Configure Home page widgets 

You can add custom widgets to the Home page widget catalog to meet the needs of your users. Ensure that the widgets that you add to the catalog are from trusted sources.

Before starting

To add widgets to the Home page, be logged in as an administrator. If you do not see the Administration tab, this means that you are not configured as an administrator of the Home page application. See Configure an administrative user for Home Page and Blogs for more details.

Note: You cannot add out-of-the-box widgets or widgets that are created from out-of-the-box widgets to the Updates tab. If you try to add these widgets to the Updates tab, you might experience issues with the widget content and drop-down menu failing to display.

About this task

To add a widget to the Home page widget catalog...

Procedure

1. Click the Administration tab.

2. Click Add another widget to display the Add new widget form.

3. Enter a name for the widget in the Widget Title field.

4. Enter a short description of the widget in the Description field.

5. Enter the web address for the XML widget descriptor in the URL Address field.
   
   This address must be an absolute web address.
   

6. Enter the widget location in the Secure URL Address field.
   
   This address must be an absolute web address.
   

7. Enter the web address for an icon to associate with the widget in the Icon URL field. This image is used to represent the widget when it is docked in the widget palette.

8. Enter the location of an icon to display for the widget in the Icon Secure URL field.
   
   This icon displays when the widget is docked in the content palette.
   

9. Select Use IBM Connections specific tags to indicate if the widget deployment descriptor uses specific IBM Connections tags to represent the URLs of the IBM Connections applications.

10. Select Cache widget descriptor to save the widget descriptor in cache.
    
    When you select this option, the XML widget descriptor is cached in memory at startup and injected into the HTML flow of the page when the user requests it. Selecting this option for a given widget also enables a button on the Administration tab that allows the administrator to refresh the cache in memory at runtime, without having to restart the Home page.
    

11. To display the widget on the Widgets tab, select Display on the Widgets tab.
    
    You must display the widget on the Widgets tab or the Updates tab, or both.
    

12. To display the widget on the Updates tab, select Display on the Updates tab.
    
    You must display the widget on the Widgets tab or the Updates tab, or both.
    

13. To display the widget when users open the Home page for the first time, select Opened by default.
    
    The widget will not display for existing users, but it will be available from the widget palette so that they can add it whenever they want.
    

14. To enable multiple instances of the widget to be used, select Multiple widgets.
    
    Each widget instance has its own properties, which can be useful. For example, if you are using a widget that displays bookmarks for a specific tag, you might want to enable multiple instances of the widget so that you can follow different tags in each widget.
    

15. If there are specific IBM Connections applications that must be included as part of the deployment for the widget to function correctly, select the required applications in the Prerequisites area.
    
    Note: When an IBM Connections application is selected as a prerequisite, but that application is not installed, then the widget doesn't display on the Home page.
    

16. Click Save.
    
    Note: When a widget is first added to the catalog, it is disabled by default. Test the widget using the Test Mode option before enabling it for general use. For more information about testing widgets, see Testing widgets.
    

What to do next

If you are adding widgets that are hosted on third-party servers, then you might need to update your proxy configuration. For more information on configuring the Ajax proxy, see Configure the AJAX proxy for a specific application.

Parent topic

Add custom widgets to the Home page

Related tasks

Testing Home page widgets
Configure the AJAX proxy for a specific application
Configure an administrative user

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