Magento 2 Frontend Overview

🎨 Magento 2 Frontend Overview – Layouts, Blocks, Templates Explained

The Magento 2 frontend is a powerful and flexible system that displays the storefront your customers interact with. It is built using a layered architecture of layouts, blocks, and PHTML templates.

🏗️ Core Components of Magento Frontend

Let’s break down the 3 main parts of Magento 2’s frontend structure:

• Layouts (XML) – Define the structure of the page (what blocks appear where).
• Blocks (PHP) – Provide data and logic to templates.
• Templates (PHTML) – Contain the actual HTML output for the page.

🧩 How They Work Together

When a user visits a page:

1. The layout XML decides what blocks to render.
2. The block class prepares data.
3. The PHTML template renders the final HTML.

📂 Directory Structure

In your custom theme or module, the files typically reside in:

• view/frontend/layout/ – Layout XML files
• view/frontend/templates/ – PHTML template files
• Block/ – PHP classes that provide logic for templates

🔧 Example: Custom Block & Template

Let’s create a simple block that renders a welcome message on the frontend.

// File: Block/Hello.php
namespace Vendor\Module\Block;

class Hello extends \Magento\Framework\View\Element\Template
{
    public function getWelcomeMessage()
    {
        return "Welcome to our Magento Store!";
    }
}

// File: view/frontend/templates/hello.phtml
getWelcomeMessage(); ?>

📌 Summary

• Layouts define structure, blocks handle logic, and templates output HTML
• All three work together to build the visual storefront
• You can override and customize any part in your theme or module

Understanding Magento’s frontend layers is the key to crafting stunning and customized online stores. Go ahead and try building your own block!