Interop.io & io.Connect Glossary

io.Connect Desktop
1

If you are new to io.Connect and the interop.io ecosystem you may wonder what some of the acronyms and nicknames you see are. I tried to put together a glossary to help:

Acronyms & shorthand

  • IOCD - shorthand for io.Connect Desktop.

  • IOCB - shorthand for io.Connect Browser.

  • ENV‑REG - The “environment‑region” folder name in user paths (e.g., UserData/DEMO-INTEROP.IO). You’ll see it in examples like .../UserData/<ENV>-<REG>/apps.

  • BBG - Bloomberg adapter namespace (e.g., T42.BBG.*); shows up in method names if you use the Bloomberg integration.

  • FDC3 - an open interoperability standard for financial services, building apps for the trading/analysis desktop. It’s created and governed in FINOS and promoted across the industry as a common way for apps to discover each other

  • GD - Legacy shorthand for Glue Desktop / Glue42 Desktop (today: io.Connect Desktop). Can still appear in method namespaces (T42.GD.*), query params (?gd), or some repo names. Glue42 was the previous name of the product that evolved into io.Connect Desktop after the merge with Finsemble, that formed interop.io in 2023.

  • T42 - Legacy namespace/prefix you can see in method names, logs, etc. It comes from the name Tick42 (the company behind Glue42) that merged with Finsemble.

  • FSBL (Finsemble) - The other company that merged into interop.io. Finsemble was (and is) also the name of the company’s desktop interop platform.

Platform building blocks

  • Interop‑enable an app - To “interop-enable” an app means wiring it to io.Connect so that the latter can launch/manage it and the app can talk to others. Give it the client library (auto-inject via system.json → windows.autoInjectAPI or import) and initialize to get the io object. This enables apps to discover each other, share context, and hand off tasks without brittle one-offs or copy/paste, so workflows move smoothly across windows.

  • App Stores - Where app definitions come from. Can be local folders, REST, or io.Manager. IOCD loads all defined stores on startup.

  • io.Connect Gateway - The message bus that carries inter‑app and app↔platform messages (WebSockets by default).

  • App Definition - A JSON file that describes an app (name, type like window/exe/node, URL or path, sizing, etc.). Place it under the user apps folder to make the app launchable from IOCD.

  • Launchpad / Launcher - The built‑in UI navigation sidebar that lists apps and lets users start them.

  • Application Adapters - Prebuilt integrations (Excel, Outlook, Bloomberg, Salesforce, etc.) that expose those apps’ actions to your interop‑enabled apps.

  • IODesktop() - The JavaScript factory function you call to initialize the io.Connect API inside an app. Returns the io object.

  • Polyfill (Finsemble) - a compatibility layer in the Finsemble Seed that lets Finsemble projects run on io.Connect Desktop (IOCD)

If there’s anything I’ve missed, please post below so we can add it.

1 Like