Where should additional files be put when writing my own magento extension? - structure

Question

I'm writing my magento extension and came up with a question. The main extension files/directory structure is quite clear. We have dirs for extension configuration files, models, helpers, database resources, frontend and backend scripts and stylesheets etc.
But what if my extension uses some files that aren't classes or resources to be included to frontend or backend?
For instance: image files that will only be attached to emails and will never be retrieved by a browser directly.
Should/could I just create a directory /app/code/community/MyNamespace/MyExtensionName/images?
The same dir tree for better readability:
app
code
community
MyNamespace
MyExtensionName
images
Or is there any other correct/recommended way to achieve that?

Answer 1

There's never been clear guidance on how to do this from Magento Inc. itself, and Magento's module structure doesn't offer clear guidance. The approach I've always taken is
Pretend I'm on the Magento core team
Pretend my fellow team members are sociopaths who don't care if anything I've done breaks
If you're adding frontend files for public consumption (to js, skin, etc), I always create a folder that's a lowercase version of my full module name, and drop all files in there
/js/namespace_modulename/file.js
In the case of files that aren't going to be served publicly (i.e. you only need access to them via PHP), creating a folder in the root of your module (as you've done above) is appropriate. I'd suggest something like
app
code
community
MyNamespace
MyExtensionName
assets
images
You never know when there'll be something else you want to add, and having everything under one folder will help keep the module structure clean.
There's even sort of a precedent for this in Magento's core code. Take a look at the
app/code/core/Mage/Sales/doc
folder.

Answer 2

Create a folder into media directory and place your files/images into that folder
media
MyExtensionName
images
And access them like
echo Mage::getBaseUrl(Mage_Core_Model_Store::URL_TYPE_MEDIA).'/MyExtensionName/images/pic.jpg';