Custom Interfaces
Custom interfaces allow custom menus and toolbar buttons to be displayed in a WCC application.
Custom menus and toolbar buttons can display:
- web pages in iFrames,
- web pages in TIBCO PageBus Managed Hub iFrames, or
- TIBCO General Interface prototypes.
Custom interfaces can be used to embed external web applications into Workspace, or into a custom WCC application. The embedding can be a static configuration, such as configuring an iFrame in Workspace to host the TIBCO tibbr interface, or a customer's web portal application. It can also be dynamic, where an action taken in Workspace, such as selecting a work item, causes the external web application to take some action based on that specific work item, or vice versa. This dynamic interaction is facilitated either by custom script in Workspace that uses the data of the selected item to manipulate the URL of the external web application, or by exchanging PageBus events whose payload contains the information about the action taken in Workspace, or the action to be taken by Workspace. The custom interface mechanism also allows for the embedding of custom TIBCO General Interface prototypes into the Workspace application.
The custom interface mechanism hides, as much as possible, the details of the management of these embedded UIs within the Workspace/WCC application. Any custom script that needs to be developed only needs to focus on manipulating the external web application or taking the action triggered by the external application and does not need to manage how the embedded display gets handled in Workspace. The custom interface infrastructure largely shields the implementer from these details. Consequently, very little (or no) knowledge of TIBCO General Interface is required to integrate custom interfaces into Workspace.
User access to custom interfaces is managed in the Configuration Administrator. This allows you to integrate custom user interfaces into your application via configuration (rather than writing code) as much as practically possible.
Custom interface samples are also included in the WCC distribution; these samples demonstrate the various custom interface types and launch mechanisms.