I expect you understand MVC principle.
Joomla 1.5 developers eagerly praise MVC and there are uncounted articles written on Joomla MVC. And each one of them uses different approach. Joomla MVC framework should standardise arhitecture but unfortunately even core Joomla doesn't follow the same directory order. I don't know why this is but it is confusing and frustrating. It would be nice if all components followed simple rules and structure.

I read few articles, Joomla developer section and books. As far as I learned the proper way to organizes models, views and controllers in a component should be as follows:

administrator/components
- com_examplecomponent						root of our component should be prefixed with com_
	- controllers					folder where all controllers should be located
		- index.html - controller1.php - controller2.php				controllers and empty index.html (for security only)
	- models					folder where all models should be located
		- index.html - model1.php				models and empty index.html (for security only)
	- views					views folder
		- examplecomponent				for each view separate folder should be created default view is named the same as component
			- tmpl			folder that holds layouts (HTML templates) to render the view
				- index.html
				- default.php
			- index.html
			- view.html.php			view class stored in a file named view.documentType.php document types: feed, html, raw, pdf ...
	- admin.examplecomponent.php					PHP file named after the component and prefixed with admin this is the first file to be called when our component is accessed
	- index.html

administration base file code example

admin.examplecomponent.php is a first accessed file and can be looked at as controller of controllers.

<?php
    defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
  
    //get controller
    $c = strtolower( JRequest::getCmd('c', 'defaultcontroller'));
  
    //get the controller
    require_once(JPATH_COMPONENT.DS.'controllers'.DS.$c.'.php');
 
    $controllerName = ExamplecomponentController.ucfirst($c);
    $controller = new $controllerName();
    $controller->execute('display');
    $controller->redirect();

?>

controller code example (how a view is linked inside controller)

<?php
   
defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
jimport('joomla.application.component.controller');

class ExamplecomponentControllerController1 extends JController
{
	function display()
	{		
		$document =& JFactory::getDocument();
		$view = &$this->getView('product', $document->getType());
		$view->setLayout('default');
		$view->display();
	}
}

?>

Joomla component - view code example (view.html.php)

<?php

defined( '_JEXEC' ) or die( 'Restricted access' );
jimport( 'joomla.application.component.view');

class SimpleorderformViewProduct extends JView
{
    function display($tpl = null)
    {
        $greeting = "Hello World!";
        $this->assignRef( 'greet', $greeting );
        parent::display($tpl);
    }
}
?>

Joomla component - view code example (view.html.php)

<!-- some html stuff -->
<div>
    something here :))) 
    <?
        // echo a variable set in a view
        echo $this->greet;
    ?>
</div>

January 22, 2010     

This is very clear and informative

This is very clear and informative, but isn't there supposed to be a section for Front-end MVC?
David | 81.246.10.34

March 06, 2010     

Small mistake in file name

Your second Joomla component - view code example (view.html.php) on your mvc-structure cheat sheet should be: in tmpl/default.php. Otherwise, thank you for the clarity of your page.
Jack | 75.182.24.12