Extending existing Magento functionality to meet your own needs
- A quick overview of the current iteration of Magento Connect
- Creating your own Magento extensions
By learning how Magento can be enhanced, you will find that the power of Magento can be broadened to meet almost any specific e-commerce need you might imagine.
Third-party extensions that are offered to the Magento community are, for the most part, listed in a special section of the Magento website called Magento Connect (http://www.Magentocommerce.com/Magento-connect/):