• MakeClicky extension
  • Description
  • Configuration
  • Order of clicky actions
  • How it works
  • Writing custom MakeClicky actions
  • Actions' arguments
  • Custom MakeClicky action example
  • Notes for custom clicky actions writers

MakeClicky extension

Description

MakeClicky detects various formats of data in headers and email messages, and extends them with supporting links.

Configuration

You can configure clicky actions from RT config with @Active_MakeClicky option. It's ordered of the actions you want to apply.

By default, RT provides two actions:

httpurl

Detects http:// and https:// URLs and adds '[Open URL]' link after the URL.

httpurl_overwrite

Also detects URLs as 'httpurl' format, but replace URL with link and *adds spaces* into text if it's longer then 30 chars. This allow browser to wrap long URLs and avoid horizontal scrolling.

RTIR is shipped with several actions you can use: 'ip', 'ipdecimal', 'email', 'domain' and 'RIPE'.

Order of clicky actions

Order of actions is important in situations when you use actions that could match the same block of a text, in this case only the first matching action from the list would be applied. For example ot makes no sense to use httpurl and httpurl_overwrite at the same time as both actions always match the same piece of a text.

How it works

Each action consists of regular expression and function that do text replace. When you open history of a ticket RT search in the text with the regular expresion for matches. If some piece of the text matches it calls the function with the match as argument, then replace matched text with string returned by the function. So in two words this feature works like 'Search and Replace' with an active replacer.

Text of tickets is plain, but actions could generate arbitrary HTML.

Writing custom MakeClicky actions

To extend the list of actions with your own types of data, use the callback. Create file local/html/Callbacks/MyCallbacks/Elements/MakeClicky/Default.

It will be provided with arguments:

types

An array reference of hash references. Modify this array reference to add your own types; the first matching type will be used. Each hashref should contain:

name

The name of the data format; this is used in the configuration file to enable the format.

regex

A regular expression to match against.

action

The name of the action to run (see "actions", below)

actions

A hash reference of 'actions'. Modify this hash reference to change or add action types. Values are subroutine references which will get called when needed. They should return the modified string. Note that subroutine must escape HTML.

handler

A subroutine reference; modify it only if you have to. This can be used to add pre- or post-processing around all actions.

Actions' arguments

A hash is passed to action with two keys that always exist:

value - full match of the regular expression, this block of text will be replaced with action's result.

all_matches - array with all matches including groups defined in the regular expression, for example if your regexp is qr{ticket\s+#(\d+)} then the first element will be full match ("ticket #XXX") the same as in 'value' key, but the second one element of the array will be id of a ticket (XXX), so you can avoid parsing value in the action. Only eight groups of your regexps are passed to actions.

Custom MakeClicky action example

Create a new file /opt/rt3/local/html/Callbacks/MyCallbacks/Elements/MakeClicky/Default with the content:

  <%ARGS>
  $types   => []
  $actions => {}
  </%ARGS>
  <%INIT>
  my $web_path = RT->Config->Get('WebPath');
  
  # action that takes ticket ID as argument and returns link to the ticket
  $actions->{'link_ticket'} = sub {
      my %args = @_;
      my $id = $args{'all_matches'}[1];
      return qq{<a href="$web_path/Ticket/Display.html?id=$id">$args{value}</a>};
  };
  
  # add action to the list
  push @$types, {
      # name, that should be used in config to activate action
      name   => 'short_ticket_link',
      # regular expression that matches text 'ticket #xxx'
      regex  => qr{ticket\s+#(\d+)}i,
      # name of the action that should be applied
      action => 'link_ticket',
  };
  </%INIT>

That's all. Add short_ticket_link to @Active_MakeClicky option in your RT_SiteConfig.pm. Restart your server and create test ticket with 'ticket #1' text.

Notes for custom clicky actions writers

Note that an action must escape illegal HTML characters with entities and/or arguments in URLs.

Complex (slow) regular expressions could slow down RT as conversion is run each time user open a ticket.

Try to match the shortest expression you need with your regular expression otherwise another action could miss its chance to match.

Precalculate values, use closures for functions.

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