Fundamentals

Concepts

PrestaShop was conceived so that third-party modules could easily upon its foundations, making it an extremely customizable e-commerce software.

A module is a complement to PrestaShop that enables any developer to add the following:

• Provide additional functionality to PrestaShop.
• View additional items on the site (product selection, etc..).
• Communicate with other e-commerce players (buying guides, payment platforms, logistics...)
• etc...

The company behind PrestaShop provides more than 50 modules for free with the tool itself, enabling you to launch your business quickly and for free.

More than 750 add-ons are also available at the official add-ons site.
These additional modules were build ??by the company PrestaShop or members of the PrestaShop community, and are sold at affordable prices.
As a developer, you can also share your modules on this site, and receive 70% of the amounts associated with the sale of your creations. Sign up now!

Technical principles behind a module

A module consists of:

• A root folder, named after the module, which will hold all of the modules files, and will reside in PrestaShop's /modules folder.
• A main PHP file, named after the module, located in that root folder. This PHP file should have the same name as its root folder.
• An icon file, named logo.gif, representing this module.
• Optional: some .tpl files, containing the module's theme.
• Optional: language files, if the module of its theme have text to display (and therefore, that should be translatable).
• Optional: in a /themes/modules, a folder with the same name as the module, containing .tpl and language files if necessary. This last folder is essential during modifications of existing module, so that you can adapt it without having to touch its original files. Notably, it enables you to handle the module's display in various ways, according to the current theme.

Let's see an example with PrestaShop's blockuserinfo module: