[[toc]]
by Torben Dannhauer
The process of populating the new module with content/functionality is fairly straight forward and after learning how the Horde API' s work, you should be able to produce new modules in a minimum amount of time.
Jan Schneider talked about this at FOSDEM 2005. You can find his slides at http://www.horde.org/papers/fosdem2005/.
The new module's functionality could by separated in the following aspects:
Menus
Calling-procedure at entering the application
Permissions
All Content-Pages which are accessible through on oh the menus
Services offered to external modules
Usually it is useful to analyse another hordemodule to learn how this work. I analysed Kronolith and it helped me a lot.
Obviously it is necessary to know the provided horde API zu write a horde module. Because a beginner (and this tutorial is adressed to them) has no clue about it, it is very usefull to read the package-documentation at http://dev.horde.org/api/framework/.
In Horde there are two standard menus: The top menu an the side menu.
ToDo: Add links to Wikipages describing menus in detail.
++ Top Menu
The top menu is devided in to 4 sections:
left: menuitems provided by this module: see below
mid left: menuitems added manually: see below
mid right: menuitems added in the administrator's module setup
right: menuitems provided by horde as default
+++ left
the menuitmes this module intentionally provide are located in the file
Add Items like this:
$menu->add(Horde::applicationUrl('pagetoshow.php'), _("MenuItemName"), 'icon.png', $registry->getImageDir() );
+++ mid left
Items are added in
$_menu[] = array(
'url' => 'http://www.example.com/',
'text' => 'Example, Inc.',
'icon' => 'example.png',
'icon_path' => 'http://www.example.com/images/',
'target' => '_blank',
'onclick' => ''
);
++ Side Menu
If a module is entered via the side-menu, usualy the url to the module-folder was provided. The link ist http://
Procedure:
Executing index.php: initialzing, load configfiles and load the page which should be displayed at the beginning (e.g. in Skeleton: list.php).
list.php calls >module>/lib/base.php to initialize the module and then proceeds with its content.
now lists.php is displayed. By Clicking on any menuitem another contentpage as list.php (but of course also list.php again) could be displayed (->executed).
The module's permissiontree which includes the logical structure of all permissions available in this module is defined in
Further information about permissions is available at http://wiki.horde.org/Doc/Dev/PermsPackage
The easiest way to learn writing a backend-Driver for managing the data your first module works with is to extend the Skeletons SQL-Driver.
mymodule_table which is needed
go to your horde configuration, configurate your module to get your conf.php written with your new configs.
...to proceed
The basic procedure to create Content-Pages is:
create .inc files that display the elements on the screen
create any php files needed to fill in forms
It is a good point to start a contentpage by copying the Skeleton's list.php
All viewable pages ar located in the module's root-folder. All businesslogic (classes etc,) are located in separate files in
++ Layout
Creating the Page-Layout consists of two main tasks:
Creating forms for data manipulation
and - if the page is complex enought (nearly every page is it) you can store the html-content in templates.
If a submenu on the content page ist needed (like in turba), it can be generated via
+++ Templates
To move your businesslogic-variabes to a html-layout, the Horde_Templates-Package is usefull. You can include templates with code tags, and Horde will replace these tags with your variable content, if the tags and the variables are associated via template->setVariable(...);. For further information read about this package use wiki.horde.org : /Doc/Dev/TemplatePackage
+++ Horde_Forms
// Prepare Variables
$title = 'myFormtitle';
$vars = Variables::getDefaultVariables();
// Prepare Form
$form = &new Horde_Form($vars, $title, 'accountstatement_Form');
$renderer = new Horde_Form_Renderer();
// Add form fields & Variables.
$form->addHidden('', 'example_hidden', 'int', false);
$form->addVariable(_("Title"), 'title', 'text', false);
// ---------------------- Render Form ------------
// Writes the HTML <form....> opening tag.
$form->open( $renderer, $vars, 'accountstatement.php', 'post');
// Titelzeile rendern
$renderer->beginActive($title);
/* writes the via addVariable(...) and addHidden(...) added inputtypes.
Available types are: http://wiki.horde.org/Doc/Dev/FormTypes?referrer=Doc%2FDev%2FFormPackage# */
$renderer->renderFormActive($form, $vars);
// writes the "submit" input button
$renderer->submit();
// writes the HTML tag
$form->close($renderer);
// stop renderer
$renderer->end();
If you want to manipulate form variables in javascript, you must set any value to that variable, otherwise it is not initialized correctly. If you plan to use a form for hidden values only, you will see a thin line in HTML. To prevent that, you can add a variable with type 'spacer'. This type has no visible content and the thin line caused by the "only hidden values" disappears.
To read or write the form variables user $vars->set( $variablename, $value); and $myVar = $vars->get( $variablename, $defaultvalue_if_not_available ); .
++ Scripts
If any scripts are needed for layout like striped.js für alternating rowcolors, add these scripts via Horde::addScriptFile('<script.js', 'ownerapplication_where_to_search: e.g. horde', true ). True means that the script should be included with a relativ path.
Services
Misc