1=head1 Introduction
2
3A "portlet" is a component used to extend your RT instance, specifically
4the "RT-at-a-glance" home and Self-Service pages.  For instance, the
5"n Highest Priority Tickets I own", "Quick Ticket Creation" and
6"Queue List" panels on the default homepage are portlets.
7
8=head1 Creating the Portlet
9
10There are at least two things you have to do to create a portlet:
11
12=over
13
14=item Create the template
15
16Create a Mason template in C</opt/rt4/local/html/Elements> that defines
17your portlet's behaviour.
18
19=item Set C<$HomepageComponents> config
20
21Enable your portlet by adding its name to the C<$HomepageComponents>
22configuration variable in RT_SiteConfig.pm.
23
24=back
25
26Once you have created and installed your portlet, you will need to
27restart the webserver.
28
29=head1 Customizing home page
30
31When you click on the "Edit" link at your home page (or go there via your
32preferences), you can select which of the available portlets are displayed in
33the "body" (left) or "summary" (right) columns of the home page.
34
35=head1 Customizing Self-Service page
36
37They can also appear on the Self-Service interface, but have to be
38hard-coded, because Self-Service users don't have the same preferences
39available to them.  You will have to create your element in
40C</opt/rt4/local/html/SelfService/Elements>, then exend the SelfService
41interface to call it.  Copy C</opt/rt4/share/html/SelfService/index.html> to
42C</opt/rt4/local/html/SelfService/index.html>, then edit it to add:
43
44    <& /SelfService/Elements/MyPortlet &>
45
46=cut
47