OTRS 6 - Developer Manual
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OTRS 6 - Developer Manual

Copyright © 2003-2016 OTRS AG

This work is copyrighted by OTRS AG.

You may copy it in whole or in part as long as the copies retain this copyright statement.

All trade names are used without the guarantee for their free use and are possibly registered trade marks. All products mentioned in this manual may be trade marks of the respective manufacturer.

The source code of this document can be found at github, in the repository doc-developer. Contributions are more than welcome. You can also help translating it to your language at Transifex.

Table of Contents

1. Getting Started

Development Environment

Framework checkout
Useful Tools
Linking Expansion Modules

Architecture Overview

Directories
Files
Core Modules
Frontend Handle
Frontend Modules
CMD Frontend
Generic Interface Modules
Scheduler Task Handler Modules
Database

2. OTRS Internals - How it Works

Config Mechanism

Defaults.pm: OTRS Default Configuration
Automatically Generated Configuration Files
XML Configuration Files
Accessing Config Options at Runtime

Database Mechanism

How it works
Database Drivers
Supported Databases

Log Mechanism

System Log
Communication Log

Date and Time

Introduction
Creation of a DateTime object
Time zones
Method summary
Deprecated package Kernel::System::Time

Skin Basics
How skins are loaded
Creating a New Skin

The CSS and JavaScript "Loader"

How it works
Basic Operation
Configuring the Loader: JavaScript
Configuring the Loader: CSS

Templating Mechanism

Template Commands
Using a template file

Creating Your Own Themes

Localization / Translation Mechanism

Marking translatable strings in the source files
Collecting translatable strings into the translation database
The translation process itself
Using the translated data from the code

3. How to Extend OTRS

Writing a new OTRS frontend module

What we want to write
Default Config File
Frontend Module
Core Module
Template File
Language File
Summary

Using the power of the OTRS module layers

Authentication and user management
Preferences
Other core functions
Frontend Modules
Generic Interface Modules
Daemon And Scheduler
Dynamic Fields
Email Handling

4. How to Publish Your OTRS Extensions

Package Management

Package Distribution
Package Commands

Package Building

Package Spec File
Example .sopm
Package Build
Package Life Cycle - Install/Upgrade/Uninstall

Package Porting

From OTRS 5 to 6
From OTRS 4 to 5
From OTRS 3.3 to 4

5. Contributing to OTRS

Sending Contributions

Translating OTRS

Updating an existing translation
Adding a new frontend translation

Translating the Documentation

Code Style Guide

Perl
JavaScript
HTML
CSS

User Interface Design

Capitalization

Accessibility Guide

Accessibility Basics
Accessibility Standards
Implementation guidelines

Creating a test file
Prerequisites for testing
Testing
Unit Test API

A. Additional Resources

List of Figures

1.1. OTRS Architecture
1.2. Generic Interface Architecture
3.1. Dashboard Widget
3.2. Dynamic Fields Architecture
3.3. Dynamic Field Interaction
3.4. Email Processing Flow
4.1. Package Life Cycle

List of Tables

4.1. Template Changes from OTRS 3.3 to 4

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		Chapter 1. Getting Started