How to create a custom dashlet in Alfresco

On this post, I'll try to put in a simple example on creating a hello dashlet.
I'm using a standalone Alfresco (apache tomcat included).

Step by step on creating dashlet in Alfresco :

1. Create a freemarker template for the dashlet and name it filename.html.ftl (e.g. hello.html.ftl). For freemarker syntax please see http://freemarker.org/. Sample content :
   

<#assign name = person.properties.userName>
Hello ${name}

2. Save the file in tomcat\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco\templates\, you could also a directory inside and put your file in your directory.
3. Create a jsp file that will include the template file created on step 1. The content of the jsp file would be :

<%@ taglib uri="/WEB-INF/repo.tld" prefix="r" %>

<%-- Note that this template is loaded from the classpath --%>
<r:template template="/alfresco/templates/hello.html.ftl">
</r:template>



4. Save the jsp file in tomcat\webapps\alfresco\jsp\dashboards\dashlets.
5. Open web-client-config.xml, you can find it in tomcat\webapps\alfresco\WEB-INF\classes\alfresco.
6. Register the new dashlet, find "dashlets" (without quotes) in web-client-config.xml, add the following configuration :

<dashlet id="hello" label="Hello Dashlet"
     description="My Hello Dashlet"
     jsp="/jsp/dashboards/dashlets/hello.jsp">
</dashlet>

7. To see the new dashlet in action, just restart alfresco, login, configure the dashboard and pick the new dashlet.

That's all the steps for creating a simple dashlet, the key lies on the free marker template (besides the configuration), you could put almost anything over there to render anything you want (of course as long as it's possible :)