Spotfire Developer Documentation

Extending the Spotfire installation

Use the following procedure to extend Spotfire with custom capabilities. This procedure is an overview of all of the tasks required to create, build, debug, and deploy a Spotfire extension.

Before you begin

  • You must have a supported version of Visual Studio installed and configured for a Spotfire client.
  • You must have access to the Spotfire SDK (the Spotfire Package Builder console).
  • To debug and test functionality locally, you must have the Spotfire Windows application installed on your computer.
  • To deploy and test functionality in the web client, you must have administration access to Spotfire Server.

Procedure

  1. In Visual Studio, open an existing extension or create a new extension.
    If you are creating an extension, use one of the extension templates.
  2. In Visual Studio, develop and debug the extension.
  3. If your extension does not build packages directly in Visual Studio, use the Package Builder console to build a Spotfire package file with the extension.
  4. In Spotfire Server, use the web interface to add the Spotfire package file to the Spotfire Server deployment area for distribution.

Results

After the package is distributed, end users who start a Spotfire session and access the Spotfire Server are prompted to download updates. If the end user accepts the prompt, the extension is downloaded to the client computer, and the client restarts. The extension is loaded in the running Spotfire instance.