Module programming

Fundanemt gives developers the possibility to add new functionality to the system by creating modules and installing them into the system. In this article I will go through the process of creating a module in the hope of making it easier for outsiders to create modules.

Note: This article has been written with UNIX systems in mind, but it should be easy to follow the steps on a Windows system as well.

Example module functionality

In this article I will create a pizza guide module with the following functionality:

  • Keep a list of different pizza resturants with
    • a picture of the resturant
    • name
    • phone number
    • address
  • List pizzas for each resturant with
    • price
    • number
    • ingredients
  • Add new pizzas to a resturant

Telling Fundanemt about your module

First step is to create the folder where your module should be located.

$ cd fundanemt/modules
$ mkdir PizzaGuide

it would be possible to test the module by placing scripts in fundanemt/modules/PizzaGuide and entering http://domain.tld/fundanemt/modules/PizzaGuide/ in your browser, but for the user to access the module from the Fundanemt main page, you will need to place a configuration file in the module folder to inform Fundanemt about the modules name, description, author and version, the size of the modules main dialog.

<?php
// Meta tags for module
$name = "PizzaGuide";
$version = "1.0";
$author = "Brian Jørgensen";
$authormail = "qte [at] fundanemt.com";
$title = gt("Pizza Guide");
$description = gt("Administrate list of pizza places and pizzas.");
$icon = "pizza.png";

// Setup of the initial module dialog
$startupdialog = "";
$startupdialogHeight = "500";
$startupdialogWidth  = "770";

// Placement on the frontpage
$group = gt("Modules");

?>

save the above code in fundanemt/modules/PizzaGuide/config.php

When reloading the main Fundanemt page the Pizza guide module will appear in the module list

Data design

The second step is to design what data the module needs to function and where it should be stored. In our example the module both needs store images on disk (pictures of the resturants) and the rest of the data in database tables.

Table: resturant list
Field name Field type 
id integer 
name text 
phone number text 
address text 
picture text 
Table: pizza list
Field name Field type 
resturant integer 
number integer 
name text 
ingredients text 


for the simplicity of this article the ingredients are written in normal english just like they would be on a real life pizza-list.

Transforming into database tables

When the table structure has been designed, the tables needs to be created by the module. This is done by transforming the table structure into an array and let the Fundanemt database object create the table.

<?php
define("PIZZA_PLACES", "pizza_places");
define("PIZZA_LIST", "pizza_list");

$GLOBALS["D"]->dbSetTable(PIZZA_PLACES);
if (!$GLOBALS["D"]->dbExists()) {
  $data = array(
    "id"          => "integer",
    "name"        => "text",
    "phonenumber" => "text",
    "address"     => "text",
    "picture"     => "text"
  );
  $GLOBALS["D"]->dbCreateTable($data);
}

$GLOBALS["D"]->dbSetTable(PIZZA_LIST);
if (!$GLOBALS["D"]->dbExists()) {
  $data = array(
    "resturant"   => "integer"
    "number"      => "integer",
    "name"        => "text",
    "ingredients" => "text"
  );
  $GLOBALS["D"]->dbCreateTable($data);
}
?>
Save the above code in a file called datastructure.inc in your module directory, we will need to include this both from our main module file and user administration dialog file.

Main module file - index.php

In the configuration file option $startupdialog it is possible to specify a path within the module folder that the main module dialog should open with.

If you have not specified a filename path youl will have to create a index.php file in the module folder. The next step is to create this main file so we can get on with programming the module.

<?php

// Include fundanemt setup file
include "../../core/fundaGUI.php";

// Include library and database structure
include "includes/datastructure.inc";
include "include/library.inc";

$arrStatus = array(
  gt("Kategori") => isset($_SESSION[$GLOBALS["module"]["name"]]["id"]) ? $arrayCats[$_SESSION[$GLOBALS["module"]["name"]]["id"]] : gt("None selected"),
  gt("Spillere i alt:") => $totalcount
);
printMainDialog(gt("Pizza Guide"), $arrStatus, MODULE_URL."PizzaGuide/includes/");

?>

Resturant dialog - Add/edit

Pizza dialog - Add/edit

Main window

General notes

Database table field names should be uppercase to work on both MySQL and PostgreSQL

TODO

  • Add usage of DB_PREFIX constants in datastructure.inc