Creating the Home Screen Shortcut Extension Definition

All Home Screen shortcut extensions must reference the vise.home.shortcuts extension point. The extension definition must provide an extension object of type com.vmware.vsphere.client.views.ShortcutSpec.

Example: Example Home Screen Shortcut Extension shows an example extension definition for a Home Screen shortcut extension. In the example, the <extendedPoint> element specifies the Home Screen shortcut extension point. The <object> element defines a data object of type com.vmware.vsphere.client.views.ShortcutSpec.

Example: Example Home Screen Shortcut Extension

<extension id = “mySolution.myPlugin.sampleGVShortcut”>

<extendedPoint>vise.home.shortcuts</extendedPoint>

<object>

<name>Sample Shortcut to Global View</name>

<categoryUid>vsphere.core.controlcenter.inventoriesCategory</categoryUid>

<icon>#{samplePluginImages:logo}</icon>

<targetViewUid>mySolution.myPlugin.myConsoleApp</targetViewUid>

</object>

</extension>

 

ShortcutSpec Extension Object Properties lists the properties you set for the com.vmware.vsphere.client.views.ShortcutSpec object.

ShortcutSpec Extension Object Properties

Property	Type	Description
<name>	string	A string value that appears as the title for the shortcut on the vSphere Web Client Home Screen. The string can be hard-coded, or it can be a dynamic resource from your plug-in module.
<categoryUid>	string	The Home Screen category in which the shortcut extension appears. Home Screen shortcut extensions must be added to one of the pre-existing categories on the Home Screen. The following are valid values for the <categoryUid> property: ■ vsphere.core.controlcenter.inventoriesCategory for Inventories ■ vsphere.core.controlcenter.monitoringCategory for Monitoring ■ vsphere.core.controlcenter.administrationCategory for Administration
<icon>	string	The icon that is displayed for the shortcut. You can specify the icon as a dynamic resource from the resource SWF file in your plug-in module.
<targetViewUid>	string	The extension, such as a global view, object workspace, or other solution, that appears in the vSphere Web Client main workspace when the user clicks the shortcut. The value of <targetViewUid> property must match the <extension id=”...”> attribute in the target extension’s definition.

In Example: Example Home Screen Shortcut Extension, the <targetViewUid> property has the value mySolution.myPlugin.myConsoleApp. This value matches the extension ID of the example global view extension defined in Adding a Global View Extension. When the user clicks the shortcut created by the example extension, the mySolution.myPlugin.myConsoleApp extension appears in the vSphere Web Client main workspace, and the Object Navigator displays the appropriate pointer or virtual infrastructure node.