External Link Providers

This functionality allows you to link a task to additional items stored on another system.

For example, you can link a task to:

Traditional web page
Attachment (PDF documents stored on the web, archive…)
Any ticketing system (bug tracker, customer support ticket…)

Each item has a type, a URL, a dependency type and a title.

By default, Kanboard includes two kinds of providers:

Web Link: You copy and paste a link and Kanboard will fetch the page title automatically
Attachment: Link to anything that is not a web page

Workflow

The end-user copy and paste the URL to the form and submit
If the link type is “auto”, Kanboard will loop through all providers registered until there is a match
Then, the link provider returns a object that implements the interface ExternalLinkInterface
A form is shown to the user with all pre-filled data before to save the link

Interfaces

To implement a new link provider from a plugin, you need to create 2 classes that implement those interfaces:

Kanboard\Core\ExternalLink\ExternalLinkProviderInterface
Kanboard\Core\ExternalLink\ExternalLinkInterface

ExternalLinkProviderInterface

Method	Usage
`getName()`	Get provider name (label)
`getType()`	Get link type (will be saved in the database)
`getDependencies()`	Get a dictionary of supported dependency types by the provider
`setUserTextInput($input)`	Set text entered by the user
`match()`	Return true if the provider can parse correctly the user input
`getLink()`	Get the link found with the properties

ExternalLinkInterface

Method	Usage
`getTitle()`	Get link title
`getUrl()`	Get link URL
`setUrl($url)`	Set link URL

Register a new link provider

In your Plugin.php, just call the method register() from the object ExternalLinkManager:

<?php

namespace Kanboard\Plugin\MyExternalLink;

use Kanboard\Core\Plugin\Base;

class Plugin extends Base
{
    public function initialize()
    {
        $this->externalLinkManager->register(new MyLinkProvider($this->container));
    }
}

Examples

Kanboard includes the default providers “WebLink” and “Attachment”