How to: Creating your own custom block in Magento
This is a quick 6 step tutorial on how to create a custom block in Magento.
Step 1: Global Module Configuration
Create your custom block configuration xml file inside the app/etc/modules/ directory. I named mine Gravitywell_All.xml.
Step 2: Directories
Create the correct directories for your module:
app/code/local/Gravitywell
app/code/local/Gravitywell/Example
app/code/local/Gravitywell/Example/Block
app/code/local/Gravitywell/Example/etc
Step 3: Module Configuration
Add your module configuration file. This should be named config.xml and placed inside app/code/local/Gravitywell/Example/etc.
Step 4: Create the Block Class
Now you can create your block class. In this example we'll called the block simply Menu.php and place it inside app/code/local/Gravitywell/Example/Block.
class Gravitywell_Example_Block_Menu extends Mage_Core_Block_Template
{
}
Step 5: Create the view script
Create a view script template file to use for your block. I'm simply going to place this as a file called menu.phtml inside the folder app/design/frontend/gravitywell/example/template/gravitywell.