A module is a package that provides or extends functionality in Perforce Chronicle. Most of the features in Chronicle are implemented via modules. By creating your own modules you can add new functionality or modify existing features.
Modules can contain configuration, controllers, resources, view scripts, and other assets.
Chronicle uses the
Model-View-Controller (MVC) design pattern. Chronicle
has a built-in auto loader, so there is no need to use
include() or require(). If your class
files are correctly named and located, Chronicle automatically loads and initializes
them.
To develop modules for Chronicle, you must:
We also recommend that you know, or have some familiarity with:
Finally, the full source-generated API documentation is included with Chronicle, so you can review all of the available classes, including their descriptions, inheritance hierarchy, methods, arguments, and attributes.
When developing modules, you generally want to disable caching/aggregation and enable
debugging information. You can toggle these aspects of Chronicle by setting the
APPLICATION_ENV variable. To specify this setting, edit the
.htaccess file, which is located in the folder where Chronicle
is installed. Valid values are as follows:
This setting also determines which section of the application.ini
file is loaded, as described below.
To make more finely grained changes to your deployment, edit the
application.ini file. This file can be configured to run a
different Bootstrap class, add custom routing rules, change
PHP settings and control many other application options and
behaviors. For details, consult the
Zend Application
chapter of the Zend Framework
Reference Guide for additional information. Default settings for the
application.ini are defined in the getDefaultOptions
method of the Bootstrap class; this can be a useful reference
when trying to determine which properties are available for customization.
Chronicle uses Zend's
routing mechanism. The default route is simply a
Zend_Controller_Router_Route_Module object stored under the name
(index) of 'default' in RewriteRouter. This route that matches URIs
in the shape of module/controller/action. This mechanism also matches any additional
parameters appended to the URI by default; for example:
module/controller/action/var1/value1/var2/value2. The index controller and the index action are defaults. If you omit the controller or action, the index versions are used. Variables and values can still be passed with these shorter URLs, if they do not collide with previously defined controllers and actions.
If you wish to define additonal routing rules for your module, you can do so either in your module.ini or, as documented by Zend, in PHP code.
