The IBM® Connections Twitter widget allows a user to share their twitter feed from within their profile.
The widget uses a profile extension to capture the twitter username and then calls the twitter API when a user clicks on the widget.
Installation and Support
For a limited time this widget is available free of charge and we will provide support assistance via email – support@justnudge.com. The overview of the installation process is described below.
NOTE: Your installation may differ from that described below, this installation guide is an overview only, if you have any doubts regarding the installation please contact us at support@justnudge.com.
Create Profile Extension Field
The process for creating a profile extension field is defined in the IBM Connections wiki. The profile field needs to be called “twitterName” and should be defined in the “contactInformation” section of the definition:
<extensionAttribute showLabel=”true” labelKey=”label.contactInformation.extattr.twitterName” editable=”true” bundleIdRef=”justnudge” extensionIdRef=”twitterName” />Additionally, in the profile extension attributes the field needs to be defined:
<simpleAttribute extensionId="twitterName" length="64" />Create Label for Profile Extension Field
The profile extension has been created but it doesn’t have a label. The process for adding a label to a field is described in the IBM Connections wiki. The definition in the LotusConnection-config.xml file is as follows:
<widgetBundle prefix="justnudge" name="com.justnudge.resources" />The properties file is created in the path /opt/IBM/LotusConnections/data/shared/customization/strings and is called com.justnudge.resources.properties. The contents of this file are as follows:
label.contactInformation.extattr.twitterName = Twitter Name
Install widget application
The widget is delivered as a JEE EAR file, this should be installed into the same cluster that the profiles component is installed and the web modules should be bound to the same HTTP servers as the profiles component. Also note that the WebSphere Plugin will need to be propagated to ensure that the widget works correctly.
Place widget onto profile
The final step is to place the widget onto the profile so that it is displayed. The process for performing this step is described on the IBM Connections wiki. Once the widget-config.xml file is checked out the following modifications need to be performed:
The widget definition needs to be defined:
<widgetDef defId="Twitter" loginRequired="false" modes="view" url="/jnWidgets/Twitter/TwitterWidget.xml" />
Finally the widget instance needs to be defined – ensure that this is in the “profilesView” page:
<widgetInstance uiLocation="tabsWidget1" defIdRef="Twitter" />Usage
Once the installation process is completed, IBM Connections users will have an additional field on their profile when they edit it:
If the user populates this field then the user’s twitter feed is displayed in the twitter widget as shown below:
It should be noted that the twitter information is not stored (other than the user’s twitter name) on the IBM Connections server.
Download
To download this widget, enter the information in the fields below and click “Submit”. By submitting this form you are agree to the following license.
Twitter Widget Download
November 8th, 2011 on 06:54
Great !!
November 9th, 2011 on 02:25
Thanks for doing this! This is great!!! Did you guys give any thought at just hosting the widget XML on your own server so that users wouldn’t have to install anything extra on their server? For example, you could make the widgetDef:
And connections would just retrieve the widget xml from your server, and run the widget from your server.
Let me know.
November 9th, 2011 on 17:56
We did consider hosting the widget onto our servers but decided against it for the main reasons:
The clients would have had to have servers that had internet access. Based on my experience I am not sure that this is generally the case.
Clients would have needed to trust the widget ongoing and trust our ability to keep it active, they may not have liked this dependency.
Clients would have needed to modify their AJAX Proxy to all get requests to my servers (or everywhere). This may not have been an issue for some but may have for others.
Consequently, we decided to publish the widget as an EAR file.
November 9th, 2011 on 02:32
Also, will you be submitting this to the catalog??
http://catalog.lotus.com
November 9th, 2011 on 17:57
Of course – I have two widgets currently being approved, I will publish this one there shortly.
November 10th, 2011 on 06:29
Sweeet!
Thanks a lot for the widget!
December 2nd, 2011 on 08:21
cool; nice feature, its really illustrates how Connections is an extensible platform. Congrats!
February 3rd, 2012 on 23:36
Hi. Great widget!
Had issue with the label. It won’t work unless I use the labelKey=”label.contactInformation.extattr.twitterName”
Does this apply to everyone? If so, you should change the documentation to use this:
instead of this:
February 3rd, 2012 on 23:39
ahh, the “greater than” and “smaller than” brackets dissapeared in my code examples. Pasting in without the > and <
Change from this:
extensionAttribute showLabel=”true” editable=”true” bundleIdRef=”justnudge” extensionIdRef=”twitterName” /
To this:
extensionAttribute showLabel=”true” labelKey=”label.contactInformation.extattr.twitterName” editable=”true” bundleIdRef=”justnudge” extensionIdR
ef=”twitterName”/
February 3rd, 2012 on 23:42
And now, finally, with the brackets, hehe:
<extensionAttribute showLabel=”true” editable=”true” bundleIdRef=”justnudge” extensionIdRef=”twitterName” />
To this:
<extensionAttribute showLabel=”true” labelKey=”label.contactInformation.extattr.twitterName” editable=”true” bundleIdRef=”justnudge” extensionIdR
ef=”twitterName” />
February 6th, 2012 on 23:25
Hello Robert,
Thanks for the information, I have updated the post with your information. I must admit that the structure of those extension attributes and the label key is rather confusing, thanks for working it out.
Michael.