Actions Framework Overview

The Actions Framework governs all available actions in the
vSphere Client
. All actions in the Actions Framework are organized into groups called action sets. When you create action extensions to the
vSphere Client
, you must define one or more action sets in the Actions Framework.
Each action in the Actions Framework is associated with one or more specific types of objects in the vSphere environment. Actions associated with virtual machines, for example, are available only when the user has selected a virtual machine object. Available actions are displayed in the actions drop-down menu at the top of the main workspace, or in a context menu when the user right-clicks on an object in the object navigator.

Action Controllers for HTML Extensions

In the plug-in module that contains your action extension, you must create a Java actions controller. The controller runs on the application server and acts as a dispatcher for commands. The HTML UI component sends commands to the actions controller using a REST API, and the controller routes the commands to services that implement the actions.