New release of Bildr

Today I have launched a new release for Bildr, an application to distribute images on the web. I have started this project mainly to have an on-going learning experience with web development and XPages in general.

For this release I focused a lot on improving the user-interface, so I watched closely at the oneUI specifications. I find the oneUI user interface contributing to deliver more consistent and professional applications, although I do not agree with all the specifications and sometimes experience conflicts when developing.

What I find lacking in the examples pages are for example Form design. But for this release of Bildr it has been a good experience working more closely with the oneUI theme.

Under the hood I removed the view data tables and changed them for repeat controls. The views in Notes are now also much more light-weighted.

I also added some new features like filter options and user profiles. This user profile will also be used for future web-enabling the upload of pictures. For now you can at least delete documents from your profile.

 

Help wanted

An application is never finished I guess but for now I will monitor the application and see what support questions come in. Next release will probably be in December.

I also posted some help wanted requests on OpenNTF, feel free to take a look at them and see if you can help me.

So download the app and install it or open it in Designer if you want to learn XPages. See ya!

 

Bildr update – Now available on OpenNTF

I have just released a new version of Bildr on OpenNTF.

The web interface is re-written using XPages technology. It gave me a good introduction of the obvious capabilities of the technology. Too bad for this version I did not manage to offer a complete of the previous version. So that you may expect in another release.

General impression of XPages

Development of basic things (view containers, custom controls, making properties dynamic)  goes quiet fast. The non basic development can be a pain in the ass or time consuming.

While this application does not benefit the dynamic interfaces so much I can imagine myself the advantages above the previous development methods in Domino. But it is clear: there is no way back to developing pre-xpages in the future. The possibilities there are just too limited.

I got a lot of help from everyone writing about xpages examples in the blogosphere, so thank you for that! What I am hoping is that IBM extends the Designer Help database with more examples of the @functions and so on…

Bildr – A photo sharing project

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)