As you may know or have heard the 3DEXPERIENCE (ENOVIA) flaship/future interface is now available through the 3DDashboard web page. And the 3DDashboard is made up of pages that contain widgets. So, what are widgets? How do they work in the context of 3DEXPERIENCE and the 3DDshboard and how can you create and customize your own widgets?
What’s a Widget?
Widgets are incredibly useful but relatively simple, software applications or components that can be made for one or more different software platforms.
Further, widgets are lightweight in HTML and script-based applications which can derive information from multiple sources.
Some examples of widgets you may see in your day-to-day life include:
- Daily weather
- Notes
- Newsfeeds
- Stocks or financial information
What’s a Widget in 3DEXPERIENCE?
The 3DEXPERIENCE platform likewise, has widgets at your disposal. They are a specialized application developed using standard web technologies – HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS.
Key widgets used in 3DEXPERIENCE (i.e. on the 3DDashboard) include:
- Engineering Release – used for BOM Management and release operations
- Product Structure Editor – Used for BOM Management manipulation and viewing of 3D Data
- Issue Management – Used for creating and managing issues
- 3DPlay – for viewing for various file formats
- Social Analytics – for viewing analytical data from the web
And many more…
Some of the features of these 3DEXPERIENCE widgets include being:
- Movable, resizable, configurable, shareable, and removable from the dashboard
Widgets within the 3DEXPERIENCE Dashboard may be drawn from the following sources:
- Internal Content: drawn from sources like 3DSwym, 3DSpace, etc.
- External Content: drawn from web-sources like YouTube, Weather forecast, RSS Feeds, Stocks, etc., or from external third-party applications
How Can You See Your Widgets in 3DEXPERIENCE?
3DEXPERIENCE Dashboard widgets can be viewed in multiple ways but the two most common ways are, likely, no strangers to you: one widget in one window or many small widgets in one window.
You should note: 3DDashboard widgets are stand-alone and independent of other widgets but they may only be hosted on the 3DDashboard – they won’t run in a browser page just by calling the widget URL.
Creating Your Own Custom Widgets
Today the out-of-the-box widgets provided by 3DEXPERIENCE are not customizable (though they do have some configuration options.) However, Dassault has provided the framework to create your own custom widgets to handle accompany specific requirements or processes. The documentation, experience, and functionality on creating your custom widgets are increasing with every new release/fix pack of 3DEXPERIENCE. We at xLM Solutions have taken upon ourselves to master the ability to create custom widgets.
Learn more
There are a number of resources available to you through 3DEXPERIENCE on how to create and implement widgets:
- User Assistance is the primary source of information about widgets in the context of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform – https://help.3ds.com
- Developer Assistance is available at the below address:
- Our own webinar: 3DEXPERIENCE Widget Fundamentals on December 10th is likely the easiest way to learn all about these widgets, how to create them, and how to best use them.
