Custom Controls

TIBCO Business Studio - BPM Edition supports integration of third-party custom controls. Users can provide configuration information about any third party widgets, and can expose those controls in the palette. You can work with these extended controls in the same fashion as you do with the set of built-in controls.

Definition of Custom Controls

There are two key items that a developer needs to provide for the definition of a custom control - a Control Wrapper, and the definition of the custom control in the component library file.

  • A ControlWrapper is a JavaScript class that either implements the runtime functionality of the control, or wraps a third-party library. The figure below provides a look at how the ControlWrapper exposes the implementation of a third-party library as a Custom Control within Forms.
    Note: It is also possible to provide the entire implementation of a custom control within a ControlWrapper with no reliance on a third-party library. However, that is not the typical case.
    Custom Control Architecture
  • The custom control definition must be specified in a component library file. The component library file provides information on how to display and configure instances of the custom control in the Form Designer. The information will also be used at runtime in order to determine the capabilities of the control.

    The figure below provides a description of the various design-time and runtime artifacts that go into a Components Library project.

    Component Library Project