[rt-users] Customising RT

[Michael S. Liebman]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2004 at 06:27:12PM +0100, Jan Algermissen wrote:
> Adam Kuznesof wrote:
> > *  RT's entire web interface is built on a flexible templating
> > system that lets you build your own web-based tools or alter RT's
> > look and feel to better fit your organization.
> 
> The Web interface is based on Mason, check out Mason's documentation.
> Adjusting the Web
> interface seems quite easy as the code is really clear and simple.

Be sure to take advantage of Mason's local changes facilty and put
your modifications in /path/to/rt3/local/html. That way your
customizations won't get blown away when you upgrade.

> > *  If you need even more power, "Code overlays" let you customize
> > RT's internal behaviour without touching RT's core libraries.
> 
> Many classes in RT allow you to add customized behavior by providing
> certain 'Overlay classes'. I have not done this, but having a good
> Perl programmer skim through the perldoc's of
> rt3/lib/RT/ should give you a good idea.

This is pretty simple also. Find the module you want to change and
create <modulename>_Local.pm file. (For example, Users.pm would get
customized in Users_Local.pm.) You must begin the _Local.pm file with

         no warnings qw(redefine);

There are several modules that have _Overlay.pm files that you can use
as a starting point.
 
Michael
-- 
Michael S. Liebman                      m-liebman at northwestern.edu
                  http://msl521.freeshell.org/
"I have vision and the rest of the world wears bifocals."
        -Paul Newman in "Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid"