New release of Bildr released =)

Today I released a new version of my xpages playground aka Bildr (4.01 so never mind the bugs) on OpenNTF (link).

Beside the following ‘small media campaign’:

 

and this blog-post we’ll see how people pick up this new release.

What’s new?

Extension Library

Personally I have been working quite a while now with the extension library, and now I have implemented this more in the application:

• Application Layout control
• Data view control
• Widget control
• Outline control
• Mobile controls
• …

 

Mobile interface

This is not the first Notes application I have mobilized. Maybe the ‘modular’ approach makes the mobile interface of interest for other developers.

The applications contains a subset of reusable custom controls to setup quickly a mobile interface for ANY Notes database.

I assume that mostly you want to display View information in a mobile app, so custom controls for a flat and a categorized view enable you to quickly mobile multiple Notes views.

Also the mobile interface contains custom controls to define splashscreen, bookmark icon and more stuff like that to build a more complete mobile Notes app.

Less design elements

Less is more we assume. Especially if you have an application that was built over more than one version of Notes (8.0x, 8.51, 8.53) and where more one developer has contributed, your design tend to become a bit inefficient. Introducing the Extension Library also made it possible to reduce the number of design elements by using ‘out of the box’ controls e.g. tag cloud control and  layout control.

OneUI v2.1

OneUI is dead, long live the new oneUI! (probably we will shout this out loud soon again).

 

Upgrade or start from scratch?

If you are a current user of Bildr I would not dare to simple upgrade the application design. You can try, I haven’t (due to lack of time).

Start with a new DB from scratch will work fine =)

Which enhancements to expect?

In the next release I would like to add some missing functionality e.g. rating, geolocation with Google maps v3. If possible I would like to further eliminate the number of design elements, remove old code.

Ideas can be posted here:

http://openntf.org/ideajam/ideajam.nsf/ProductByAreaMostRecent?openview&restricttocategory=Bildr

For now I will relax the next couple of evenings and work on my real-world social life =)

Presentations from EntwicklerCamp 2012 available

I have experienced that IBM has some problems linking to their material that lies out in the open, but I hope this post does not cause the same kind of trouble. I also know the solution in case needed: contact the content publisher to remove the files…

Nevertheless Entwicklercamp sounds like a excellent technical conference and for those of you who have no problems with reading a bit of German (not all presentations are in German, by the way) here are some interesting presentations:

Track 0 – Session 1 – Eröffnungssession – Rudi Knegt (link)

Track 0 – Session 2 – Opening Session – Phil Riand (link)

Track 0 – Session 3 – Speeddemoing – Diverse (link)

Track 0 – Session 5 – Closing Session: Ein (grausamer Selbstversuch) – 5 Monate ohne Lotus Notes – Werner Motzet

“Ein (Arbeits-)Leben ohne Lotus Notes” / “Ein (grausamer Selbstversuch) – 4 Monate ohne Lotus Notes” (link)

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Track 1 – Session 1 – XPages – 1 – Grundlagen – Ulrich Krause (link)

Track 1 – Session 2 – XPages: Practical Ideas for Converting Existing Notes Applications – Matthew Fyleman (link)

Track 1 – Session 3 – XPages – 3 – eXtension Library – Viagra für die XPages – Ulrich Krause (link)

Track 1 – Session 4 – XPages – 4 – IBM oneUI + MyTheme = myUI – Manfred Meise (link)

Track 1 – Session 5 – XPages – 5 – Wie mache ich meine XPages Applikationen ‘social’? – Niklas Heidloff (link)

Track 1 – Session 6 – XPages – 6 – XPages Extensibility API – going deep – René Winkelmeyer (link)

Track 1 – Session 7 – Zähme den Tiger – Java-Entwicklung in Notes und Domino – Bernd Hort (link)

Track 1 – Session 8 – XPages – 8 – Nutzung des Dojo Toolkits zur Optimierung bestehender Notes-Web-Anwendungen – Matthias Bierl (link)

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Track 2 – Session 1 – Extending Lotus Notes – Widgets, Livetext, Plugins – Detlev Poettgen (link)

Track 2 – Session 3 – Agile Softwareentwicklung mit LotusNotes – Werner Motzet (link)

Track 2 – Session 4 – Ich weiß was du diesen Sommer tun wirst – Gregory Engels (link)

Track 2 – Session 5 – Erfolgreiches Projektmanagement mit agilen Methoden – Christian Habermueller (link)

Track 2 – Session 6 – Make the impossible possible with XPages – Frank van der Linden (link)

Track 2 – Session 7 – Connect your Lotus Notes app to the Activity Stream with XPages – Frank van der Linden (link)

Track 2 – Session 8 – Keine Angst vor großen Tieren – Peter Klett (link)

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Track 3 – Session 1 – Rediscover the Power of LotusScript in Notes/Domino 8.5 – Rocky Oliver (link)

Track 3 – Session 2 – Die besten Open Source Projekte von OpenNTF – Niklas Heidloff (link)

Track 3 – Session 3 – Richtig(er) Kommunizieren! – Wie bringe ich meine Botschaft rüber? – Jürgen Kunert (link)

Track 3 – Session 4 – XPages und Domino App Dev Erweiterungen – Phil Riand und Niklas Heidloff (link)

Track 3 – Session 5 – Turbocharge Development in Notes/Domino 8.5 – with @Formulas! – Rocky Oliver (link)

Track 3 – Session 6 – Mobiler Zugriff auf Notes Daten – Matthias Schneider (link)

Track 3 – Session 7 – Es gibt keine Ausreden mehr – eGit im DDE : Versionskontrolle leicht gemacht – Holger Chudek (link)

Track 3 – Session 8 – Using the XPages Mobile Controls… and looking at alternatives – Rich Sharpe (link)

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Track 4 – Session 1 – Security in Notes – Manfred Meise (link)

Track 4 – Session 2 – Workflow – Richtig analysieren, dokumentieren und schlüssig hinterfragen – Christian Habermueller (link)

Track 4 – Session 3 – Lotus Protector programmieren – Matthias Schneider (link)

Track 4 – Session 4 – WebServices unter Notes/Domino – Tim Pistor (link)

Track 4 – Session 5 – Hilfe, ich habe geerbt! – Bernhard Köhler (link)

Track 4 – Session 6 – NoSQL-Datenbanken – ein Überblick – Karsten Lehmann (link)

Track 4 – Session 7 – Notes und die Zeit – Bernhard Köhler (link)

Track 4 – Session 8 – Schnittstellendesign mit dem Tivoli Directory Integrator – Am Beispiel SAP – Andreas Artner (link)

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In case you are a bit lazy or dont care about bandwidth: <here> you can find the presentations archived together by track…

There are also some hands-on sessions available:

Hands-On 1 – Javascript – die ersten Schritten – Manuel Nientit (link)

Hands-On 3 – XPages – the first Steps 1 – Howard Greenberg (link)

Hands-On 4 – XPages – the second steps 2 – Howard Greenberg (link)

Hands-On 5 – Signierung und Verteilung von Plugins für den Notes Client – Detlev Poettgen (link)

Hands-On 6 – LotusScript – so einfach geht es los – Peter Klett (link)

Hands-On 7 – Mobiler Zugriff auf Notes Daten – Matthias Schneider (link)

Hands-On 8 – XPages Extensibility API – first steps – René Winkelmeyer (link)

Btw, all links were collected from this source.

How to style a login link (mobile controls)

I posted the following question “How to style a link control in page heading control (mobile)” on the xpages forum and received some guidance (thanx).

After a closer look at the solution in the teamroom template, I was not 100% happy with it. Basically if you will add another Button (or Link) control in the Page Heading control right action facet, there is an overlap. Also the presentation and coloring differs somewhat.

In order to avoid this I modified the following definition in mobile.css:

.mblLoginText a {
display: inline-block;
width: auto;
min-width: 40px;
max-width: 60px;
height: 28px;
margin: 0;
padding: 0 5px;
overflow: hidden;
line-height: 28px;
font-family: inherit;
font-size: 13px;
font-weight: bold;
text-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) 0px -1px 0;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
text-decoration: none;
text-align: center;
white-space: nowrap;
color: #fff;
background: none;
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom,
color-stop(0, #8da3c0),
color-stop(0.5, #5877a2),
color-stop(0.5, #476999),
color-stop(1, #4a6c9b));
-webkit-border-radius: 6px;
border: 1px solid #57606c;
border-right-color:#9cacc0;
border-bottom-color:#4a6c9b;
-webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 0 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, .25), 0 1px 0 rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.25);
}

Here is an example how the Link control is rendered compared with a Button control:

Superfluous Space – Mobile Controls

Today I discovered the cause to a problem I was having with the dataview in a mobile control, and hopefully it will help others.

The dataview control was not rendered properly for a mobile device so the specified target page could not be reached and an error throwed up:

It turned out that the line xsp.theme.mobile.pagePrefix=m_ located the xsp.properties file in the Web Content\WEB-INF folder contained one superfluous space at the end.

Probably sooner or later more people will be facing same errors…