Docs: Add API guide on custom checkout

doc/api/guides/custom_checkout.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,132 @@
+Creating an external checkout process
+=====================================
+
+Occasionally, we get asked whether it is possible to just use pretix' powerful backend as a ticketing engine but use
+a fully-customized checkout process that only communicates via the API. This is possible, but with a few limitations.
+If you go down this route, you will miss out on many of pretix features and safeguards, as well as the added flexibility
+by most of pretix' plugins. We strongly recommend to talk this through with us before you decide this is the way to go.
+
+However, this is really useful if you need to tightly integrate pretix into existing web applications that e.g. control
+the pricing of your products in a way that cannot be mapped to pretix' product structures.
+
+Creating orders
+---------------
+
+After letting your user select the products to  buy in your application, you should create a new order object inside
+pretix. Below, you can see an example of such an order, but most fields are optional and there are some more features
+supported. Read :ref:`rest-orders-create` to learn more about this endpoint.
+
+Please note that this endpoint assumes trustworthy input for the most part. By default, the endpoint checks that
+you do not exceed any quotas, do not sell any seats twice, or do not use any redeemed vouchers. However, it will not
+complain about violation of any other availability constraints, such as violation of time frames or minimum/maximum
+amounts of either your product or event. Bundled products will not be added in automatically and fees will not be
+calculated automatically.
+
+.. sourcecode:: http
+
+    POST /api/v1/organizers/democon/events/3vjrh/orders/ HTTP/1.1
+    Host: test.pretix.eu
+    Accept: application/json, text/javascript
+    Content-Type: application/json
+    Authorization: …
+
+    {
+      "email": "dummy@example.org",
+      "locale": "en",
+      "sales_channel": "web",
+      "payment_provider": "banktransfer",
+      "invoice_address": {
+        "is_business": false,
+        "company": "Sample company",
+        "name_parts": {"full_name": "John Doe"},
+        "street": "Sesam Street 12",
+        "zipcode": "12345",
+        "city": "Sample City",
+        "country": "US",
+        "state": "NY",
+        "internal_reference": "",
+        "vat_id": ""
+      },
+      "positions": [
+        {
+          "item": 21,
+          "variation": null,
+          "attendee_name_parts": {
+            "full_name": "Peter"
+          },
+          "answers": [
+            {
+              "question": 1,
+              "answer": "23",
+              "options": []
+            }
+          ],
+          "subevent": null
+        }
+      ],
+      "fees": []
+    }
+
+You will be returned a full order object that you can inspect, store, or use to build emails or confirmation pages for
+the user. If you don't want to do that yourself, it will also contain the URL to our confirmation page in the ``url``
+attribute. If you pass the ``"send_mail": true`` option, pretix will also send order confirmations for you.
+
+Handling payments yourself
+--------------------------
+
+If you want to handle payments in your application, you can either just create the orders with status "paid" or you can
+create them in "pending" state (the default) and later confirm the payment. We strongly advise to use the payment
+provider ``"manual"`` in this case to avoid interference with payment code with pretix.
+
+However, it is often unfeasible to implement the payment process yourself, and it also requires you to give up a
+lot of pretix functionality, such as automatic refunds. Therefore, it is also possible to utilize pretix' native
+payment process even in this case:
+
+Using pretix payment providers
+------------------------------
+
+If you passed a ``payment_provider`` during order creation above, pretix will have created a payment object with state
+``created`` that you can see in the returned order object. This payment object will have an attribute ``payment_url``
+that you can use to let the user pay. For example, you could link or redirect to this page.
+
+If you want the user to return to your application after the payment is complete, you can pass a query parameter
+``return_url``. To prepare your event for this, open your event in the pretix backend and go to "Settings", then
+"Plugins". Enable the plugin "Redirection from order page". Then, go to the new page "Settings", then "Redirection".
+Enter the base URL of your web application. This will allow you to redirect to pages under this base URL later on.
+For example, if you want users to be redirected to ``https://example.org/order/return?tx_id=1234``, you could now
+either enter ``https://example.org`` or ``https://example.org/order/``.
+
+The user will be redirected back to your page instead of pretix' order confirmation page after the payment,
+**regardless of whether it was successful or not**. Make sure you use our API to check if the payment actually
+worked! Your final URL could look like this::
+
+    https://test.pretix.eu/democon/3vjrh/order/NSLEZ/ujbrnsjzbq4dzhck/pay/123/?return_url=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.org%2Forder%2Freturn%3Ftx_id%3D1234
+
+You can also embed this page in an ``<iframe>`` instead. Note, however, that this causes problems with some payment
+methods such as PayPal which do not allow being opened in an iframe. pretix can partly work around these issues by
+opening a new window, but will only to so if you also append an ``iframe=1`` parameter to the URL::
+
+    https://test.pretix.eu/democon/3vjrh/order/NSLEZ/ujbrnsjzbq4dzhck/pay/123/?return_url=https%3A%2F%2Fexample.org%2Forder%2Freturn%3Ftx_id%3D1234&iframe=1
+
+If you did **not** pass a payment method since you want us to ask the user which payment method they want to use, you
+need to construct the URL from the ``url`` attribute of the order and the sub-path ``pay/change```. For example, you
+would end up with the following URL::
+
+    https://test.pretix.eu/democon/3vjrh/order/NSLEZ/ujbrnsjzbq4dzhck/pay/change
+
+Of course, you can also use the ``iframe`` and ``return_url`` parameters here.
+
+Optional: Cart reservations
+---------------------------
+
+Creating orders is an atomic operation: The order is either created as a whole or not at all. However, pretix'
+built-in checkout automatically reserves tickets in a user's cart for a configurable amount of time to ensure users
+will actually get their tickets once they started entering all their details. If you want a similar behavior in your
+application, you need to create :ref:`rest-carts` through the API.
+
+When creating your order, you can pass a ``consume_carts`` parameter with the cart ID(s) of your user. This way, the
+quota reserved by the cart will be credited towards the order and the carts will be destroyed if (and only if) the
+order creation succeeds.
+
+Cart creation is currently even more limited than the order creation endpoints, as cart creation currently does not
+support vouchers or automatic price calculation. If you require these features, please get in touch with us.

doc/api/guides/index.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+.. _`rest-api-guides`:
+
+API Usage Guides
+================
+
+This part of the documentation contains how-to guides on some special use cases of our API.
+
+.. toctree::
+   :maxdepth: 2
+
+   custom_checkout

doc/api/index.rst

@@ -18,3 +18,4 @@ in functionality over time.
    resources/index
    ratelimit
    webhooks
+   guides/index

doc/api/resources/orders.rst

@@ -711,6 +711,8 @@ Deleting orders
    :statuscode 403: The requested organizer/event does not exist **or** you have no permission to delete this resource **or** the order may not be deleted.
    :statuscode 404: The requested order does not exist.
 
+.. _rest-orders-create:
+
 Creating orders
 ---------------
 

doc/spelling_wordlist.txt

@@ -46,6 +46,7 @@ guid
 hardcoded
 hostname
 idempotency
+iframe
 incrementing
 inofficial
 invalidations

src/pretix/plugins/returnurl/__init__.py

@@ -12,7 +12,8 @@ class ReturnURLApp(AppConfig):
         name = _("Redirection from order page")
         author = _("the pretix team")
         version = version
-        description = _("This plugin allows to link to payments and redirect back afterwards.")
+        description = _("This plugin allows to link to payments and redirect back afterwards. This is useful in "
+                        "combination with our API.")
 
     def ready(self):
         from . import signals  # NOQA

src/pretix/plugins/returnurl/templates/returnurl/settings.html

@@ -3,6 +3,18 @@
 {% load bootstrap3 %}
 {% block inside %}
     <h1>{% trans "Redirection from order page" %}</h1>
+    <p>
+        {% blocktrans trimmed %}
+            This feature is useful if you use only the payment component of pretix but build your own checkout interface
+            for other steps.
+        {% endblocktrans %}
+    </p>
+    <p>
+        <a href="https://docs.pretix.eu/en/latest/api/guides/custom_checkout.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">
+            <span class="fa fa-question-circle"></span>
+            {% trans "Read our documentation for more information" %}
+        </a>
+    </p>
     <form action="" method="post" class="form-horizontal" enctype="multipart/form-data">
         {% csrf_token %}
         {% bootstrap_form_errors form %}