Page History

A module can perform a task, package content, or provide specialized functionality. Modules can be project specific or they can be reused across different projects. You should use the module mechanism to package and deploy your own site's configuration and functionality.

...

In Magnolia documentation, the terms terms module and  and project module always always refer to a Magnolia module.

What makes a Magnolia module are files specific to Magnolia in a particular folder, see Module structure below.  You You can add such a Magnolia module folder directly into the webapp of your Magnolia instance. 

...

Maven also uses the term module but it means something different.  When When a Maven module is meant, we write write Maven module.  You You can make the Magnolia module folder part of a Maven module. In that case you would build a JAR file and deploy it to your webapp.

...

You don't need to know Java or Maven to create a perfectly valid Magnolia module. Put your project files into files into a file-system directory to create a so-called light module. Use YAML-based configuration based configuration and Magnolia's s unified resource loading.

This enables light development, a development style which does not require Java skills or a Java development environment. It's a straightforward way to get started with Magnolia development and works well for front-end developers. The The Hello Magnolia tutorial uses the light development to create a fully-functional template module.

Module structure

...

Module structure

Folders:

<module-name>	The root folder of the module; the folder name is the name of the module.  For For the name of the module use only the characters from the [a-zA-Z0-9-_] regex range.
apps	Configuration data for apps (YAML files) A Magnolia module can contain 0 to many apps.
dialogs	Dialogs (YAML files), may have subfolders
i18n	Magnolia 5.4.6+. A bundle of localization (*.properties) files
resources	All the resources, typically contains subfolders
templates	Template definitions (YAML files) and scripts with subfolders
themes	Theme definitions (YAML files), may have subfolders.
module.yaml	Magnolia 5.4.7+. Light module module descriptor.

Read Module structure for further imformation.

Using Maven and adding and adding Java classes? Possible but not required

...

There is no requirement to use Java classes within a Magnolia module. But it is possible and offers many advantages.  If If you want to use Java classes, we recommend that you wrap your Magnolia module into a Maven module and add the classes to src/main/java.

...

If you are using Java and having a Module class, the module class can have bean properties which can be loaded at module startup with values from configuration data. 

Module descriptor

Maven-based Magnolia modules should provide a module descriptor.

A module descriptor is a Magnolia-specific XML file that identifies and defines the module.  When When you start Magnolia, the system identifies available modules by locating each module's descriptor s descriptor file.

The module descriptor file is located at src/main/resources/META-INF/magnolia/<module-name>.xml. This said, currently a module can only have a module descriptor when it is a Magnolia Maven module.

For further details please read XML-based module descriptor and YAML-based module descriptor.

...

Credits:

• Pixel Buddha: Box icon in modular architecture diagram.   Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)