You just gotta love Notes backward compatibility

While making some small amendments to an application that required a controlled access section, I noticed this compatibility functionality for Notes R3.
How is that for maintaining backward compatibility !!

Working my way through Declan Lynch's XPages series

I am working my way through Declan Lynch's tutorial series on XPages, everytime I have a couple of minutes to spare.
I am about to start with part 26. Declan has done a great job in providing us with a very comprehensible step-by-step guide to create a proper working application in XPages. The steps are very well divided into 10-15 minutes pieces of work, which make it very managable (even in between tasks at work).

So far I find the stuff provided very usefull and a realistic scenario. In fact in paralell to working on series' phonebook app I am also trying to build a XPages frontend to an existing (similar) application inside the company. So far so good.

Great job Declan! Thanx.

I Do Poken, do you ?

Last thursday (5 march 2009) I went to the LCTY session organised by Eniac in Zaltbommel.
Guest speaker was Douglas Spencer, who did an awesome job of summarising the Lotusphere Opening General Session in 1 hour. I also watched the OGS via the webcast on the IBM site and Douglas did an outstanding job picking out the highlights. What I found the most astonishing was the Sametime United Telephony part. "On the phone" awareness in sametime and the ability to continue the same conversation from one phone to another, just great. Not that I see that happening at my present employer soon :-( .
For the full Lotusphere 2009 OGS webcast, click here.

As an extra Eniac organised two breakout session for the afternoon, I went to the Lotus Mashups session. They did a good job of explaining the purpose and use of mashups for temporary situational apps, combining information from several (disconnected) sources into new information.
I like to draw an analogy with the query tools and web 2.0. I think that is what it really is, query tools 2.0.

The sessions ended with a Poken as gift. Poken is the new thing in social networking and provides a way to easily connect digitally with people in all the social networks they want to share. You just need to let your Poken touch (high four) with another persons Poken for a couple of seconds and you have exchanged your Poken (business) card. Back at your computer just plug the Poken in an USB port and connect to the Poken site to upload your new friends Poken cards. Through the icons at the bottom of the Poken cards you can see what other social networks your friends are active on.
Pity Eniac did not take the opportunity to preload the Pokens with the Poken cards for some of the key Eniac employees.

Anyway, I have activated the Poken and will carry it with me at all times. So when you see me and you have a Poken too, lets do a high four.

More information on Poken can be found at www.DoYouPoken.com.

Eniac, thanx for organising this event.

Getting used to Lotus Domino Designer 8.5, findings so far

Shortly after the announcement I upgraded to the Notes 8.5 platform, including the new Eclipse based designer client.
And of course it is looking very familiar as we Notes developers were already using the very similar and good working IDE. But it is now based on Eclipse which makes adding plugins and tools easier and is close to the RAD client we are using for our Websphere Commerce development.
But there are definitely some things that need getting used to. I guess it is mostly getting used to a new way of working, but there are also some issues.
I thought I'd share my initial findings and I am curious what others think.

1. The designer client takes more time to start, as does opening the first pane of design elements (enough to get the first cup of coffee of the day). After that it appears to be performing like the "old" client.
2. Databases are now called applications.
3. The old bookmarked applications stored in the previous designer client are not converted to the new eclipse workspace.
   
4. The application icons do not show until an application is opened/expanded. This make visually browsing for the application that needs some changes a lot harder.
5. The folders are replaced by working sets. Drag and drop of applications from one working set to another (like with the "old" folders) is not possible. This needs to be done opening the working set dialog box and consciously checking and unchecking applications (again by name, not icon).
   
6. The extra available eclipse views for specific tasks are helpfull and can be dragged to a suitable size and place..
7. The old familiar properties box comes up for "old" design elements and the new one at the bottom seem to be for the new design elements like the xpages, although it also shows some properties for the "old" design elements.
8. The lotusscript debugger still opens as a seperate window. I expected this one to be integrated as a seperate pane in the new designer client.

Have a great Lotusphere !!

I will not be attending Lotusphere 2009. But I wish all those lucky people who are going a great time.
I will be watching the blogs for the stories to tell.

Good old @functions

From time to time we use Notes databases to store documentation for processes and projects. And to avoid that everybody enters information using their own format we ask peolpe to use predefined templates to create unity in the created documentation. Normally these templates would be provided as main documents in the database and the users will copy and paste these template documents.
Now I remembered from way back in Notes 3.3 that I had created a bit of @function code to allow users to pick a template from a list and copy the selected template into the document the user is working on.

This is how the @function code works:

• Let the user pick a template from a list of templates using @Picklist and and categorised view
• Open the selected template document
• Navigate to he body field
• Select all the content in this field
• Copy the selected content to the clipboard
• Close the selected template document (and view)
  
• Paste the selected content at the location of the cursor
  

Downside of this method is the screen seems to flicker as the function opens a view, a document, selects the body, closes the document, closes the view and pastes the content, but with the current workstation speeds it is hardly noticable.
How about that in the age of xpages, sidebar widgets and composite applications.

For those interested I have made a database available for download. The function is available on the main topic, place the cursor in the body field and click on the "import template" button.
CopyAndPasteTemplate.zip

Note: the download is stored on Dennis' blog, as I cannot find an option in Blogger to provide downloads of type zip.

Upgraded to designer 8.5 - something is missing

Up until now I have stuck to doing development in the R7 designer client. But now that we have planned to start upgrading to 8.5 in Q2 of this year I could no longer resist and installed the new domino designer 8.5 via the upgrade installer C1SQ5EN.exe (all clients, thanx Dennis for the explanation list of cryptic installernames).

But on opening the designer client, to my suprise the bookmarks I so carefully created and grouped over the years are not showing.
Searching help and the web has not provided an answer. So I am posting it to the community.

Does anyone have an idea how to import / restore the "old" bookmarks ?