Behavior change of default “flat" Actions menu in web client 5.5 vs. 6.0

[dloverin]

I am trying to understand the behavior of the solutionMenus extension point in vSphere web client 5.5 and 6.0.

I have experimented using the vmactions_ui (..\flex-samples\actions\vmaction-ui) project which is part of the sample provided by the SDK 6.0.

Note: Our plugin is compiled with the 5.5.2 SDK.

When the property condition in the metadata filter defined in the solutionMenus is false, a default “flat” menu ("All <plugin name> Actions") is seen for 6.0 but no menu is shown in the 5.5 web client. There seems to be an inconsistency in the behavior. Is there any work around to prevent the default “flat” menu coming up in 6.0? Is the behavior considered a bug?

A plugin.xml is attached that can reproduce the above issue when used in the vmactions_ui project. The plugin.xml contains a <metadata> filter on the solutionMenus extension point which filters on both object type and property conditions.

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Login to vSphere web client and select VMs and Templates

2. Right click on a VM to view the Actions menu

Observe:

In the web client 5.5

If propertyCondition is not satisfied -> UI does not show any options at all. The menu item is removed.

In the web client 6.0

If propertyCondition is not satisfied -> UI shows "All <plugin name> Actions" and in the sub menu "No options available".

Thanks,

-Darrell

[Peter_Ivanov]

This is not a bug. There are some changes in the actions functionality in the 6.0 release. They are mostly about performance improvements.

UI shows "All <plugin name> Actions" and in the sub menu "No options available"

Due to the performance optimizations the evaluation of the sub-menus is not done until the user actually opens the sub-menu.

[mikemayors]

Is there a workaround to hide the default menu All <plugin name> Actions when there are no sub menus available?

[dloverin]

Thanks for the reply but I don't think this issue is about the performance optimizations in 6.0.

The documentation states: "If you omit to define a solutionMenus extension containing those actions the framework generates a default "flat" menu with all the actions and the title All package-name Actions" (where package-name is the name defined in plugin-package.xml) or All bundle-name Actions when running in dev mode, because no package name is available yet."

I am defining a solutionMenu but since the metadata prevents it from being included the default "All package-name Actions" menu is displayed in 6.0. This is not what I was expecting (the solutionMenu is hidden in 5.5).  If I did not define a solutionMenu then I could understand seeing the default menu.

-Darrell

[laurentsd]

You are right, this looks like a bug that we need to address in the next update release. Unfortunately there is no work-around.