Can I hide a widget thumbnail?

You can control whether a widget's thumbnail is visible in the My Widgets sidebar panel.

About this task

  • As an administrator or power user you can add a hideThumbnail=true or hideThumbnail=false parameter to the palleteItem element in the widget's XML.
  • Users can hide any visible widget thumbnail using a new Hide user interface option.
  • Users can un-hide all hidden widget thumbnails using a new Show All user interface option.
For administrators and who wish to prevent users from displaying a hidden widget thumbnail in their My Widgets sidebar panel, you can add the following statement to the user's plugin_customization.ini file:
com.ibm.rcp.toolbox/allowUserShowHideWidgets=false

Administrator or power user option

About this task

An administrator or power user can create a widget, export it, and manually add a flag that controls whether the widget is hidden on the My Widgets sidebar panel.

If you install a widget that has been modified in this way, the widget will not be visible on the My Widgets sidebar panel. A Show All option becomes enabled.

The attribute that controls this feature is hideThumbnail and is set in the widget's .XML.

hideThumbnail=true -- Hides the widget thumbnail in the My Widgets sidebar panel

hideThumbnail=false -- (default) Displays the widget thumbnail in the My Widgets sidebar panel

An example is as follows:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<webcontextConfiguration version="1.1">
<palleteItem hideThumbnail="true" id="Test1" providerId="com.ibm.rcp.toolbox.prov.provider.ToolboxProvisioning" title="Test1" url="file:///c:/provUpdateSite2/site.xml">	<data>   		
<installManifest>
<![CDATA[
<install>
<installfeature id="com.ibm.widget.prov.test1.feature" name="my plug-in" version="1.0.0" description="widget for pushing my plugin-in"/>
<requirements>
<feature id="com.ibm.widget.prov.test1.feature" match="perfect" version="1.0.0" /> 
</requirements>
</install>
]]>
</installManifest>
</data>
</palleteItem>
</webcontextConfiguration>
You can disable display of the client's Hide and Show All options by adding the com.ibm.rcp.toolbox/allowUserShowHideWidgets preference to the user's plugin_customization.ini file.

com.ibm.rcp.toolbox/allowUserShowHideWidgets=false -- Prevents display of Hide and Show All options

com.ibm.rcp.toolbox/allowUserShowHideWidgets=true -- (default) Allows display of Hide and Show All options

User option

About this task

A user can hide or display a widget thumbnail as follows:

To hide a widget thumbnail from the My Widgets sidebar panel, right-click the thumbnail and select Hide from the resultant menu.

To display all hidden widget thumbnails, select Show > Show All from the My Widgets options menu.

Note: If the Hide or Show All options are not visible, your administrator has likely prevented their use.