How to create a Custom Plugin in Redmine

Redmine is a free and open source, flexible web based Project management and Issue tracking tool written in Ruby on Rails framework. It is cross-platform and cross-database. We can create our own custom plugin and deploy it in redmine. Here are the steps:

Step 1:
Open Command Prompt For Redmine (Note: Don’t Use normal command prompt of windows.)
To Open command Prompt,
Start -> All Programs->Bitnami Redmine Stake->Use Bitnami Redmine Stake -> Run as Administrator

Then apply below command:

 set RAILS_ENV=production  

This command tells that our Rail environment is Production. To create a plugin, this is initial step . DO NOT forget to execute this command.

Step 2:
To create a custom plugin in Ruby, you have to use command prompt. First, Create a plugin folder. Lets say, suppose I want to create Plugin called "Project Estimation Tracker"
For that I've used below code:

 ruby apps/redmine/htdocs/script/rails g redmine_plugin ProjectEstimationTracker  

Here,
g = Generate

ProjectEstimationTracker = Name of Your plugin.
apps/redmine/htdocs/script/rails = To create a plugin, rails script should be executed.

Step 3:
Now, we have to add our custom page to the plugin . For that, we need to create a controller first.

 ruby apps/redmine/htdocs/script/rails g redmine_plugin_controller ProjectEstimationTracker projecteffortstracking index  

Here,
ProjectEstimationTracker = Name of Your plugin.
projecteffortstracking = Name of Controller
index = action
As a result of above script, it will automatically create default view file in view folder .
In that view file ,we can apply our custom html code.

Step 4:
The most important step for creating a plugin is to configure a route. To configure a route, Go to your plugin folder, then go to Config folder which has routes.config file.
Example: For my plugin routes.config file path is:
"C:\Bitnami\redmine-2.5.1-1\apps\redmine\htdocs\plugins\project_efforts_tracking\config\routes.config"
Edit routes.config file.

 RedmineApp::Application.routes.draw do   
 get 'ProjectEffort', :to => 'projecteffortstracking#index'  
 end  

Here,
get = Name of Plugin (recommended) or any other name which you would like to show in URL.
Example: Here URL will b: http://localhost:90/redmine/ProjectEffort
To => Name of Controller

Step 5:
Final step is to change configuration setting. Go to your plugin folder which have init.rb file.
Example: project_efforts_tracking→ init.rb
Then apply following code:

 Redmine::Plugin.register :project_efforts_tracking do  
  name 'Project Efforts Tracking plugin'  
  author 'Author name'  
  description 'This is a plugin for Redmine'  
  version '0.0.1'  
  url 'http://example.com/path/to/plugin'  
  author_url 'http://example.com/about'  
  menu :admin_menu, :projecteffortstracking, { :controller => 'projecteffortstracking', :action => 'index' }, :caption => 'Project Estimation Tracker'  
 end  

Here, we can mention where we would like to show the plugin, e.g. In Admin menu or Top menu etc. For different type of menus visit : Redmine Menus
Now, your plugin is ready to use. Restart your server using Bitnami Redmine Stack.

 

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