Learn Yii Framework

After evaluating some PHP frameworks, I've picked Yii because it seems to have the best ratio between cost/benefit. It's quite complete, easy to learn, performs fast and even has some similarities with Django, my favorite web framework.

Here's my Yii learning process:

• Start with Larry Ullman Learning the Yii framework tutorial.
• Read the Larry Ullman Working with layouts in Yii to learn how to change the GUI.
• Read the Configuring controller access rules to default-deny to learn how to control the user access.
• Read the Relational Active Record to learn about the model relations.
• Get Yii Bootstrap and read the documentation to get great widgets. 
• Get Yiiclipse, if you use Eclipse as an IDE.

If you'r new to Yii and are looking for a starting point, this one worked for me.

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Customize Layouts in Virtuemart 2

While looking how to to customize the cart view in Virtuemart 2.0, I've come across with this simple step-by-step explanation: What's new in VM2.0? Templates!
Fantastically easy! Just copy the component views files into your ./debugtemplate/html/com_virtuemart/<component> directory and code away.

For instance, to give your checkout page a different look, just copy components\com_virtuemart\views\cart\tmpl\default.php into ./debug<your template>/html/com_virtuemart/cart/default.php and hack it.

Actually this follows the MVC Joomla! extensions pattern, so one can apply this customization technique to any component.

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