Introduction

Modules together form the Magento2 platform. The whole Magento 2 system is built with different unique Magento system core modules and that’s the reason it is called as modular system.

This means all functionalities or business logic is designed and developed as modules. Every module can work pretty much as a standalone unit or with minimum dependencies with other modules.

Apart from default functionalities provided by the Magento 2, magento site owners and users require some of the custom functionalities to meet their business needs. Or sometimes it needs to override the default Magento functions as per the business requirements.

So in these cases, Magento developer needs to build up the module (called as custom module) and implement the logic based on the business/online store’s requirement.

Since Magento is an open source ecommerce platform, we can add/install our developed custom module on it.

Now, in order to create a Magento 2 Module, you need to first install Magento 2 either locally or on a development server, that you can add new files to. The version of Magento that you use doesn’t really matter, because we will be covering fundamental aspects that exist across all versions and editions: Community, Professional and Enterprise.

Here’s an easy-to-follow tutorial on How to Install Magento 2 on Windows  or Install Magento2 on Linux/Ubuntu in case if you’ve not yet installed Magento 2.

The building of complete module is divided into 4 parts:

• • PART 1 – This is the first part of the article
  • PART 2 – Create Custom Module URL and Display Content in Magento2
  • PART 3 – How to Create and Insert Data in Custom Database Table in Magento 2?
  • PART 4 – Display Data From Database On Frontend in Magento2

Let’s discuss the first part here…

So are you ready to create our first Magento2 module !!!!

We are going to implement this in following steps:

• Step 1: Create Magento 2 Module Structure
• Step 2: Declaration of Module
• Step 3: Registration of Module
• Step 4: Activate the Module
• Step 5: Add functionality – Display module link in the footer
• Step 6: Enable/Disable Module depending on the admin setting`

Let’s start creating module by following below steps:-

Step 1: Create Magento 2 Module Structure

There are two locations where a module can be located in a Magento 2 application.

The first location is an app/code directory. This directory is used to add all custom and 3rd-party Magento 2 modules. This location is usually used by development agencies, internal or in-house developers in order to simplify a development process.

The second location is a vendor directory. All the Magento 2 core modules are located under vendor/magento. Example –

The above is a standard module folder structure. This is the folder structure of the Magento catalog module.

1. Create the following folders in the magento project root directory (ex. – C:\xampp\htdocs\magento2):

• app/code/Thecoachsmb
• app/code/Thecoachsmb/Mymodule

The Thecoachsmb folder is the module’s VendorName, and Mymodule is the ModuleName.

Note: If you don’t have the code folder in your app directory, create it manually.

Now, create app/code/Thecoachsmb/Mymodule/composer.json:

Contents would be:

{}

This file will be loaded by Composer every-time you run it even though we are not actually using Composer with our module.

Step 2: Declaration of Module

It is necessary to create etc folder and add the module.xml file in it

  app/code/Thecoachsmb/Mymodule/etc/module.xml

Contents would be:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:Module/etc/module.xsd">
<module name="Thecoachsmb_Mymodule" > 
     <sequence> 
         <module name="Magento_Directory"/> 
         <module name="Magento_Config"/> 
     </sequence>
 </module> 
</config>

<?php
\Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::register(
	\Magento\Framework\Component\ComponentRegistrar::MODULE,
	'Thecoachsmb_Mymodule',
	__DIR__
);

php bin/magento module:status

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<page xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:framework:View/Layout/etc/page_configuration.xsd">
    <body>
       <referenceBlock name="footer_links">
            <block class="Magento\Framework\View\Element\Html\Link\Current" name="mymodule-link">
            <arguments>
                 <argument name="label" xsi:type="string" translate="true">My Module</argument>
                 <argument name="path" xsi:type="string">mymodule</argument>
            </arguments>
        </block>
      </referenceBlock>
    </body>
</page>

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:module:Magento_Config:etc/system_file.xsd">
     <system>
        <tab id="thecoachsmb" translate="label" sortOrder="200">
           <label>Thecoachsmb</label>
        </tab>
        <section id="thecoachsmb" translate="label" sortOrder="150" showInDefault="1" showInWebsite="1" showInStore="1">
           <class>separator-top</class>
           <label>Mymodule</label>
           <tab>thecoachsmb</tab>
           <resource>Thecoachsmb_Mymodule::configuration</resource>
           <group id="general" translate="label" type="text" sortOrder="10" showInDefault="1" showInWebsite="0" showInStore="0">
                <label>General Configuration</label>
                <field id="enable" translate="label" type="select" sortOrder="1" showInDefault="1" showInWebsite="0" showInStore="0">
                     <label>Enable Module</label>
                     <source_model>Magento\Config\Model\Config\Source\Yesno</source_model>
                </field>
          </group>
       </section>
     </system>
</config>

<block class="Magento\Framework\View\Element\Html\Link\Current" ifconfig="thecoachsmb/general/enable" name="mymodule-link"> 

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="urn:magento:module:Magento_Store:etc/config.xsd">
     <default>
        <thecoachsmb>
           <general>
                <enable>1</enable>
           </general>
         </thecoachsmb>
     </default>
</config>

php bin/magento c:f

<default>
    <section_id>
        <group_id>
            <field_id>{value}</field_id>
        </group_id>
    </section_id>
</default>