July 2004 - dev - OTRS mailing lists

OTRS documentation contribution
by Robert Heinzmann 18 Jul '04

18 Jul '04

Hello, I was thinking about participating in the documentation of OTRS. We are using OTRS ourselves and I'm following the OTRS mailing list for some time now. I think the manual lags some basic explaination of term and of what certain configurations and actions implicate (what is eskalation, what is forward etc.). Those should be cleared out so that one can say "rtfm" Questions are: How to contriubute ? Which format ? Which language ? Is there some kind of guide ? Thank you, Robert Heinzmann p.s. I know that there is a "doc" mailinglist but unfortunately I don't know the e-mail address anymore. :)

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FAQ-Attachments
by Volker Maibaum 15 Jul '04

15 Jul '04

Hi, I programmed an add-on for the FAQ-Section. In our System it is now possible to add Attachments to FAQ-articles. The attachments are stored in ~/var/httpd/htdocs/otrs_faq (configurable in Config.pm $Self->{FAQDirectory}). For each FAQ-article there is a subdirectory which name is the ID of the FAQ-article. When you view an article, Perl checks if there are any files in the corresponding directory and creates links to these files. You can then directly download the files from Apache (no "passthrough" with perl). I know this may be a security problem, because OTRS has no access control over these files (everyone who can guess the filename and path can download the file). Files/Directories affected from my changes (changed or added): ./Kernel/Config.pm (2 new Config-Settings) ./Kernel/Modules/FAQArticle.pm (added Upload-Functionality) ./Kernel/Output/HTML/xyz/FAQArticleForm.dtl (Upload-Input-field, Upload delete) ./Kernel/Output/HTML/xyz/FAQArticleView.dtl (Upload-Links) ./Kernel/System/FAQ.pm ./Kernel/System/FAQ/ArticleStorageFS.pm (new module,Write Upload to FS) ./var/httpd/htdocs/otrs_faq/ (directory where attachments are saved) Do you think it would make sense to put this functionality into future releases? regards, Volker

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New features
by Stephane DAGUET 15 Jul '04

15 Jul '04

Hello everydoby, My company decided to use OTRS. We need some special features, for example we have support contacts with a limited number of calls. Basically, I think to create col in the customer table, and another table to have the history of the tickets. And modify the OTRS code to decrement the usable calls when successfully closing a ticket for these customers. But I'd like to be able to easyli upgrade OTRS when a newer version will be released. What's the right way ? Regards, Stéphane DAGUET MB2I 5, avenue du Pré Félin 74940 Annecy le vieux FRANCE http://www.mb2i.fr Tel: +33 (0) 450 64 05 51 Fax: +33 (0) 450 64 12 36 Mob: +33 (0) 630 37 35 17 Mail: s.daguet(a)mb2i.fr

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Re: dev Digest, Vol 12, Issue 5
by Renat Lumpau 09 Jul '04

09 Jul '04

> Date: Thu, 8 Jul 2004 21:16:39 +0200 > From: Martin Edenhofer <me(a)otrs.de> > Subject: Re: [dev] Gentoo ebuild for otrs-1.2.3 > Thanks for your package! :) > > Can you tell us a "short" into into the Gentoo ebuild? > > Is there a way to get/build automatically new OTRS packages? Gentoo ebuilds are very similar to FreeBSD ports. An ebuild is basically a short script that instructs Portage (Gentoo's package manager) to download, build, and install a package, automatically resolving dependencies. Once the ebuild is accepted into Portage, installing OTRS on Gentoo will be as simple as typing 'emerge sync && emerge otrs' (of course, some post-install configuration is required). The ebuild will automatically resolve and install all Perl deps, fetch the tarball from the mirrors, build, and install it (with support for Apache virtual hosting). For now, all you need to do is place the ebuild and its files into your local Portage overlay, and that's it. -- Renat Lumpau

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Gentoo ebuild for otrs-1.2.3
by Renat Lumpau 08 Jul '04

08 Jul '04

Hello, A Gentoo ebuild for OTRS is now available at http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=56452 Comments, suggestions, and questions are most welcome. -- Renat Lumpau

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Answer-Snipplets ?
by Robert Heinzmann 08 Jul '04

08 Jul '04

Hello, what do you think about adding answer "snipplets" to the compose form ? With the answers section right now its difficult to respond to many different questions in one mail. It's hard to prepare a mail with answers that fits to such a mail. The feature of having a selection box with an "add" button, which adds the content of the prepared answer to the composed message at the location the cursor is at would help here. What do other think about this feature or this is even a planned feature ? Thank you, Robert Heinzmann

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Workflow patches
by Michael Grubb 06 Jul '04

06 Jul '04

I am working on some patches to otrs to make it fit in with our existing workflow, and was curious if anyone else had done work in this area or would be interested in integrating these patches (I'm making them configurable of course). Currently Working: Unlock Agent's Locked Tickets at logout (or more precisely when the session is removed) Going to Work: Unlock a locked ticket on follow-up if the ticket's owner doesn't currently have a session. This allows the evening shift to pick up where the day shift left off. If there is a better solution to this problem than what I have suggested I am all ears. Once I complete my work I'll post my patches here. Regard, Michael Grubb

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How to Integrate OTRS with htmlArea
by Robert Kehl 02 Jul '04

02 Jul '04

How to Integrate OTRS with htmlArea htmlArea is a JavaScript based WYSIWYG editor replacement for any <textarea> field. It features a word processor like interface to compose HTML without even knowing about it. This way your users may compose HTML-FAQs on the fly with a convenient GUI, for example. htmlArea is published by interactivetools.com <http://www.interactivetools.com/> under a BSD-style license <http://www.interactivetools.com/products/htmlarea/license.html>. You can download htmlArea from the homepage: <http://www.interactivetools.com/products/htmlarea/> Install htmlArea. See htmlArea's documentation for this. Make it accessible via the URI "/htmlarea/". Basically, this means inserting an alias definition to your httpd.conf. The following line assumes you installed htmlArea to /usr/local/htmlarea, which may not be the case with your installation, so please adapt: Alias /htmlarea/ "/usr/local/htmlarea/" Make sure it is working by visiting <http://localhost/htmlarea/examples/>. You may later want to delete the examples, but have a look at them to get an impression of what's possible with the software. Create a new theme. Refer to <http://doc.otrs.org/1.2/en/html/dtl-theme.html> on how to do this. We will refer to MyTheme in the following as the new Theme. Create <OTRS_HOME>/Kernel/Output/HTML/MyTheme/htmlarea.dtl with the following content. Again, adapt the URI of htmlarea if needed. ---snip--- # -- # htmlarea.dtl - Implements htmlArea in OTRS # Copyright (C) 2004- Dipl.-Ing. Robert Kehl <robert.kehl(a)otrs.de> # -- # This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. For details, see # the enclosed file COPYING for license information (GPL). If you # did not receive this file, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.txt. # -- <script type="text/javascript"> _editor_url = "/htmlarea/"; _editor_lang = "$Env{"UserLanguage"}"; </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="/htmlarea/htmlarea.js"></script> <script type="text/javascript"> function initDocument(myTextArea) { var editor = new HTMLArea(myTextArea); editor.generate(); with(document.getElementById(myTextArea+"_on").style){ if(visibility!="hidden"){visibility="hidden"} } } </script> ----snap---- Edit <OTRS_HOME>/Kernel/Output/HTML/MyTheme/FAQArticleForm.dtl and include the following line somewhere to load the above: $Include{"htmlarea"} Now locate a textarea, let's say the one named "Field1". Here's what it looks like: <tr> <td class="table1" valign="top">$Text{"$Config{"FAQ::Field1"}"}: </td> <td class="table1"> <textarea name="Field1" rows="12" cols="65" wrap="$Env{"BrowserWrap"}">$Data{"Field1"}</textarea> </tr> Change it to look like this and save the file: <tr> <td class="table1" valign="top">$Text{"$Config{"FAQ::Field1"}"}: <br> <a id="Field1_on" href="javascript:initDocument('Field1');">HTML-Editor</a> </td> <td class="table1"> <textarea id="Field1" name="Field1" rows="12" cols="65" wrap="$Env{"BrowserWrap"}">$Data{"Field1"}</textarea> </tr> You see, we added a new attribute 'id' to the textarea besides the 'name', and added a link to actually display htmlArea. The link's name is the name of the accompagning textarea with a '_on' appended to it. Layouted this way, it will disappear after being clicked. Load the page to edit or create an FAQ entry (<http://localhost/otrs/index.pl?Action=FAQArticle>). You'll see a new link underneath the labeling of the first textarea called "HTML Editor". Click on it, it will disappear and -bingo!- exchange the textarea with htmlArea. Edit the content to suit you needs, and submit the form as usual. You need not (and cannot, btw) swith off htmlArea beforehand. That's it. Feel free to use htmlArea wherever you like to produce rich-featured, good looking work. Please note that there's much more to htmlArea than shown here. You may extend it via its plugin functionality with such fine things like a right-mouse context menu, a spell checker, CSS support, support for tables and stuff. See htmlArea's accompagning documentation and examples on how to do it. Please understand that we cannot cover any support question concerning htmlArea. Feel free to use their support forum therefore: <http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?forum=18>. This How-To is provided without any warranty. Use at your own risk. Backup beforehand. Please watch out, lines in the code sniplets might break, so use with caution when copy/pasting. With best wishes, Robert Kehl -- ((otrs.de)) :: OTRS GmbH :: Norsk-Data-Str. 1 :: 61352 Bad Homburg http://www.otrs.de/ :: Tel. +49 (0)6172 4832388

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FW: [dev] Diff to provide patch for LDAP redundancy
by Tyler Hepworth 01 Jul '04

01 Jul '04

Robert, I sent this to your personal mail on June 8, but I never heard back from you, so I am posting it in the dev list. Please let me know what you think of my proposal to gracefully handle no available ldap servers. Tyler -----Original Message----- From: Tyler Hepworth Sent: Tuesday, June 08, 2004 2:58 PM To: 'Robert Kehl' Subject: RE: [dev] Diff to provide patch for LDAP redundancy Robert Kehl wrote: > On Thursday, June 03, 2004 4:10 PM > Tyler Hepworth <TylerH(a)natr.com> wrote: >>> I diffed my working copies of */LDAP.pm against their original 1.2.3 >>> versions (version 1.9). Please find enlosed a single file that >>> contains the three diffs. These diffs make it possible to have LDAP >>> server failover by passing a reference to an array of servers rather >>> than specifying a single server in Config.pm. Old Config.pm files >>> will continue to work (not necessary to pass an array reference). >>> Program will yike properly if no valid LDAP server is found. > > Dear Tyler. I really appreciate your work, but have to tell you > something you most probably would like to have heard a week or two > ago. > > Reading > http://search.cpan.org/~gbarr/perl-ldap-0.31/lib/Net/LDAP.pod#CONSTRUC > TOR > > "HOST may also be a reference to an array of hosts, host-port pairs or > URIs to try. Each will be tried in order until a connection is made. > Only when all have failed will the result of undef be returned." > > And: > > "onerror => 'die' | 'warn' | undef | sub { ... } " > > So it means Net::LDAP does provide fallback hosts oob. :( No need to frown! That is awesome. Much simpler. > > So all we really had to do is to change the reaction of OTRS when no > host is found. Currently, we just 'die', but one could think of a more > intelligent solution. I think so too. > > What do you think now, Tyler? Are you discouraged for having worked No. I'm having fun. :-D > against the wall? You haven't, as you could rewrite your code to > reflect the new situation - will you? I would like you to. I will and I have. Please see my attached diff file. Here is the gist of it. Don't die if no LDAP connection made. Instead return a value back to the file that called the LDAP module. Check for that value and display a message. I have done this for CustomerAuth/LDAP.pm and bin/cgi-bin/customer.pl for right now. If you like the concept, then I will work something up for the other two LDAP.pm modules. Let me know what you think. Thanks, Tyler Hepworth

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