Preface

Imagine this: you stumble across a versatile open source project that outperforms most proprietary systems you've tested against, but it falls short due to just one simple yet critical missing feature. We've all been there before.

As hobbyists, developers, or just tinkerers, we dig into the code only to find that although the codebase is clean and well documented, we're not really sure where to start.

With Redmine, the answer to our dilemma is straightforward: write a plugin that fills this blank we've identified, allowing us to quickly implement feature x without having to hack the core system.

The Redmine authors have gone to great lengths to provide a plugin system that is extensive enough to allow even the most complex solutions to be quickly and efficiently implemented without having to resort to hacks.

This book will describe this plugin authorship process using an existing plugin that has been in production for a number of years as the basis for the various features we'll be implementing.