Adding Custom Content to the Home Page

Basic Customization > User Interface Customization > Adding Actions and Hooking Them Up in the UI > Adding Custom Content to the Home Page

Out of the box, the Home page comes with a small set of components available for users and administrators to add to the page. You can pick from these thirteen tables:

• Tasks,

• Updates

• Checked-Out Work

• Packages

• Workspaces

• Meetings

• Notebook

• Subscriptions

• Reports

• Saved Reports

• Data Monitors

• Discussions

• Actions

However, there is a customization point that allows you to put more components into this list.

Intended Outcome

This documentation describes the process for adding a custom option to the customize list on the Home page. This new item appears in the customize action on the Home page and when selected its content renders in the page along with the selected out of the box components.

You can configure an action to add new content to the customize menu on the Home page.

Prerequisite Knowledge

To achieve the intended result you need to have an understanding of the following:

• Action Framework for Windchill Client Architecture

Defining Menus

Solution Elements

The default out of the box action model is:

<model name="home customization">
<description>Used for the customization options on the homepage</description>
<actionname="listAssignments"type="work"/>
<actionname="listUpdates"type="report"/>
<actionname="listCheckedOutWork"type="user"/>
<actionname="homeList"type="wp"/>
<actionname="MyWorkspace"type="workspaces"/>
<actionname="list_mine"type="meeting"/>
<actionname="userNotebook"type="user"/>
<actionname="listSubscriptions"type="subscription"/>
<actionname="reports"type="user"/>
<actionname="savedReports"type="user"/>
<actionname="dataMonitors"type="user"/>
<actionname="assignedClashesNav"type="clashReport"/>
<actionname="participationView"type="forumTopic"/>
<actionname="actionGroup"type="user"/>
</model>

File	Description
codebase/actions/navigation-actionModels.xml	Location of the original home page customization menu action model which will be copied.
codebase/actions/custom-actionmodels.xml	Location for the customized copy of the action menu which contains the added component.
codebase/actions/ custom-actions.xml	Location for the new action for the added component.

Procedure – Adding Custom Content to the Home Page

1. Create a custom copy of the out of the box Home page action model.

Above is an example of what the Home page action model might look like on your system. This action model is found in codebase/actions/navigation-actionModels.xml.

From your system copy this model to the custom-actionmodels.xml file. For more details on creating custom action model files and custom action models see Action Framework for Windchill Client Architecture.

2. Create a new action for your custom component in codebase/actions/custom-actions.xml.

For example, if your new component is defined in a jsp located in codebase/netmarkets/jsp/myCompany/customHomePageAction.jsp then you would define your action like this.

<objecttype name="myCompany" class="org.rnd.myCompany">
<action name="customHomePageAction">
<label>Custom Component</label>
</action>
</objecttype>

This is a simple example action that ignores localization.

There are many different types of actions that you can create beyond this simple JSP example. For more details on creating custom action files and custom actions see Action Framework for Windchill Client Architecture.

3. Add the action to the custom copy of the home page action model in custom-actionmodels.xml.

Limitations

Only components for which an action can be created can be added to the Home page. This is not very limiting as most things can be wrapped in a JSP.

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