I’m trying to figure out how to customize existing Dashboards/Wizards, or create new ones.
Are there any good resources to learn how to do this?
Are there any open source ones out there that I can look at the commit history for to get an idea of how to build one?
Are there any example ones that are the bare minimum requires to get started?
What tools are used to build them in the first place if any? ( Apache Flex ? )
So far I have poked around in the source code of some of the .OJO files and .JS files trying to get an idea of how they work, but that is as far as I have gone.
Every time I’ve asked about this, I’m politely told … “You don’t want to go there”. I’ve never found any documentation regarding the creation of Dashboards for the Console.
If you do find anything I’d be interested in hearing what you find.
I’ve begun to think the best way to create a “dashboard” of my own is to use the REST API and script something that way.
I have created external tools that use the REST API as a way around it, but it is not ideal if it is intended for use by an average console operator who isn’t sophisticated and spends their time in the console only.
You can create dashboards as html/javascript pages and can also call out to javascript APIs in the console.
There’s definitely folks who are building their own console dashboards, some quite sophisticated, with this approach.
AFAIK the dashboards and wizards in the Server Automation application are html,javascript based.
I’m not sure right now what docs are availabe in public domain on doing this.
I’d love to see any example dashboards available that people are creating. I’d also like to see some minimal examples from IBM that are like the minimum necessary to do one small thing.
As an example, many of the IBM provided dashboards are useful, but it is often just one small part of it that I would like to use. For instance, I don’t care about most of the “Software Distribution Wizard”, except for the part that generates a prefetch statement. I’d love to have only that functionality in a very simple wizard that would just give you the prefetch statements for you to copy and paste elsewhere, or optionally click a button to make a template task if you wanted. I’m frequently stepping through the whole things just to get the task that pops up at the end, copy the prefetch, then close it without saving it and pasting it into some other thing I’m already working on.
I’ve built a number of small dashboards and have found them to be invaluable. I do things like a one-click “create a new baseline of all relevant fixlets from Patches for Windows, that are not already included in a baseline in my custom site” (so fixlets don’t get included in multiple baselines); “take an action on multiple baselines at once”; and “target an action based on a custom relevance statement”.
If there are any good resources for sharing them, I haven’t found them. This is definitely an area worth pursuing though.
A place to start is in the console’s installation folder. I think there were some example dashboards, and at least one .js file defining the functions you can call from the dashboard (I’ve found ImportXMLtoSite() to be especially helpful for creating new baselines and taking actions).
Look for .OJO and .JS files. OJO is an xml format for console display options, and a CDATA [[ containing the html “body” of the dashboard.
We use a custom wizard for patching at our shop. Our previous architect used to develop them as needed… An older version appears available through the console if you subscribe to the BigFix Lab content… the name there is Windows Patch Wizard… I would post screen caps of the latest copy we use but being a “new” user, I am not allowed to post / upload them yet…
Like many here I wish there were more resources (workshops, classes or documents - updated for recent versions would be nice) for advance relevance language, developing custom content for the console (wizards, dashboards) and webreports…
Could anyone please share some sample .ojo and their corresponding .js files? I would like to create a dashboard with a pie chart and/or tables showing the computers and their corresponding status (“pending restart” or “completed” after applying patches).