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EXTENSION FILES
The Spotfire Miner software is implemented using a large number of
Java and C++ object files, image files, etc, stored in various
subdirectories within the Spotfire Miner installation directory. It is
possible to extend Spotfire Miner by adding additional files to various
subdirectories, but it is difficult to keep track of the multiple files
implementing an extension. Spotfire Miner supports an extension
mechanism where all of the files implementing an individual
extension can be placed within a single new directory. A single
extension may implement more than one node; normally, an
extension would contain a set of related nodes.
When Spotfire Miner starts, it looks for a directory named
extensions within the Spotfire Miner installation directory. If this
directory exists, each subdirectory under extensions is processed to
load each extension. Next, Spotfire Miner looks for a directory
named extensions in the user’s work directory and processes any
subdirectories of this as additional extensions. (The user’s default
work directory is depends on the operating system.) Extensions are
loaded from both places so that stable extensions to be used by
multiple users can be defined once (in the Spotfire Miner installation
directory), and users can develop new extensions in their own
directories.
Extensions are only processed when Spotfire Miner is started. There
is currently no way to dynamically add or remove extensions from
Spotfire Miner while it is executing.
To create an extension, create a new subdirectory within the
extensions directory (in the Spotfire Miner installation directory, or
the user work directory). The name of this subdirectory is not
important; it is useful to give it a name that identifies the extension,
but the directory name is not otherwise interpreted. All of the files
implementing the extension should be stored within this directory.
This would normally include:
• An XML file describing the extension nodes.
• A small icon file for each node, used in the Explorer pane.
• A large icon file for each node, used in the worksheet.
• A Java jar file containing the Java class files.
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