CONFIGURING
The widget catalog is now an XPages application with expanded view and search capabilities. You can view entries in the widget catalog by author, by category, by type, or simply view all widgets. You can display plug-ins for specific products, such as IBM Notes®, IBM Sametime®, or IBM Symphony. While browsing the widget catalog you can add comments, tags and ratings to widgets.
Power users can configure new widgets and publish them to the catalog for user access. Users obtain the latest widgets from the catalog on a scheduled basis. Depending on how users are configured they can browse the catalog for new widgets and update the widgets in their local catalog replica on demand.
The widgets catalog does not contain IBM-supplied widgets. However, it does contain some advanced recognizers, and their content types, such as the following:
The widgets that a user would see in their sidebar, and actions that are available to users based on category provisioning from the catalog, are stored in the local replica of the central catalog application.
Catalog documents
Each widget is represented in the catalog as a Notes document containing the following elements.
Note: You can use the default graphic or specify another for display in the catalog document. However the graphic you specify for the catalog document has no effect on the widget thumbnail used in the My Widgets sidebar panel. The widget thumbnail is specified in the .XML file attachment using the imageUrl variable.
Use the default widget name or specify a different catalog document title. Use the Description and Details fields to describe the widget.
Control user access to the widget based on widget category grouping such as team name or job. This is the how you specify which users have access to which widgets. Users whose "category" policy or preference allows them access to widgets of a specific category name will be provisioned with those widgets automatically.
Optionally specify a platform type such as Sametime_version or Notes_version.
Optionally specify the widget type(s) -- for example content type only, recognizer only, component, feature or plug-in, or any combination. You can use Type as a means of sorting widget display in the catalog view.
This contains the widget XML itself, which informs the client what to do when the widget is provisioned to the user, for example deploy a plug-in from a named update site or install a gadget.
The catalog is supplied with the following views:
Catalog access rights
The administrator can assign catalog access right based on user type, using a combination of Notes application ACLs and policy or preference settings.
A user with read and write access to the catalog can create, edit, and remove components, content types, and recognizers in the catalog. They can change or add widget categories to catalog documents which, in use with policies or preference, can force deployment to specific users or groups. They can also create, edit, or remove widgets and can publish new widgets to the catalog from the My Widgets sidebar panel.
Note: A user with Editor access or above to the catalog and assigned the Administrator role can create, edit, and remove widgets, content types, and recognizers in the catalog. A user with Author or Editor access to the catalog can view and use components, content types and/or recognizers and can also create new widget documents in the catalog.
Note: If you are assigned the Administrator role in the catalog ACL and are not provided with the Administrator features in your local replica, you may need to enable Enforce consistent access across replicas in the ACL of your local replica.
The administrator can control a variety of Widgets and Live Text and catalog access setting using policy. If using Widgets and Live Text outside of a server-managed environment, there are equivalent settings in the plugin_customization.ini file. For example, an administrator can control widget deployment based on categories. Categories are created in the catalog, but are administered by way of user policy or preference settings. Specific widgets can be deployed to specific users based on the category in which a given widget resides and the categories for which a given user is assigned.
The catalog contains the following action buttons:
This allows you to open and view the selected catalog document for the purposes of viewing and optionally adding it to the My Widgets sidebar panel. Provided you have edit rights to that document, you can also open it for edit.
Use this to add a widget, content type, or recognizer to the catalog. This action opens a dialog in which you can attach your .XML file and add a title, category name (optional), type designation, short description, and detailed description.
Note: To automatically create a new document in the catalog for a specific widget in the My Widgets sidebar panel, if policies or preferences allow you to do so, you can right-click the widget in the My Widgets sidebar panel and select Publish to Catalog.
Related tasks Creating the widget catalog