Adding programming extensions to Aware IM
Aware IM is a powerful software system that allows users to configure the fully functional Internet enabled applications without involving any programming work in most cases. Thus Aware IM can be used not only by professional developers but also by business professionals and end users.
In certain cases, however, it may be necessary to add programming extensions to Aware IM in order to implement the application functionality that is otherwise very difficult or impossible to configure using the available configuration tools. This mostly applies to the calculation extensive functionality (for example, some mathematical algorithms) or interaction with a non-standard hardware that is not supported by Aware IM out-of-the-box.
It is important to stress, though, that in order to support such functionality programmers do not have to learn new technologies or understand at a very deep level the internals of the Aware IM software. All that is required is the knowledge of the Java programming language (other languages will be supported in the future) and generic understanding how the extensions fit into the Aware IM framework. In most cases programmers have to implement some standard interface that Aware IM requires in order for the new extensions to plug in naturally into the Aware IM software. The programmer’s job is, therefore, to understand what different methods of the interface mean and write the code that implements these methods.
Aware IM allows programmers to write extensions (plug-ins) in the following areas:
- Custom processes implemented by software components rather than by rules.
- Custom channels for intelligent business objects.
- Custom function libraries.
- Custom document types.
- Report calculation components (scriptlets).
In addition Aware IM allows developers to use Javascript to affect the behaviour of user interface widgets on the client (browser).
This document aims to describe in detail what is involved in adding extensions to each of these areas. Before we start describing each area individually we will describe some common steps required to add the extensions to any of the above areas.