Pinnacle Cart Knowledge Base

The DEVMODE constant/flag is used in a couple areas of the cart. Currently, it is used to determine if the cache folder should be recompiled, meaning, the contents inside the following paths are combined:
 
/content/engine/design/
/content/skins/<currentskin>/
/content/skins/_custom
 
To see the difference this mode makes, perform the following test cases in this order:
 
DEVMODE flag set to FALSE
 
1. Ensure that the engine_config.php has the following line:
 
define('DEVMODE', false);
 
2. View the homepage of the cart and notice the background color.
 
3. Using the filemanager in the cart or an FTP program, change the default.css file in the content/skins/<current skin>/themes/ folder by adding the following css:
 
body { background-image: none; background-color: red; }
 
Note: Change the background-color to another value if you already have red as the background-color property value of the body tag.
 
4. View the homepage of the cart. Notice that the background-color has not changed. (The cache folder has not been recompiled from the latest contents of the folders mentioned above.)
 
 
 
DEVMODE flag set to TRUE
 
1. Ensure that the engine_config.php has the following line:
 
define('DEVMODE', true);
 
2. View the homepage of the cart and notice the background color. (If you performed the test case above, the color should now be red).
 
3. Using the filemanager in the cart or an FTP program, change the default.css file in the content/skins/<current skin>/themes/ folder by adding the following css:
 
body { background-image: none; background-color: green; }
 
Note: Change the background-color to another value if you already have green as the background-color property value of the body tag.
 
4. View the homepage of the cart. Notice that the background-color has changed as expected. (The cache folder has been recompiled from the latest contents of the folders mentioned above.)
 
 
This is true for all files that exist in the skin folders. There is one small exception. The custom.css file gets compiled as well, so any edits made to this file will always be lost once the cache has been recompiled.  It is safer to make changes in skin.css or default.css.
 
 
DEVMODE is also used to show more information when an SQL query may encounter a problem or cannot be executed. The developer should be able to see these messages, as well as end users if this mode is activated. That is why this flag should be turned off by default and used under a development environment.