Magento Emails leverages Zend Framework

One of the most important functions of a Magento based store is to send and receive invoices, shipping and order conformations to its customers. Magento email is built on the Zend Framework and it uses the Zend_Mail class to send and receive mail. Knowing how Magento email works is invaluable when troubleshooting your store’s email issues.

Zend Framework is an object oriented toolkit based on PHP (hypertext preprocessor). PHP is one of the first open source scripting languages designed for web development in HTML. Utilizing PHP tools Zend Framework makes it easier for developers to create dynamic websites with minimum coding.

Zend Framework uses the MVC (Model View Controller) paradigm which allows for easy website development while protecting the intellectual properties of its users. It institutes the MVC software architecture pattern which allows for easier programing. The “model” in Model View Controller is the logic and functions of the program whereas the “view” is the output such as diagrams, charts, and pictures. The “controller” connects everything together by mediating input and converts the commands for both the model and view.

Zend_Mail is a Zend Framework component that provides generalized functionality to compose and send text and MIME-compliant multipart emails. Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an email extension that allows emails to support text in character sets other than ASCII, non-test attachments, message bodies with multiple parts, and header information in non-ASCII character sets. The advantage of a Zend_Mail component for Magento email is that it allows companies to easily keep track of invoices and order conformations in one central location for easy reference and analysis.