IBM® Lotus® Connections 2.5 provides the ability for third-party developers to integrate iWidgets into the Lotus Connections user interface for use in the Communities, Home page, and Profiles features.

An iWidget is a Web application that allows you to add content to the Lotus Connections user interface. In Lotus Connections 2.5, many areas of the user interface are constructed using iWidgets. Developers and administrators can extend the Lotus Connections user interface with new capabilities and also replace existing capabilities that are shipped with the product by developing their own iWidgets using the iWidget specification and integrating them with Lotus Connections.

This guide will help developers to learn how to create iWidgets for Lotus Connections. iWidgets are independent of the back-end server technology that the iWidget is hosted on.

The guide contains the following sections:

1.        iWidget Overview
2.        Common iWidget support in Lotus Connections

3.        iWidget support in the Home page
4.        iWidget support in Profiles and Communities
5.        Best practices for iWidget development

This guide assumes that you have some basic knowledge of JavaScript, Ajax, and REST.

Note: This guide will be updated as needed. If you have any suggestions, add a comment to this page. The authors will evaluate your suggestion and address it as soon as possible.

Authors: Vincent Burckhardt and Ronny Pena