Software Development at IBM/Lotus
Posted by Bob Balfe on February 8, 2010 under help, lotus | 
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In case you have not seen this entry (like me) on the Lotus Notes and Domino Wiki, there is an article that explains how to add an iWidget to an XPage application.
Posted by Bob Balfe on February 4, 2010 under lotus | 4 Comments to Read
Unfortunately I have family that uses Lotus Notes and because they know I work for Lotus they think I am their personal technical support. Specifically my cousin has been complaining about this feature for years so I wanted to see who else thinks this would be a good idea. The behavior is, once you do a spell check, save the email as draft and go back to that email later you should not have to re-check the words you already have signed off on.
Loading ...Posted by Bob Balfe on February 3, 2010 under books | Be the First to Comment
Book: IBM Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1, The Upgraders Guide.
I will start by saying this book is a good resource for anyone wanting to know what features are in Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1. The book pretty much covers most areas you would expect in Lotus Notes and is a great overall summary with many examples. I really love the format of the book, it was very easy to follow, very well written, and easy to read. I loved the appendix! The different chapters about add-on products was a great benefit. There were at times I felt like I read some things in one chapter and almost the same thing in another chapter with little value added. I really wish there was more around development techniques and best practices and in general I would have preferred a little more depth in some areas. For instance, there was a lot of material about Composite Applications but most of the information was based on 8.0.x stuff.
There is also a free chapter you can preview: Chapter 8 - which is an extracted Chapter that anyone can check out here, it covers a lot of information and should be quite useful for developers.
Ok, here is my constructive feedback. I will first say that the product documentation is something that needs to be addressed and I can see why many of these areas were not covered, but if you follow the yellowverse you will see the many blogs from IBMer’s, partners, and customers talking about these topics. Since this is an “upgraders guide” it was difficult for me to figure out how hard I should judge on some of the areas. The book clearly hits end user, admins, and developers so I took the liberty to just throw it all out there!
End user and Administrative areas:
Managed Settings - using Domino policies you can push down Eclipse plug-in preferences. They definitely should have mentioned this or walked through the policy screen like they did the Widget policies.
LiveText, Toolbox, and Widgets - arguably one of the most popular areas of the 8.x release and I see a small mention of it in this book. This probably deserves its own chapter considering the new options that were added in 8.5.1. Creating your own recognizers is also a popular topic in the forums.
Serviceability - it would have been nice if the book included a chapter on serviceability. For instance, what the directory structures are, where to find logs, how to look at and evaluate the output from the IBM support assistant. In my experience this stuff is very valuable to companies and admins supporting a rich client.
Developer areas: being a developer myself I would have wanted to get some detailed information about the following areas. It looks like the title of the book was changed from 8.5 to 8.5.1 because the developer chapter only talks about 8.5 and really the content is based on 8.0. So I would update this chapter in a revision to include some of the 8.5.1 enhancements.
XPages - even though this could be an entire book on its own, I think it warranted at least its own chapter. With the introduction to XPages on the client in 8.5.1 this should have been clearly highlighted! You will have to settle for the yellowverse, product documentation and the Designer Wiki.
Eclipse plug-in development - It would have been nice to have a chapter to primer the Eclipse/Java developers - or the want-to-be’s. plugins, Java UI, extensions. On Page 151, the screen shot not the CAE Palette in 8.5.1. It looks like a palette from 8.0 with all of the views in the system loaded into it.
Composite applications - None of the following was mentioned in the book: Container framework, Containers (Document and View, HOD, Symphony, Web), NSF Update Site.NTF, Side bar control. I recommend hitting the Composite Application Wiki, Lotus Expeditor Wiki, and Designer Wiki for these areas.
Lotus Symphony - even though Symphony could be its own book. It would have been nice to see integration with Composite Applications or how to extend Symphony with Eclipse and the JUNO API’s.
Lotus Expeditor - it would have been nice if they mentioned how Portal can manage composite applications for role based application support and also explain the value-add over base Eclipse.
Lastly, for many of the areas I mention about Composite Applications you can get it from the CA Wiki: What’s new in Lotus Notes 8.5.1 & Expeditor 6.2.1. The Domino Designer wiki is filled with XPage material - not too mention many of the business partner bloggers constantly write about XPages.
Also, this review and opinion is my own personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of my employer or anyone else.
Posted by Bob Balfe on February 1, 2010 under info, lotus | Be the First to Comment
There is an online conference on February 10th through the 12th (next week!). It only costs $300 and the all day sessions are available after the three day event. Could this be the Lotusphere format of the future???
Posted by Bob Balfe on under eclipse, info, lotus | 4 Comments to Read
At the Meet the Developers session someone asked why there isn’t charting tools “free” in the Notes client. There actually is, as I have demonstrated integration with Notes views and Symphony in the past (video 1, video 2, video 3), however, there have recently been a lot of up-take using XPages and Dojo charting. Check out the two postings by Thomas Adrian:
Mix a Lotus Notes view and an xPage Chart in a Composite Application
Dojo Charts in xPages in a Composite Application
Paul Withers also posted a series of articles that you can check out to learn how to use Dojox:
Dojox Charting Tutorial - Part One: Background and Generic Code
Dojox Charting Tutorial - Part Two: Creating Series and Generating the Pie Chart
Dojox Charting Tutorial - Part Three: Column and Bar Charts
Dojox Charting Tutorial - Part Four: Line Chart Via Javascript
A third option, because Lotus Notes is Eclipse based, you can also use BIRT (Business Intelligence Reporting Tool).
In short, it looks like you have a few options to get free charting in Lotus Notes. If you do not want to use Symphony, then XPages, Composite Applications, Dojo, or BIRT are alternatives.
Posted by Bob Balfe on under computers | 2 Comments to Read
Is anyone using JQuery?
Total Voters: 39
Loading ...Posted by Bob Balfe on January 26, 2010 under info, lotus | Be the First to Comment
This is a great article to start learning about Web 2.0 aggregation and interoperability between iWidget technology and Open Social gadgets.