New Zimlet Development Documentation Available!

This is one people have asked about a lot. Starting with Zimbra Collaboration Suite 6.0, we will be providing a formal Zimlet Developer’s Guide and API Reference. The goal of this documentation is to make it easier for partners and customers to build Zimlets and to integrate with the Zimbra platform. As we’ve built this documentation, here are some of our guiding principles:

• Easy to find. Make the documentation online and “wiki-based” for easy access.
• Reduce “wondering” between versions. Maintain documentation with each ZCS release so when new major versions of ZCS are delivered (and changes are made to the APIs), people on older ZCS releases can still access their “version specific” documentation.
• Lower overhead to get started. Make developing Zimlets possible without having to download the entire product source. Of course, product source will still be available for those who want it but we want to make even advanced Zimlet tasks (for example, compiling templates) possible without needed the entire source tree.

Here are links to the new developer documentation:

Zimlet Developer’s Guide for ZCS 6.0
http://wiki.zimbra.com/index.php?title=ZCS_6.0:Zimlet_Developers_Guide:Introduction

Zimlet Definition File Reference for ZCS 6.0
http://wiki.zimbra.com/index.php?title=ZCS_6.0:Zimlet_Developers_Guide:Zimlet_Definition_File_Reference

Zimlet JavaScript API Reference for ZCS 6.0
http://files.zimbra.com/docs/zimlet/zcs/6.0/jsdocs/index.html

These are living documents and we will be adding content & more information over the coming weeks. With this first-launch, we are looking for your thoughts on the best ways you enjoy learning and making use of the new material, as well as ideas and suggestions about Zimlet topics that you think we should cover. Please provide feedback and comments in the forums at:

http://www.zimbra.com/forums/zimlets/35951-new-zimlet-developer-documentation-zcs-6-0-available.html

Pay attention to the extra bar at the top to navigate around the wiki pages:

Whether you just want dozens of examples, a list of all the elements in the Zimlet Definition File…or want to dive into advanced topics like Templates and Portals, we plan to leave no stone unturned.

Happy coding!