Navigation

Building extensions
  - Introduction
  - Life cycle & Execution mode
  - Content Page Extension
  - Examples
  - Interact with extensions
  - Interact with SMMenu
  - Interact with SMPages
  - Debugging

Building design templates
  - Introduction
  - Place holders
  - Repeating blocks
  - Examples

Framework API
  - Introduction
  - Simple data attributes
  - Authentication
  - Configuration manager
  - Data Sources (DB)
  - Environment data
  - Extension base class
  - The extension context
  - The extension manager
  - Filesystem functions
  - The Form component
  - Image provider
  - Key Value Collections
  - Language handling
  - Logging and error handling
  - GUIDs & Random numbers
  - Various utilities
  - Send and receive data
  - Template engine
  - Text files
  - Strongly typed

GUI Controls
  - Introduction
  - Input types
  - Option list
  - Link button
  - Tree menu
  - Grid view
  - Fieldset (sub form)
  - JavaScript library

Receiving payments
  - Introduction
  - PayPal and Ewire

More help
  - Forum

The extension context

Extensions receive an instance of the SMContext class from the controller, which executes all the extensions. The object is passed using the contructor defined on the SMExtension base class, from which all extension inherits. The table below describes the functionality, and information accessible, in greater details.

SMContext class

Function	Return type	Description
__construct($extensionName:string, $template:SMTemplate, $form:SMForm, $execMode:SMExecutionMode, $templateType:SMTemplateType)		Constructor used to create new instance of the context class. This is only used by the controller, when create instances of each extension.
GetExtensionName()	String	Returns the name of the extension (name of folder in which the extension is installed).
GetTemplate()	SMTemplate	Returns reference to the template being populated with information.
GetForm()	SMForm	Returns reference to the form component which is used to ie change enctype, allowing file upload to take place. In most cases the form component should not be changed.
GetExecutionMode()	SMExecutionMode	Returns execution mode (Shared or Dedicated).
GetTemplateType()	SMTemplateType	Returns the type of the template (SMTemplateType::$Normal or SMTemplateType::$Basic). Normal is returned when the index.html file is used as the template, Basic is returned when the basic.html file is used a the template (usually for pop-up windows).