writing-extensions.pod

Introduction

RT has a lot of core features, but sometimes you have a problem to solve that's beyond the scope of just configuration. The standard way to add features to RT is with an extension. You can see the large number of freely available extensions on CPAN under the RT::Extension namespace to get an idea what's already out there. We also list some of the more useful extensions on the Best Practical website at http://www.bestpractical.com/rt/extensions.html

After looking through those, you still may not find what you need, so you'll want to write your own extension. Through the years there have been different ways to safely and effectively add things onto RT. This document describes the current best practice which should allow you to add what you need and still be able to safely upgrade RT in the future.

Getting Started

There are a few modules that will set up your initial sandbox for you to get you started. Install these modules from CPAN:

Module::Install::RTx

Sets up your extension to be installed using Module::Install.

Dist::Zilla::MintingProfile::RTx

Provides some tools for managing your distribution. Handy even if you're not putting your code on CPAN.

If this is your first time using Dist::Zilla, you can set up your CPAN detals by running:

# dzil setup

You can read about Dist::Zilla and the dzil command at http://dzil.org.

Change to the directory that will be the parent directory for your new extension and run the following, replacing Demo with a descriptive name for your new extension:

# dzil new -P RTx RT-Extension-Demo

You'll see something like:

[DZ] making target dir /some-dir/RT-Extension-Demo
[DZ] writing files to /some-dir/RT-Extension-Demo
[DZ] dist minted in ./RT-Extension-Demo

If you're stuck on a name, take a look at some of the existing RT extensions. You can also ask around the office or on IRC to see what people thinks makes sense for what the extension will do.

You'll now have a directory with the basic files for your extension. Included is a gitignore file which is handy if you use git for your version control like we do. If you don't use git, feel free to delete it, but we hope you're using some sort of version control for your work.

Extension Directories

There are several places to put code to provide your new features and if you follow the guidelines below, you'll make sure things get installed in the right places when you're ready to use it.

Module Code

In your new extension directory you'll already have a lib/RT/Extension/Demo.pm file, which is just a standard perl module. As you start writing code, you can use all of the standard RT libraries because your extension will be running in the context of RT and those are already pulled in. You can also create more modules under lib as needed.

Mason Code

RT provides callbacks throughout its Mason templates to give you hooks to add features. The easiest way to modify RT is to add Mason template files that will use these callbacks. See "Callbacks" for more information. Your Mason templates should go in an html directory with the appropriate directory structure to make sure the callbacks are executed.

Creating Objects in RT

If you need to have users create a group, scrip, template, or some other object in their RT instance, you can automate this using an initialdata file. If you need this, the file should go in the etc directory. See also "initialdata" in docs.

Module::Install Files

As mentioned above, the RT extension tools are set up to use Module::Install to manage the distribution. When you run

# perl Makefile.PL

for the first time, Module::Install will create an inc directory for all of the files it needs. Since you are the author, you should create a .author directory (note the . in the directory name) in the inc directory. When Module::Install detects this directory, it does things only the author needs, like pulling in modules to put in the inc directory. Once you have this set up, Module::Install should mostly do the right thing, but you can read more about it in the module documentation.

Tests

You can create tests for your new extension just as with other perl code you write. However, unlike typical CPAN modules where users run the tests as a step in the installation process, RT users installing extensions don't usually run tests. This is because running the tests requires your RT to be set up in development mode which involves installing some additional modules and having a dev instance. To prevent users from accidentally running the tests, we put them in a xt directory rather than the typical t directory.

Patches

If you need to provide patches to RT for any reason, you can put them in a patches directory. See "Changes to RT" for more information.

Callbacks

The RT codebase, mostly the Mason templates, contains hooks called callbacks that make it easy to add functionality without changing the RT code itself. RT invokes callbacks by looking in the source directories for files that might have extra code.

Directory Structure

RT looks in the following path for callbacks:

rt_base/local/html/Callbacks/[custom_name]/[rt mason path]/[callback name]

The extension installation process will handle some of this for you by putting your html directory under local as part of the installation process. You need to make sure the path under html is correct since that is installed as-is.

The Callbacks directory is required. The next directory can be named anything and is provided to allow RT owners to keep local files organized in a way that makes sense to them. In the case of an extension, you should name the directory the same as your extension. So if your extension is RT::Extension::Demo, you should create a RT-Extension-Demo directory under Callbacks.

The rest of the path is determined by the RT Mason code and the callback you want to use. You can find callbacks by looking for calls to the callback method in the RT Mason code. You can use something like this in your base RT directory:

# find share/html/ | xargs grep '\->callback'

As an example, assume you wanted to modify the ticket update page to put something after the Time Worked field. You run the above and see there is a callback in share/html/Ticket/Update.html that looks like this:

$m->callback( %ARGS, CallbackName => 'AfterWorked', Ticket => $TicketObj );

You look at the Update.html file and see that the callback is located right after the Time Worked field. To add some code that RT will run at that point, you would create the directory:

html/Callbacks/RT-Extension-Demo/Ticket/Update.html/

Note that Update.html is a file in the RT source, but it becomes a directory in your extension code. You then create a file with the name of the callback, in this case AfterWorked, and that's where you put your code. So the full path and file would be:

html/Callbacks/RT-Extension-Demo/Ticket/Update.html/AfterWorked

If you see a callback that doesn't have a CallbackName parameter, name your file Default and it will get invoked since that is the default callback name when one isn't provided.

Callback Parameters

When you look at callbacks using the method above, the other important thing to consider is the parameter list. In addition to the CallbackName, the other parameters listed in the callback will be passed to you to use as you develop your extension.

Getting these parameters is important because you'll likely need them in your code, getting data from the current ticket object, for example. These values are also often passed by reference, which allows you to modify them, potentially changing the behavior of the RT template when it continues executing after evaluating your code.

Some examples are adding a Limit call to modify search results on a DBIx::SearchBuilder object, or setting a flag like $skip_update for a callback like this:

$m->callback( CallbackName => 'BeforeUpdate', ARGSRef => \%ARGS, skip_update => \$skip_update,
          checks_failure => $checks_failure, results => \@results, TicketObj => $TicketObj );

There are many different callbacks in RT and these are just a few examples to give you idea what you can do in your callback code. You can also look at other extensions for examples of how people use callbacks to modify and extend RT.

Changes to RT

When writing an extension, the goal is to provide all of the new functionality in your extension code using standard interfaces into RT. However, sometimes when you're working on an extension, you'll find you really need a change in RT itself to make your extension work. Often this is something like adding a new callback or a method to a core module that would be helpful for everyone.

Since any change to RT will only be included in the next version and forward, you'll need to provide something for users on current or older versions of RT. An easy way to do this is to provide a patch in your extension distribution. In general, you should only provide patches if you know they will eventually be merged into RT. Otherwise, you may have to provide versions of your patches for each release of RT. You can read more about getting changes accepted into RT in the "hacking" in docs document.

Create a patches directory in your extension distribution to hold your patch files. Name the patch files with the latest verison of RT that needs the patch. For example, if the patch is needed for RT 4.0.7, name your patch 4.0.7-some-patch.diff. That tells users that if they are using RT 4.0.7 or earlier, they need to apply the patch. If your extension can be used for RT 3.8, you'll likely need to provide different patches using the same naming convention.

Also remember to update your install documentation to remind users to apply the patch.