Deploying custom widget on Connections Home Page

I wanted to learn how to add a custom iwidget to my HomePage in the Connections so i followed these steps

• First i did create hellowidget.xml file that will display Hello lotus connections widget message in the view mode, this is how my hellowidget.xml file looks like
  
  

  
  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
  <iw:iwidget id="MyWidgets" 
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:iw="http://www.ibm.com/xmlns/prod/iWidget" 
  supportedModes="view" mode="view" lang="en">
    <iw:content mode="view">
        <![CDATA[
        <div>Hello lotus connections widget</div>
        ]]>
  </iw:content>
  </iw:iwidget>
  

  
  You can find more information about the iwidget here
  


• Before i could use the widget i need to make it available on http, there are few different options for doing that, you can copy it in web application and install that web application on your connections server or the simplest is to copy it to HTTP server, in my case i copied it to E:\IBM\HTTPServer\htdocs and then i did access it by going to http://wpconnections.atech.com/hellowidget.xml to make sure i can access the widget.xml like this
  
  


• Then i logged into the Connections Home page as admin user and went to Administration tab
  
  
  
  On this page click on Add another widget button
  


• On the next page enter values for the newly added widget such as title, URL of the widget.xml file,...etc
  
  


• Save your changes and it will take you back to the Administration tab, by default the newly added widget appears in the Disabled Widgets column, so select the widget can click on Enable button
  
  


• Once you enable the widget it gets displayed under the Enabled Widgets column like this
  
  


• Now if you go to HomePage and click on the HomePage you can see the HelloConnections widget in the available widget list click on add button to add to the page
  
  

You will notice that the widget is added to page and the view mode markup is displayed like this