I have wasted my lot of time while developing on magento. its only because i was not following some basic things needed before you start development on magento. In my opinion if you follow these 4 tips you should be okay!

1.) DISABLE CACHE : This is the first requirement before you start development on magento. I have seen many people struggling and wondering why their changes are not visible. I also read somewhere that on an average a new developer spends around 2 hours on magento platform wondering why his changes are not visible.

To disable cache

1. Go to System > Cache Management
2. Click on Select All(on left).
3. Select disable from Action dropdown(on right).
4. And Click on Submit.

2.) Enable Logging:

You might need this, as often which writing php code if you miss some braces or use a function which does not exist you will get error something like this:-

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This is one of my first article in the series of How to’s in magento. But before you actually start any development on magento you must follow these guidelines.

Step 1:  First create a magento module xml file

( app/etc/modules/Pw_Manageproducts.xml)

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<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
    <modules>
        <Pw_Manageproducts>
            <active>true</active>
            <codePool>local</codePool>
        </Pw_Manageproducts>
    </modules>
</config>

This xml tells magento that module is active and will be available in local codePool.

At this point, you should be able to see your module in Magento Admin Panel. Go to System->Configuration->Advanced->Disable Modules Output. You should be able to see Pw_Manageproducts module listed there.

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