All about Lotus Domino Development (AaLDD)

Demo Notes View in Dojo Dijit.Tree

2009-October-8 at 7:58 pm · Filed under XPages ·Tagged dijit.tree, Dojo, partial refresh, XPages

I have been prototyping trying to squeeze a Notes View into the Dojo Tree Dijit, so far so good but what I do not understand is how to invoke a partial refresh to update one or two fields with data from a document in the background?

So I guess my chances will rise if I just post an example database and people could start it to work…

Notes View

What I got so far is the Notes View in the dijit.tree. The data for the store is collected by an Agent will runs through the View using a ViewNavigator. The data is in JSON format including the universalID as UNID.

I have added also an expand and collapse functions.

If you click on an item in the tree the corresponding document will be loaded in the browser.

The code for loading the dijit.tree and opening a underlying document is not so exciting:

<div dojoType=”dojo.data.ItemFileReadStore” url=”../(JSONAgent)?OpenAgent&view=$v-treeview” jsid=”navigatorStore” />
<div dojoType=”dijit.Tree” id=”domJSONTree1″ store=”navigatorStore” labelAttr=”sname”>
<script type=”dojo/method” event=”onClick” args=”id”>
if(id){
window.location=navigatorStore.getValue(id,”unid”)+”?OpenDocument”;
} else{
alert(“No doc found.”);
}
</script>
</div>
</div>

Instructions how to enable everything you can read here.

Partial refresh how-tp?

Instead of loading a complete new document I rather would do a partial refresh. But how? The partial refresh option is not available like for the build-in XPages controls:

Perhaps IBM could extend the controls with some groovy Dojo Dijits?

The onclick event is however available (see code) but how I could initiate there the trigger to trigger another Control that might could do the job is a mystery to me? (like in pre-XPages days you would create a button which invokes an agent and you initiate the buttonvia the _doClick way) You tell me!

For anyone wanting to help here is an upload of an example database so you can work with it… Much appreciated!

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Looking for user manual / documentation IBM Blog template

2009-October-8 at 3:58 pm · Filed under Applications

Hej,

I am wondering if someone took the time for writing a user friendly manual for beginning end-users of the IBM Blog template?

The ‘using this application’ document does not support a good guidance for end-users.

For now I have just made an abstract of what is available in the Notes 8 Client Help.nsf ( Link ) and an abstract from posts on Steve Castledines Blog ( Link ), the last one is more for application administrators or (web) designers.

But in case you have a friendly description of the template including some screen-dumps I would be thankful if you sharing it!

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Now View This!

2009-October-6 at 9:08 pm · Filed under Lotus Domino, Lotus Notes ·Tagged magazine, The View

We are moving from office landscapes so I thought at least to place our The View collection into boxes. I was surprised that I even found the first release of the magazine:

Time goes fast when you are having fun…

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Bildr – A photo sharing project

2009-October-1 at 7:15 am · Filed under Applications, Java, Lotus Domino, Show N Tell Thursday, UI, sntt ·Tagged flickr, gallery, imageflow, images, lightbox, photos, pictures

Bildr is a prototype application that never received enough funding to become a full blown (internal) Notes template. The idea is to offer a place where teams can share high resolution images.

Bild is the Swedish word for photo and Bildr refers ofcourse to Flickr.

Another reason why I stopped prototyping the database is that I started looking at XPages and the limitations I experience with pre-XPages development. To shorten it: it takes just too many design elements to build it in the old-fashioned way to be able to offer a Web 2.5 experience. Maybe after a long break I will move the idea behind the application into an XPages based solution.

For now you can download the application and use it as a start for your development project.

What’s in it?

1. Easy import and thumbnailing of images (Notes client)

Open any of the Picture views and select the New Upload button.

The idea is that you can upload multiple images at once in a new or an existing category. You can add tags and a description to the to be created document(s). New uploads you may want to appear in the ImageFlow gallery in the startpage and you can enable commenting and read restrictions.

When you select the Upload Images action button you can select the pictures you want to upload. The code behind this function is taken from the NSFTools site (I guess). After uploading you can select to include more images or just leave it as it is.

Behind the scenes each picture is included in a Notes document with also a mid-size image and a thumbnail:

For the Notes client that is just it. Nothing more exciting here except some gaps in the completeness of the functionality (hey, I was talking about a prototype).

2. Presentation (Browser)

For the way of presenting different elements I guess I was so bold to use Jake Howlet’s DomBlog Template (for search, calendar, commenting, RSS etc.) which was for a long time a learning application for many Domino developer. I guess if you compare the layout with that of LinkedIn you will see some comparison.

3. Tagcloud (Browser)

For the Tagcloud I got some help.

4. ImageFlow Gallery

5. Lightbox

I guess Lightbox alike functions are almost unthinkable when looking at high resolution images so this I also included when clicking on a mid-size or thumbnail image:

What is it not?

You can not call this app a production ready application. Some things are not in place (like cleaning up categories and corresponding image documents). However it can be a nice starting point for a mature application. Untill now I experienced little or none errors so please give it a try and send me the end result of you modification.

Steal with pride and improve! (11 MB)

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Workflow in Notes applications

2009-September-23 at 10:57 am · Filed under Applications ·Tagged developerWorks, LotusScript, The View, workflow

Something I like about traveling is to be able to spend some time on reading larger documents than a couple of pages. For example publications / articles from The View magazine. This time I had printed out some old skool articles regarding OO development in LotusScript. Good stuff there!

So for another trip I was thinking reading some publications on creating workflow application in Lotus Notes. The results? Hmmm quiet disappointing. You would start to believe Notes is just not build for workflow.

I believe The View sends out a survey every now and then asking what the interest of their audience is but making this more transparent to the outside world via IdeaJam would that not be something for them? Just a thought (could be used also for IBM developerWorks).

In the meantime: If you know a good online source to read some tutorials, hints, tips, examples for creating workflow applications in Lotus Notes don’t hesitate to drop an URL here. Thanks!

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Not so popular on Ideajam

2009-September-7 at 8:45 pm · Filed under Applications, Lotus Notes ·Tagged ideajam

What started as a joke (but with some serious undertone) has resulted in one of the most demoted ideas on Ideajam.

To be honest: how often do you prefer that users would call your work an ‘application’ instead of a ‘database’ ?

For all the ‘purple trousers’ marketeers: Lotus Knows… an application is more than a database.

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Writing Java to build applications using IBM Lotus Domino Designer

2009-September-6 at 8:58 pm · Filed under Java ·Tagged books, Java

On the Lotus part of IBM’s developerWork you can find a clear, simple introduction to Java for LotusScript developers. With Notes 8 available for considerable period would it not be time for a proper book about Domino Development in Java?

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My first experience(s) with Domino Designer 8.5plus

2009-September-6 at 4:50 pm · Filed under Dojo, XPages, development ·Tagged development, Dojo, XPages

I am testing the latest drop-code for Domino Designer 8.5plus and it is my first development experience with XPages. I just thought I will write down my first experiences, maybe it may be useful one time. At first I was not sure enough to publish this, but it was announced that design partners may write about the design program I fell more confident to do so. For now working with XPages can not be described as love on first sight.

First impression

Coming from a generation of Notes developers prior to 4.5 this version of Designer impresses me most. It makes Notes 5 as ’super human software’ a joke. The other releases 6 and 7 where not spectacular, you just saw Notes getting behind other development platforms.

So 8.5plus gives a refreshment and hope for the future.

My experiences

With high expectations come also delusions.

As learning example I use a workshop designing in XPages by Emvege and Declan Lynch lines of articles how to create a basic XPages based application. I also followed the short tutorial in the Designer Help for as long at that one is helpful. Their is definitely a need for adequate developer’s tutorials IBM, you can’t release a new way of developing without providing proper educational material. The Developers Help is just not supportive enough.

Application (database) properties

Much better! The prior properties box for database was difficult to read. Too bad that text / labels can not be copied as text to the clipboard.

DIVs are poorly visualized

In Declan’s tutorial he uses DIV’s to position blocks of data. When editing the XPage in Designer the present of DIV’s are seen when looking at the source code. Some nice mouse-over with dotted lines would make this more clear.

Okej this gets reduced when you place your DIV’s in custom controls.

Line numbering and being able to collapse blocks of code are nice new add-ons.

Source code view

Oh boy your XPages are a mess when you view the source code. Some people like to indent their code, since they know someone after them are going to give support on the applications. Indenting the source code is a disaster. Tab forward is doable for multiple lines of code but tab backwards? I wonder how the code for IBM templates will look like… Please take a look to example at good WYSIWYG editors where you can indent blocks of text via buttons.

I guess no-one wants to be hand-over unreadable messy-spreaded code, do you?

OneUI Theme

I guess you have to do your homework a bit for understanding the oneUI theme (or other defaut themes). When I tried to apply some common styles from that theme on elements on my XPage I got some unwanted results. This forces me to go back to my common CSS knowledge and not able to exploit the features in the oneUI theme. Does anyone know a good description for all the styleClasses?

Dojo

Dojo is still a mystic for me, I have worked a lot with Prototype and Scriptaculous before, but basic knowledge of Dojo seems to be necessary if you want to go beyond basic XPage development. New courses seem to become available but in these low economic times budgets are frozen. Okej for now I could do with a good book on Dojo.

Performance

I do not know what your experiences are but XPages are far from fast. Just put in a rich text field and see how many files are being called.

Advanced programming

From moving to a senior Domino programmer into a novice XPage developer feels a bit awkward. Some goals you want to achieve are so basic knowledge in previous Domino development. In XPages I find it hard to find a way to solve the question. I guess my more novice co-workers will find it even hard to understand how they must develop in XPages. Best practices, tutorials that have broad range of topics and go beyond using the default usages of core controls are rare. So no head-starts here.

I guess I am not alone in this area, so maybe an official IBM place where you can post your question and get some leads how to solve you problem would be a winner for most developers. I guess for now the 8.5 forum is that place to be. We all know that that place has never won a price for usability (sigh).

Road ahead

I guess finally we will come to a point where we release our first XPage based application and where we are proud of. For now we are far from that. Luckily the winter starts early in Sweden and it will be long so we have a lot of time to be inside and read and study.

In the meantime I am just saving all your XPages blog-posts in a Notes database so I can use that as a reference when my colleagues start developing in XPages. “Good practice does follow” so please keep contributing your findings via blogs…

Disclaimer

IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and Lotus Notes Traveler 8.5.1 is prerelease code and there are no guarantees from IBM that the functionality presented or discussed will be in the final shipping product.

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How to initiate a partial refresh from a dijit.tree?

2009-September-3 at 5:01 pm · Filed under Dojo, XPages

On an XPage I have a dojo.dijitree module which uses a Notes View as the datastore.

I have the universal ID of the referring document available for each item in my tree widget.

What I would like to do know is when some clicks on an item that a part of the content on the XPage gets refreshed with a part (data field) of the referring document. But I am not sure how to do this.

The only thing I have is an onclick event on my tree-item.

When I have have a button with the partical refresh enabled it says:

<xp:eventHandler event=”onclick” submit=”true” refreshMode=”partial” refreshId=”PaneToRefresh”>

Then I can place an server side action like:

<xp:this.action>
<xp:executeScript>
<xp:this.script><![CDATA[#{javascript:alert("hi");}]]></xp:this.script>
</xp:executeScript>
</xp:this.action>

If I place this action under my script I get the problem indication:

The markup tag script can only contain controls and markup tags.

So if you have a clue how to place a partial refresh under a ‘normal’ script that collects data from a document somewhere else then I would be greatful to hear it from you…

Cheers

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UI Example LN application

2009-August-29 at 1:57 pm · Filed under Applications, Frameset, UI ·Tagged Frameset, preview pane, UI

Even though Notes 8.5.1 can be expected soon reality learns us however that a lot of users are still on versions 7 or even 6. Ofcourse you could use the limitations in the UI as an argument to force them to upgrade to newer versions of Notes, but then still a lot would run the basic client, not the standard one, so nice looking Java Views are still a long way to go.

I wrote before something about UI’s in Lotus Notes but now I was thinking about adding an example so those who are interested can test it and give feedback or use it for their projects. Whatever.

Here is the link to the download. Below you can find some snapshots of the UI: