Advanced Packages

As described in the introduction, Finsemble is presented as a series of packages. The base package, Finsemble Workspaces, contains the core functionality needed to create a SmartDesktop. All other packages are "advanced packages."

Finsemble Connect provides tools for integrating your SmartDesktop with your enterprise infrastructure.
Finsemble Flow contains UI components designed to handle large numbers of applications and tools to develop a customized user interface.
Finsemble Native allows you to leverage existing applications written in desktop technologies such as Java or .NET (C#, WPF).

If you have access to an advanced package, follow the steps below to activate the functionality that is not present in Finsemble Workspaces. Reach out to Client Success if you have any questions: support@finsemble.com.

Finsemble Connect

Import/export workspaces

Using Finsemble Connect, workspaces can be exported from one user and shared with others. This is often used to push a standard setup out to several users in a group. Workspaces are exported/imported from the user preferences menu.

What You Need to Do: Open ..\src\components\userPreferences\src\components\content\Workspaces.jsx and uncomment out lines 548-558.

{
	<div className="workspace-action-buttons">
		<div
			title={importTooltip}
			className={importButtonClasses}
			onMouseDown={this.handleButtonClicks}
			onClick={allowImport ? this.openFileDialog : Function.prototype}
		>
			<i className="workspace-action-button-icon ff-import"></i>
			<div>Import</div>
		</div>
		<div
			title={exportTooltip}
			className={exportButtonClasses}
			onMouseDown={this.handleButtonClicks}
			onClick={allowExport ? this.exportWorkspace : Function.prototype}
		>
			<i className="workspace-action-button-icon ff-export"></i>
			<div>Export</div>
		</div>
	</div>;
}

Finsemble Flow

App catalog

The app catalog is a UI component that allows Finsemble assemblers to manage a very large application library hosted on an FDC3 App Directory Server and allows end users to explore that library in an easy, meaningful way. Applications are displayed in carousels so that end users can see what is available to them. Users can search or filter apps by tags. Essentially, the app catalog makes it easy for end users to discover and use the apps that are relevant to their work.

What You Need to Do: To upgrade to the app catalog, make the following three changes:

In seed/configs/application/UIComponents.json, set components > Toolbar > component > useAppCatalog: true
In seed/configs/application/config.json, set appDirectoryEndpoint: 'https://<your-appd-server-url>'
Enable the Advanced app launcher (see below)

After completing these steps, your SmartDesktop will now use the app catalog.

Advanced app launcher

The advanced application launcher is designed to handle thousands of apps and has many more features than the basic app launcher, including:

Bookmarks
Advanced search and filtering
Folders and organization
Integration with the app catalog

What You Need to Do: To upgrade to the advanced app launcher, Navigate to src/components/toolbar/src/Toolbar.tsx and uncomment the advanced app launcher component in the toolbar section. If the basic app launcher component is present (it is used by default), it can be removed by commenting the line with the AppLauncherMenu component.

	<ToolbarShell>
	<ToolbarSection className="left">
		...
		{/* Uncomment the following to enable the AdvancedAppLauncherMenu*/}
		<AdvancedAppLauncherMenu enableQuickComponents={true} />
		{/* <AppLauncherMenu enableQuickComponents={true} /> */}
		 ...

Once enabled, the advanced app launcher can be opened from the "Apps" menu of the toolbar.

Tabbing and Tiling

Finsemble Flow provides additional window management functionality to your end users. This allows end users to see their entire spread of data and then zoom down like a hawk into the minutiae of their work. Windows can be "tiled" on to one another. When one window is moved towards the other, they can be automatically resized to elegant fractals. Moreover, completely separate applications can exist as tabs within a single window. This allows for a broad extensibility of desktop real estate, and delivers convenient functionality that users are familiar with.

What You Need to Do: To activate this functionality, make these configs true:

finsemble.servicesConfig.docking.tabbing.enabled: true
finsemble.servicesConfig.docking.tiling.enabled: true

Which will make tabbing and tiling available within Finsemble and set it to enabled by default for all components. Note: to use tiling, tabbing must also be enabled as it provides the tab headers that are dragged in to initiate either tabbing or tiling operations.

You may then disable tabbing or tiling for particular components by setting the appropriate flags in their component configuration:

foreign.services.windowService.allowTabbing: false
foreign.services.windowService.allowTiling: false

Components that allow Tabbing, will have tab headers that can be dragged and can receive tabs from other windows when they are dragged into the tab header. Components that allow Tiling can be used as drop targets for tabs from other components and will display a scrim showing how the window's area will be divided into the tiles to be created. Hence, to tile components you must have at least one component with Tabbing enabled and another with Tiling enabled to drop its tab onto.

Finsemble Native

Assimilation: codeless visual integration

If you want to incorporate native components built in .EXE, Java, Flash, etc., you can use a technology we call "Assimilation."

What You Need to Do: Open configs/application/config.json, and set servicesConfig.assimilation.enabled to true:


	"servicesConfig": {
		"assimilation": {
			"enabled": true,
			"throttle": 10,
			"focusDelay": 30,
			"eventIgnore": 50
		}

Minor work must be done to activate the functionality provided by Finsemble's three advanced packages.