I wanted to wait on saying something until the chapter was on its way to the tech editors, but it’s the end of the year and the chapter is close enough to being done that I can offer an update now. My wife and kids went away to visit friends for a couple of days, and I stayed home to work, spending the vast majority of my time on “The Yii Book“. Not only did I make pretty good progress on Chapter 19, but I got my Yii book mojo back (in terms of being in the flow and mindset), which is just as important.
Chapter 19, “Extending Yii,” is around 30 pages long it looks like. I start by covering the fundamental concepts, such as general guidelines, structuring extensions, and publishing assets (i.e., copying CSS, JavaScript, and other media from an extension directory to the assets directory). Then I walk through the various types of extensions, explaining the key components of each type: the class it’s based on, minimum requirements (e.g., mandatory methods), and how to make the extension configurable.
After that, there are a few more examples, both walking through existing extensions written by others and new examples for the book. The focus isn’t so much on the chapter outputting finished extensions as it is on explaining the thought and development process. I just now finished the widgets discussion, which I think turned out well. The last thing I need to do is finish up the module section.
The chapter ends with a quick coverage of deploying extensions.
So…I need to finish up the module discussion, take the images, proofread it one more time, and then it’s off to the technical editors. Once I get their feedback, I’ll finally (finally!) post an update. And I’m back on the horse, so to speak, which is a very good thing.
Happy holidays and best wishes to you and yours!
