An action mod is a collection of actions (scripts) that are packaged together, which makes it easy to share and reuse actions in your analyses. Actions within a mod can be run from triggers in visualizations or text areas, or directly from the library. The action mod is developed in a similar way as a visualization mod; it can be developed and tested within the context of an analysis where it will be used. The scripts in an action mod can share common code and include libraries needed by the scripts, and they can be trusted and saved for reuse in multiple analyses.
With action mods, you run scripts in a sandboxed environment so that a script can only affect yourself, and you can only access your own data. This way, everybody with the required licenses can run scripts that they have authored themself, because the script cannot affect the other users, read other users’ data or affect the system as a whole. It is also possible to configure analyses that let any user run a script created by another user that they trust.
Note: Some scripts might still be able to, for example, corrupt a Spotfire analysis or leak sensitive data that the analysis fetches from a data source so always use your judgment when you decide to run a script.
Sharing action mods with others
An action mod in Spotfire can be made accessible to other users in various ways:
It can be saved to the Spotfire
library.
When the action mod has been saved to the library, actions within that
mod can be run ad hoc from the library, and it can also be pinned
to the Actions flyout for easy access. Users can browse and search
the library for action mods.
It can be embedded in an analysis.
The analysis can then be saved to the library, or saved as a local
file.
Developing action mods
A developer of an action mod needs a running instance of a Spotfire client, and a source code editor. For more information about the actual development and the tools, see the Spotfire® Mods website on GitHub.
Version handling
By default, if an action mod is resaved to the Spotfire library, all instances of the mod are updated in all analyses where it is used.