Requirements for Developing vSphere Web Client Extension Solutions

To create plug-in modules for the vSphere Web Client, your development environment must include the following items.

■

A development environment capable of developing Web applications using ActionScript and MXML or JavaScript. A best practice is to use the Spring Tools Suite and the FlexBuilder plug-in for the Eclipse IDE. The vSphere Web Client SDK includes tools and plug-ins for the Spring Tools Suite to aid you in creating vSphere Web Client plug-in modules.

■	A text editor for creating XML files. While you can use any text editor to create the required XML, a best practice is to use an XML editor such as Altova XML Spy to ensure that you create well-formed XML files.

■	A development environment capable of developing Java-based Web applications. A best practice is to use the Spring Tools Suite. The vSphere Web Client contains tools and plug-ins for the Spring Tools Suite to aid you in creating services compatible with the vSphere Web Client Virgo server framework.

■	A build of the vSphere Web Client on a Web server, running the vSphere Web Client Virgo server framework.

■	A vCenter Server or vCenter Server Virtual Appliance, to which the vSphere Web Client can connect.

Note You can build out the virtualization stack you need to run vCenter Server and the Virgo server using virtual machines, instead of providing dedicated hardware.

Flex Run-Time Version Dependencies

To achieve a richer user interface, the vSphere Web Client uses both Flex 3 (halo) and Flex 4 (spark) themes. These dependencies are managed implicitly when you build your plug-in using the Eclipse IDE with the FlexBuilder plug-in.

If you use Maven or other tools to build your plug-in, you must specify the dependencies on the halo and spark component libraries. Even if your plug-in does not use halo components directly, parts of the VMware framework do use halo components. If you omit a dependency, your project might compile but not render the UI correctly at run time.

The flexmojos build artifact for Maven establishes a dependency for the spark component library, but not for the halo component library. You must add an explicit halo dependency to the build.

To specify the halo dependency using Maven, add the following lines to your ui/pom.xml file:

<dependency>

   <groupId>com.adobe.flex.framework</groupId>

   <artifactId>halo</artifactId>

   <version>${flex.sdk.version}</version>

   <type>swc</type>

   <classifier>theme</classifier>

   <scope>theme</scope>

</dependency>

If you have a different build tool, use appropriate means to configure a halo dependency or build action.