Creating extensions to the Spotfire platform

The development procedure for creating extensions to Spotfire is outlined from template to deployment.

Before you begin

Extending the Spotfire platform is a straightforward procedure based on the extension mechanism:

Break down the problem and determine the appropriate extension points to use.
Register an extension for each point.
Implement the base classes tied to the respective extension points.

Procedure

In Visual Studio®, open an existing extension or create a new extension, preferably from the Spotfire Extension Template, and build it.
In Package Builder, add the extension to a configuration that includes the default Spotfire client, or follow the instructions in Creating an extension using only Visual Studio.
In Visual Studio®, develop and debug the extension.
In Package Builder, build a Spotfire Package file containing the extension.
Use the Deployments & Packages page on the Spotfire Server to deploy the Spotfire package file to the server.

Results

After deployment, users will be prompted to download updates when they start their clients and access the server. If the end user accepts the prompt, the extension is downloaded to the client computer, the client is restarted and the extension is loaded into the running Spotfire instance.