The second article in this series describes the inclusion of your custom backend systems right into the webbased Sugar user interface. We created ZuckerDocs following those steps (well, those maybe were the first 1 percent of the whole project …), and it worked pretty good in the end – but there are some obstacles to consider.

Starting a new module from scratch

There are some steps to take to make a new module appear in your Sugar user interface.

1. create a folder called “TestModule” in the “modules/”-folder of your Sugar installation
2. create some empty files in there: “index.php”, “Forms.php” and “Menu.php”
3. create a folder called “language” in there, containing an empty file “en_us.lang.php” (or whatever language you are using)
4. open the file “include/modules.php” with your text editor and add the line
   $moduleList[] = ‘TestModule’;
5. open the file “include/language/en_us.lang.php” (or your own language) and add the line
    ‘TestModule’ => ‘TestModule’,
   to the “moduleList”-array
   Note: If you have ever used the “Rename Tabs” function, you have to use this function again here instead of manually edit this file – just add “TestModule” to the tabs list.
6. Now login to Sugar as “admin” user, go to the “Admin”-panel, click on “Configure Tabs” and add the “TestModule” to the “Display Tabs” list
7. Go to the “My Account” panel, click on “Edit” and add the “TestModule” to the “Display Tabs” list
   Note: this step sometimes is required, sometimes not – don’t know the difference
8. The module now is visible in the module list.

You may download a prepared module folder here: TestModule.zip

Extending the skeleton

You can now try to fill in your custom behaviour into this skeleton. One of the most important points is, that it is not possible with Sugar to call your PHP files directly, but all of them are called by the front controller “index.php” right in your Sugar folder. Direct access to your custom module is not allowed for calling your PHP scripts (just for resources as images or javascript). To call your script “myaction.php” in the TestModule, you have to use the link “index.php?module=TestModule&action=myaction” – rather easy, but you should know in advance. The default action called when clicking on your module in the module bar on the top always is called “index” – that is, the file “index.php” in your module folder is called first.

The file “Menu.php” contains the hyperlinks which are shown in the menu bar on the left (depending on the theme you are using, it may also be located on the top or on the right). You just have to add one line to the “module_menu”- array to have an additional entry point available.

The file “Forms.php” can optionally contain some extra forms and javascript code. For example, the function “get_validate_record_js” should return javascript code for validating your form entries. If it contains the function “get_new_record_form”, the returned HTML code is used for displaying those nice “quick create” forms just below the menubar (look at the “Contacts” or “Accounts” module for an example). Have a look at the TestModule (TestModule.zip) – it just shows a company logo, but you can easily replace it with a small HTML form.

Useful Sugar APIs

In most cases, you don’t have to output your HTML code from PHP. Sugar includes a template engine which supports keyword replacements, listviews, variables and some more. It also provides database access to the Sugar database (hint: look at the global variable “$db”), and really a lot of helper functions for building up a visually integrated and appealing user interface for your modules. I will try to describe the most important APIs in other blog entries, it is out-of-scope for now.

Using the Sugar Module Loader

The file edit steps you did above in the “start from scratch” section are usually done automatically by the “Sugar Module Loader” – your users typically don’t have to edit Sugar configuration files manually to use your custom module. In the next blog entry I will describe how to build a complete module installable with the Sugar Module Loader starting from the TestModule created before.

注：这篇文章是ftreml所写，另外感谢他把C3CRM开发的模块改成兼容SugarCRM的新版本和支持英文，并与非中文国家的用户分享，在此表示感谢。

转载请注明：易客CRM官方博客 » 转载：Howto integrate 3rd-party software with SugarCRM – Part 2