Hello guys,

I'm opening this topic, so we can expose and share experience about extensions we created using Cook.

If you have something interesting, please, post here, so every body can see your work

Thanks

Nice initiative.
I'll open a new forum category.
[EDIT : done]

I'll start by talking about of what I created.

I got to know about cook, because I was in JED looking for some sort of Structure Builder, so I could work on my next job, because I hate to be creating those files in MVC structure all by hand, one by one. But when I visited the website and watched the video, I was stunned and exited about the wonderful thing this tool can do.

So I jumped and started to work on a demo component... but 2 days later, this demo component, became the real component. I just showed, today, the end result to my customer and he turned to me and said... "this is more than I expected"... All of this, is because Cook did cut about 70% of my work and provided me more ways to improve the usability of the component.

Let me talk now about the component

The Idea was to create an Airline Ticket reservation component, so customers can go to the website and send a reservation request to the travel agency.

The end result was 17 tables all related between than, to generate a full dashboard for the travel agents. Here is the dash board screenshot of the administrator area.



Thanks for Cook developers for such great tool. This component would not be possible to be done at short time with all the features in it.

Very nice job !
Thank you for showing the world the capacities of Cook.
You really went profundly in Cook and honorated our Job.

Cook if becoming very soon a commercial service (v1.4), but our Team decided to offer you an unlimited account for 6 months. (so, don't pay anything, I will enter personaly in contact with you).

We really appreciate your contribution on the forum since the beginning. You solved some issues. You proposed new functionalities, you reviewed on the JED and also helped some users. We see in our statistics how Cook is growing in Brazil thank to you.

Continue using Cook, we'll help you on the support as much as possible.

Regards

Hello Jocelyn,

I just posted in another topic about you guys going paid service and I said I would become a paid member.. and now.. I opened this topic.. and what I can say.. I'm very honored in receive your recognition and I appreciate a lot for the offer... But let me tell you... I was so over the sealing because of this extension and I noticed that was only you around to help others, so I steped out to be a help as well, so I could contribute to what is helping me a lot... is the least of what I can do... and be sure... that I told all my Brazilians buddy about you guys... and they are really impressed with Cook... I'm on the skype all the time, helping my friends Joomleiros when they need, because most of then does not understand English...

Thanks.. and you can keep counting on me to help here in the forums...

Hello Griiettner,

Could you juste explain what kind of work you had to do to make your component from the cook skeleton?
I see for example that you have panels and also tabs on the right. What does it take to make those and how does it articulate with cook's generated code?

I will also write a review on JED, but I need to make my component first.
But already a great tool.

cheers

EDIT : and also : do you have any tips to maintain compatibility with generated code? I mean : were you able to regenerate your component from cook without losing the modifications already made?

When you regenerate your component, you lose your code you written inside. In other terms, it is not possibe to keep the compatibility.

So, you can regenerate and manually copy the files if you create new views/controllers/tables/models...

But if you want to add some fields in your layouts or fields in your table, it's better to manually write it.
So.

You really need to well define the structure of your project. When you think it's ok, you can start to write inside your component.

If you want to extend an existing component, you can also create a second one that interract with the first. It is another solution.

Hello Zutiste

Before I explain a little what I've done, I have to say that Cook is in any way a substitute of a Joomla programmer, it is a big helper in the development process, but still... if you want a very basic component, you will not need a programmer, but for complex extensions... than.. for sure... a good Joomla programmer is required, because it is structured in MVC and it has lots of api's and you have to know what they for and how to play wit than...

So... that1s said...

In my case, developed all the component inside the limitations of cook, making tables and theirs collections... But on my component, I was in the need to make a full dashboard wit mos of the data's inside one single view, and the way I had done, it was spread in 17 different views... that's is crazy to maintain... So.. my idea was simple... I just created inside my main view, many iframes, where I could add and edit my itens... but let me tell... it was not an easy process, because I had to be testing all the time if I removed one thing, if the whole process would work... but I got it to work and the end result was near to perfect.

About the panels, I used a Joomla api and CSS classes that makes those panels to work and you can read my comment about this on a previous post, where a suggest the Admin to incorporate such options on Cook

About the tips to maintain compatibility... it was not an easy process either.. .because every time I generated a new version, I had to add the new features manually on the code, as Admin said before...

Thanks to griiettner i can develop some very clean components for Joomla!
I was introduced to J-cook by him.

Today im developing a component for manage school. For now, the project is 6 tables and some FK's...
At the end will be around 10 tables and some tables with 100k records. Would be very painful to do the SQL scripts, the enrity MVC architeture and other stuffs withou J-cook.

For sure, j-cook will not fullfil everything, as griiettner said;

if you want a very basic component, you will not need a programmer, but for complex extensions... than.. for sure... a good Joomla programmer is required, because it is structured in MVC and it has lots of api's and you have to know what they for and how to play wit than...

An example is search box for text. But im very pleased and satisfied with this way of build component.

Hey Vallory...

Did you finish your component already?