Process for developing your own widgets

Just as you followed a path to learn how to deploy, register and work with the provided sample widgets, this process shows you a process to develop your own widgets.

The recommended process to develop your own widgets is as follows:

  1. Unzip the sample widgets: The source files and file structure of the sample widgets will help you build your own as you will be able to copy code and see how your file structure should be set up.
  2. Learn about the environment for developing a widget: The development environment specifies what you need on your computer to develop widgets and states what your level of knowledge should be.
  3. Create the widgets: Learn how to add custom JavaScript™ code and XML registry content.
  4. Package and deploy widgets: Once you have created the widgets, you need to package them in a standard way creating both EAR and WAR files. Then you need to deploy the EAR file on a server.
  5. Register the widgets: Registering your widgets makes them accessible to the runtime on the server.
  6. Test the widgets: Work with your widgets at runtime just as your users will, which is the best way to test that your widgets are working as designed.
  7. Browse the widget programming guide: Browsing this reference provides additional technical help such as links to standards you should know and utilities that can save you some keystrokes.
  8. Browse the Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs: These APIs let your widgets access functions in IBM® WebSphere® products at runtime.