Magento Community VS. Magento Enterprise Coding-wise

Question

I have developed an extension to Magento Community edition. I would like to test it on the Enterprise edition. How can I do that? Do you think there will be changes between those versions code-wise?

Thanks

Answer 1

I use EE daily. All the differences I can detect are in the form of extra modules in "app/code/core/Enterprise", class names start with "Enterprise" instead of "Mage", some are encoded with ionCube. There is an "enterprise" theme too but it is very similar to "modern". The rest of Magento is the same as the Community Edition so your extension will likely work on both equally.

However you cannot claim compatibility without testing it, that would be irresponsible. It is possible you have overridden something which is then later re-overridden by the other edition. You probably don't want to buy a years licence just for that so you'll have to ask for volunteers, the best places are Magento's forum and chat. Failing that you could advertise on one of the many freelance programmer sites for someone who is in a position to help, that will be cheaper than a whole copy of EE.

Lastly there is the issue of registering on Magento Connect. So far only aheadWorks have the privilege of appearing in the "Enterprise Ed." section. (The "Professional Ed." section isn't even active yet.) You may not get a chance to list your extension there although you can always explain the salient parts on your own website.

Answer 2

Magento Enterprise edition differs from Community edition by following items:

1) There are additional modules, that complement Mage modules. They all have Enterprise namespace (Enterprise_ prefix instead of Mage_ prefix). Enterprise modules either add some new functionality, or modifiy behaviour of Mage modules.

2) Enterprise has its own design scheme. About 30% of templates are overriden, others fall back to base/default theme

3) Enterprise has different license

So, reviewing mentioned above, you cannot guarantee stable work of your CE extension without testing it on EE. It's very probable that your module will fork fine, but I'd estimate a 10% probability that your extension requires some fixes to work normally with EE.

Strictly speaking, you can test your extension only having your own Magento EE ($10 000+).

However there's the other way. Magento EE license allows the buyer to give access to his Magento EE version to people, that are developing some functionality for buyer's Magento. So you can sell your extension to someone having Magento EE, notifying him, that it was not tested on EE and you need to do it. Your client will give you access to his Magento EE and you'll be able to test and debug the extension. That conforms Magento EE license, because you'll be a hired developer for Magento EE owner and you'll be developing extension for his Magento EE.

Of course you should notice that your account at Magento Connect must have special access to posting EE-extensions - usual account can not do this. You need to ask Magento support how to get such privilege.

From my own opinion I recommend do not bother with EE functionality, as it's not easy to perform whole process of testing and posting it as EE extension. CE market is wider (although not so money-full), so you can sell it here.