Niklas Heidloff writes in this blog about different topics related to application development in Lotus Notes/Domino and Expeditor. http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/ en-us Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:27:14 -0400 Tue, 13 Jul 2010 03:27:14 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/quick-tip-prereq-to-run-xpages-on-blackberry Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/quick-tip-prereq-to-run-xpages-on-blackberry?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/quick-tip-prereq-to-run-xpages-on-blackberry
Blackberry supports also the viewport meta tag - see here.

However there are some things you need to know:

1. Spaces are not allowed



2. The meta tag has to be under the header tag. This can be done now in Lotus Domino 8.5.2 code drop 4.



More to come soon on http://mobilecontrols.openntf.org. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/quick-tip-prereq-to-run-xpages-on-blackberry http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/quick-tip-prereq-to-run-xpages-on-blackberry?opendocument&comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:51:08 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/sample-composite-application-using-xpages-in-lotus-notes-8.5.1 Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/sample-composite-application-using-xpages-in-lotus-notes-8.5.1?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/sample-composite-application-using-xpages-in-lotus-notes-8.5.1

As you might know there is a sample application (the extended discussion template) available on OpenNTF (download here) with significant improvements to the rich client user experience. I've blogged a couple of times about these UX improvements on OpenNTF.org. See here for a demo. Today I describe more of the used technology.

The main goal of the project is to provide a better discussion template. The main goal is not to use certain technologies to push these technologies or to use artifactual scenarios to showcase new features. We've done some evaluations and here is what we've planned to do. The target platform is Notes/Domino 8.5.1.


Web UI
For the web user interface of the discussion template we use XPages for everything.

This was an obvious choice given all the nice new capabilities XPages provide.


Rich Client UI
For the rich client user interface of the discussion template we use a combination of classic Notes app dev, composite applications and XPages.

We use the Java Views running inside a composite application for the entry page. The main reason is that we wanted to provide a consistent user interface to other Notes 8 style applications like mail. The other reason is that we wanted the best possible user experience for view navigation and rich text editing that is available right now with 8.5.1.

From this first page you can launch other 'cloned' pages by doubleclicking the view entries. I've used a technique that my old team implemented when I worked on composite applications - see here.

The second page is another composite application page with these components:


These components are wired:
1. When the response document is loaded it passes the necessary information to the thread viewer.
2. The response doc also determines the parent document that is displayed at the bottom.
3. When you click on a label in the thread viewer the 'previewed' doc at the bottom is changed.
4. When you click on icon in the thread viewer (not doubleclick as picture indicates) the document is launched in it's own tab.


The thread viewer is an XPage because it allows maximal flexibility in terms of user interface design. Also the alternative to use an embedded view didn't work since it couldn't display an entry in the thread viewer for the new document before the document was saved. However this is a key scenario for discussions that users want to see where in the hierarchy their document will show up.
XPages in 8.5.1 can participate in property broker via the new design element 'Components':


The main area of the page uses the new 8.5.1 Notes Document container to display a document and to pass via landmarks data to other components.


The component at the bottom is a Notes component to display a certain Notes document. It uses a nice trick to do this. The frameset has one invisible frame with Notes actions that are triggered via property broker. These actions store the to be displayed Notes URL in a Notes environment variable from which the second visible frame reads this information and displays the right Notes document. The main reason why I haven't used the Notes Document Container here as well was that I needed a way not only to display a Notes document in this rectangle but also to launch a Notes document in it's on tab when clicking (one click, not doubleclick as in picture above) the icon next to the label in the thread viewer.


Rich Client Extensions
For rich client extensions that will be globally available (not part of the template) I'd like to use Eclipse plugins.

In this blog entry I've describe a little prototype that I want to publish next week. With this tool Notes users can easily copy Notes documents into discussion applications. This tool is not part of one discussion application but always available/visible in the Notes client. So it's rather an extension to Notes than to the discussion template. I've some other tools in mind that could be done in the same way. Stay tuned.

These extensions could theoretically be installed as part of the discussion application by referencing the Eclipse features in the composite application definition. However then we'd also need a separate update site database with the Eclipse features that always would have to be deployed with the discussion application. Since these extensions are not mandatory, but only optional tools I'd like to keep the standard deployment of the discussion template separate from the Eclipse features. For Eclipse features administrators can use the Widget Catalog to push these features down to certain users/Notes clients. The features could also be installed by users easily from a catalog via drag and drop.


I encourage you to try out this sample not only to get an updated rich client user experience for discussion applications but also to learn more about the used technologies. You can download the sample from here.
]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/sample-composite-application-using-xpages-in-lotus-notes-8.5.1 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/sample-composite-application-using-xpages-in-lotus-notes-8.5.1?opendocument&comments Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:08:41 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/10222009030840AMNHEADY.htm Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/10222009030840AMNHEADY.htm?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/10222009030840AMNHEADY.htm See here for fixed version]

As you might know there is a sample application (the extended discussion template) available on OpenNTF (download here) with significant improvements to the rich client user experience. I've blogged a couple of times about these UX improvements on OpenNTF.org. See here for demo. Today I describe more of the used technology.

The main goal of the project is to provide a better discussion template. The main goal is not to use certain technologies to push these technologies or to use artifactual scenarios to showcase new features. We've done some evaluations and here is what we've planned to do. The target platform is Notes/Domino 8.5.1.


Web UI
For the web user interface of the discussion template we use XPages for everything.

This was an obvious choice given all the nice new capabilities XPages provide.


Rich Client UI
For the rich client user interface of the discussion template we use a combination of classic Notes app dev, composite applications and XPages.

We use the Java Views running inside a composite application for the entry page. The main reason is that we wanted to provide a consistent user interface to other Notes 8 style applications like mail. The other reason is that we wanted the best possible user experience for view navigation and rich text editing that is available right now with 8.5.1.

From this first page you can launch other 'cloned' pages by doubleclicking the view entries. I've used a technique that my old team implemented when I worked on composite applications - see here.

The second page is another composite application page with these components:


These components are wired:
1. When the response document is loaded it passes the necessary information to the thread viewer.
2. The response doc also determines the parent document that is displayed at the bottom.
3. When you click on a label in the thread viewer the 'previewed' doc at the bottom is changed.
4. When you click on icon in the thread viewer (not doubleclick as picture indicates) the document is launched in it's own tab.


The thread viewer is an XPage because it allows maximal flexibility in terms of user interface design. Also the alternative to use an embedded view didn't work since it couldn't display an entry in the thread viewer for the new document before the document was saved. However this is a key scenario for discussions that users want to see where in the hierarchy their document will show up.
XPages in 8.5.1 can participate in property broker via the new design element 'Components':


The main area of the page uses the new 8.5.1 Notes Document container to display a document and to pass via landmarks data to other components.


The component at the bottom is a Notes component to display a certain Notes document. It uses a nice trick to do this. The frameset has one invisible frame with Notes actions that are triggered via property broker. These actions store the to be displayed Notes URL in a Notes environment variable from which the second visible frame reads this information and displays the right Notes document. The main reason why I haven't used the Notes Document Container here as well was that I needed a way not only to display a Notes document in this rectangle but also to launch a Notes document in it's on tab when clicking (one click, not doubleclick as in picture above) the icon next to the label in the thread viewer.


Rich Client Extensions
For rich client extensions that will be globally available (not part of the template) I'd like to use Eclipse plugins.

In this blog entry I've describe a little prototype that I want to publish next week. With this tool Notes users can easily copy Notes documents into discussion applications. This tool is not part of one discussion application but always available/visible in the Notes client. So it's rather an extension to Notes than to the discussion template. I've some other tools in mind that could be done in the same way. Stay tuned.

These extensions could theoretically be installed as part of the discussion application by referencing the Eclipse features in the composite application definition. However then we'd also need a separate update site database with the Eclipse features that always would have to be deployed with the discussion application. Since these extensions are not mandatory, but only optional tools I'd like to keep the standard deployment of the discussion template separate from the Eclipse features. For Eclipse features administrators can use the Widget Catalog to push these features down to certain users/Notes clients. The features could also be installed by users easily from a catalog via drag and drop.


I encourage you to try out this sample not only to get an updated rich client user experience for discussion applications but also to learn more about the used technologies. You can download the sample from here. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/10222009030840AMNHEADY.htm http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/10222009030840AMNHEADY.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 04:24:54 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/11.08.2009042454NHEBVM.htm Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/11.08.2009042454NHEBVM.htm?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/11.08.2009042454NHEBVM.htm
During my time at university I worked for a small company in Germany where we implemented Lotus Workflow. After university I started to work for this company full-time since I knew that there is a good chance to be acquired by Lotus/IBM. I did this even though at that time employees didn't get (regular) salary anymore. Four months later I was invited to come to Boston for an interview and some weeks later I moved to Boston.

At this time (1999) Lotus had a big marketing campaign "I am" going on. Part of this campaign was the usage of the character Superman. The slogan "I am Superman and I can do anything" described exactly how I felt at that time. I reached my goal to work for Lotus. Over the weekend I found this old picture that I took in Boston from the marketing material. I think the other side said "I am Superman" but I didn't take a picture of this. This picture is mainly blue but I've learned in the last years that yellow and blue and a great combination.



By writing this I just realized that I had last month my 10th anniversary working for Lotus/IBM. I've really enjoyed this time and I hope for at least 10 more years. I work with great people on innovative and interesting technologies. Also in this big company there are always options for change to try something new.

As always in my career (well in most cases anyway) the current job is always the best one. I work now on Notes/Domino application development and want to make OpenNTF even more successful. I'm looking forward to the next months since there are a couple of interesting things going on. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/11.08.2009042454NHEBVM.htm http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/11.08.2009042454NHEBVM.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 4 Aug 2009 02:51:09 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-project-initiate-im-chats-from-selected-text-in-documents Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-project-initiate-im-chats-from-selected-text-in-documents?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-project-initiate-im-chats-from-selected-text-in-documents OpenNTF blog. I needed a place to store the movie. So I had to post it here and refer from OpenNTF to it]

There is a new project on OpenNTF to initiate IM chats from selected text in Notes documents. Li Juan Gao from the IBM development lab in China has implemented it. As always it can be installed easily via drag and drop from the catalog.

This Eclipse plugin sample code shows how to perform three Sametime actions (1. chat. 2. show business card, 3. add to contacts) for selected text in a document in the Notes client.

Just select either first and last name, a full Notes name or an internet email address in your Notes document, then right click and choose your action in the context menu as shown in the screenshot.





Here is a quick demonstration how this works. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/new-project-initiate-im-chats-from-selected-text-in-documents http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-project-initiate-im-chats-from-selected-text-in-documents?opendocument&comments Tue, 23 Jun 2009 06:10:15 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/openntf-goes-to-... Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/openntf-goes-to-...?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/openntf-goes-to-... here). I'm in a difficult situation since I have no authority to speak on behalf of OpenNTF and as always I cannot speak for IBM in this blog. So I don't know where OpenNTF goes to but here are some personal notes.

I think the key value of OpenNTF is the code, nothing more and nothing less. In the strategy working group teamroom (see here) I've documented that I'd like to open source IBM's discussion template (see here), that OpenNTF should do development contests (see here) and OpenNTF should have new mechanisms to kick of new projects (see here). All of this leads to the creation of new code. Additionally I have 20 new IBM samples (mostly widgets) in the pipeline ready to be published to OpenNTF.

However due to the community feedback OpenNTF got earlier (some people complained that only IBM code is in the catalog) I put the new IBM contributions on hold until the final IP model will have been worked out and everyone necessary will have approved it. Now I'm waiting for non-IBM projects to be added to the catalog (see here) first which is what the SC decided (see here).

The biggest controversy as I see it is the licensing question. Personally I'd like to make code available to as many customers, ISVs and developers as possible under a license that allows maximal reuse including reuse in commercial applications. To me this is what open source is all about. It is not selfish for IBM but it helps all consumers. Especially bigger customers don't allow usage of GPL and certain other licenses.

At the same time OpenNTF has been used by various contributors to promote themselves. I understand this and it is absolutely ok, but it doesn't always fit well together with the goal to make code available for all types of reuse.

When the new OpenNTF Alliance was announced the previous model was not removed. As described in my article (see here) as well as currently documented on openntf.org (see here) contributors can still post projects with whatever license they want in the projects area with no further process involved than previously. The only bad thing is the term 'legacy model' (which wasn't what I came up with). I would rather want to call it open model (vs managed model). In addition to this open model however there is also a catalog of cleared ALv2 projects. For me this is the best of both worlds.

As far as I know the IP working group has made good progress to define these models. Please just be a little bit longer patient. I know it is hard.

As always negative news seem to be the most popular news unfortunately. I'd much rather want to see more constructive feedback. There is more than just IP stuff going on right now. There is a strategy teamroom on OpenNTF (see here) but only four people from the community commented so far. I'd appreciate if people could help in this teamroom to determine the direction of OpenNTF. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/openntf-goes-to-... http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/openntf-goes-to-...?opendocument&comments Wed, 3 Jun 2009 07:07:31 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/looking-for-customers-using-the-notesdomino-discussion-template Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/looking-for-customers-using-the-notesdomino-discussion-template?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/looking-for-customers-using-the-notesdomino-discussion-template blog entry I'd like to extend the discussion template. I'm looking for customers, partners or other developers who are either using discussion databases heavily and/or have extended the discussion template to help prioritizing the new functionality.

As you can read in the previous blog entry we could do exciting things. Better extensibility, modern rich client UI, better feed support and integrations of custom user profiles are some examples for possible new features.

If you are interested to provide feedback, I'd appreciate if you could contact me directly (niklas_heidloff at de dot ibm dot com). ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/looking-for-customers-using-the-notesdomino-discussion-template http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/looking-for-customers-using-the-notesdomino-discussion-template?opendocument&comments Fri, 22 May 2009 01:15:48 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/22.05.2009011548NHE87G.htm Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/22.05.2009011548NHE87G.htm?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/22.05.2009011548NHE87G.htm
The first one is his mail rules sample. It shows how to write an Eclipse plugin to add an icon to the mail Java (CSI) view (e.g. inbox). Then it uses the notes.jar to read and run mail rules. There is an article that describes how this sample has been implemented.

This icon ...

... invokes this dialog:


The second sample is  a composite application component, called the OSGI event admin bridge. It can be used in composite applications to interact with OSGI EventAdmin topics in both directions via declarative wires in the Composite Application Editor. Bob has a video that describes this component. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/22.05.2009011548NHE87G.htm http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/22.05.2009011548NHE87G.htm?opendocument&comments Mon, 18 May 2009 01:32:25 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf facebook widget has been added to OpenNTF (from Rahul Garg).

]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf?opendocument&comments Mon, 18 May 2009 01:32:25 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf facebook widget has been added to OpenNTF (from Rahul Garg).

]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-facebook-widget-on-openntf?opendocument&comments Thu, 14 May 2009 06:43:56 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-twitter-widget-on-openntf Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-twitter-widget-on-openntf?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-twitter-widget-on-openntf twitter widget has been added to OpenNTF (from Mukundan Desikan).



]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/new-twitter-widget-on-openntf http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-twitter-widget-on-openntf?opendocument&comments Thu, 14 May 2009 02:57:04 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/14.05.2009025704NHEA6R.htm Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/14.05.2009025704NHEA6R.htm?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/14.05.2009025704NHEA6R.htm

1. First big(ger) collaborative project
Most of the projects on OpenNTF have only one committer. There are some exceptions where 2-4 people have teamed up. I'd like to identify a new project which will provide a full blown application and I'd like to find multiple people who want to implement it and can dedicate a significant amount of time for let's say six months.

There are various options for what type of new project we could choose. At this point I would like to open source the Notes/Domino discussion template so that the community can extend it and IBM could take it back into the product. I think that this would be a good incentive for people to participate if they know that their code can go into an IBM product.

The discussion template is good candidate for a first IBM template as open source on OpenNTF for various reasons:
-> It is what Notes/Domino is all about. Discussions, responses, documents, people, collaboration. Everyone knows the discussion template and has used it.
-> It is not too complex. Compared to other templates like the teamroom it is rather simple and it has already a XPages web frontend which can be used as starting point.
-> There are many many things we can do to improve it: Here is a top 10 list of ideas how we could extend the discussion template:

1. Virtualization
One of the problems with the discussion template (and Notes databases in general) is that many organizations have restrictions who can create new Notes databases on a server. Unfortunately these guidelines sometimes lead to less usage of Notes/Domino applications in favor of other (not easier to manage) technologies.
The idea is to introduce an easy form of virtual discussion applications within one discussion database. For example departments could have one discussion databases in which all people in the ACL are allowed to create new discussion instances for people in their team. In order to reduce the development effort and not to regress runtime performance there is no instance level security (except 'mark private'). At runtime end users can only see their documents as if they were stored in a separate discussion database.

2. Sticky notes
Often in discussion applications there is a need to always keep certain documents visible. These documents often describe how the discussion application can be used or these documents contain FAQ-type information. With sticky notes documents can be marked as such and always appear at the top of views.

3. Extensibility via a sandbox model
In the mail template there are various ways to extend the typical end user experience. In the last years several 'content spots' have been added (esp. sub-forms) so that customers can add their own extensions without overwriting them the next time databases are updated with a new template version. Similar extension hooks need to be provided for the discussion template.
- It needs to be possible to add fields to the discussion documents (e.g. a custom type field)
- It needs to be possible to add custom views that leverage these custom fields and these views should show up automatically in navigators

4. Customizability
The discussion template supports minimal customizability (declarative changes as opposed to custom development) like the exchange of the company logo. There should be more such options, e.g. whether view entries need to be expandable inline, how large view entries are, whether links to other sites should be displayed in navigator, etc.

5. Custom profiles
The discussion template comes with it's own way to handle user profiles which are stored in the discussion template. In reality most customers have already defined profiles in (many) other places. The discussion template needs to be extended such that it can also handle profiles which are not stored in the same discussion database.

6. Feeds
Feeds should be added so that feed readers or other intelligent tools can display updates in the discussion templates based on the users' interests. This should really replace the 'proprietary' subscriptions feature in the discussion template right now.

7. Redo of the rich client UI
This is an obvious extension since the web UI looks currently better than the rich client UI. But this should be done based on 851 so that the rich client UI could look like the web UI and it only needs to be implemented once.

8. Feature parity between rich client and UI
Certain configuration and administration options are ok to be done only in the rich client. But the core end user functionality should be available for both rich and web client. Here is the list of inconsistencies in 85:
- categories vs tags
- mark private
- favorites
- IM awareness
- doc expirations/archive

9. Advanced search
There should be more options to search content in discussion application and these options should be extensible so that custom fields can be searched.

10. Better documentation
Better developer documentation needs to be written. For example how can a discussion application be embedded in a corporate sites where it doesn't get the full real estate in browsers but has to show up under the corporate navigator.

In order to make this real however we have to do a couple of things first. I've heard from some of our IBM managers that this is a theoretical option. Now we have to make this concrete. Until we'll get these final approvals, there is obviously no commitment and just a personal dream. We also need to define how we can do such a collaborative project on OpenNTF. For example where do we put specifications, reviews, code control, etc. I'd like to find customers or partners who have extended their discussions and would like their changes to contribute to this project.


2. New ways to kick off projects
I would also like to kick off further new projects. Since not everyone can dedicate that much time it would be great to start some smaller projects where again several people collaborate. I've discussed a couple of options with various people. Some of these ideas are not from me, some of these ideas different people came up with at the same time, some of these ideas I don't know anymore where they came from.

Chris Toohey came up with the idea to have virtual residencies to implement new projects. I refer to this model as red projects. Similar to redbooks or red wikis we could have something like red projects. The idea is to connect a couple of experts or people with the same interest for a new app who then work together in a rather short amount of time (six weeks?) on an initial release. In this model they wouldn't work fulltime on it, but would spend a significant amount of time each day on it. This residency would be virtual so that nobody needs to travel. The good thing about this model is that I imagine many of these original authors to be motivated to continue to work on this project even after the six weeks.

At DNUG this week Daniel Reichelt and Andreas Schulte told me another exciting idea. They are thinking about a BarCamp (see here) for Notes/Domino app dev. A result of such a bar camp could be a new project iteration 1.


3. Development contests
Development contests are a good mechanism to create a new buzz around Notes/Domino app dev. Especially younger developers could be interested in learning about Notes/Domino and winning some awards. With Eclipse on the client and XPages on the server (and soon on client) Notes/Domino can certainly be attractive for younger developers to implement standard based apps leveraging modern technologies.

For legal reasons IBM could not host development contests, but since OpenNTF is an Alliance of multiple members this is possible now. It would be good to even host contests more than once but we need to find out how we reward people. Free Lotusphere tickets and maybe flight tickets for example could be awards. We should also blog about the best contributions and give the authors visibility. For some authors it could even be incentive enough if they may present their sample to the steering committee. I'd expect a lot of submissions that we'd then of course make available on OpenNTF for everyone.

These contests could have different categories:
- simple widgets
- comp app components and plugins
- full comp apps
- XPages reusable controls
- full XPages based apps



4. More re-usable controls
OpenNTF should provide many more re-usable controls. Full applications are important to demonstrate business value of Notes/Domino and to use them as they are or as starting point for applications for customers/ISVs. I think re-usable controls are as important. They can be re-used easily by everyone to build new applications. I personally use these building blocks a lot when writing apps. I don't want to implement everything from scratch and I don't want to understand a full applications first that I then need to modify a lot.

I've published two of such re-usable controls here and here. You can imagine how easy it is to provide new re-usable XPages controls just by wrapping some of the cool DoJo functionality in custom controls and make it even easier to use DoJo within XPages. You can imagine the same kind of wrapper XPages custom controls for other components like Flex etc.

I expect a lot of new controls contributed by IBM over the next months. My management has asked internally people in the Notes/Domino team to contribute assets to OpenNTF this year. I also expect contributions of reusable controls from people in the community since they are easy to implement, people get visiblity and they are mostly less problematic (legally and business vice) to contribute compared with full blown apps. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/14.05.2009025704NHEA6R.htm http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/14.05.2009025704NHEA6R.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 12 May 2009 05:33:33 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/pictures-from-dnug-keynote Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/pictures-from-dnug-keynote?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/pictures-from-dnug-keynote




Because of my composite application background I also enjoyed when Ron Sebastian demonstrated the partner solution from Openspan which can render .NET applications inside of composite applications in Lotus Notes.

]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/pictures-from-dnug-keynote http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/pictures-from-dnug-keynote?opendocument&comments Tue, 12 May 2009 05:30:00 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/dnug-announcement-the-new-openntf-alliance Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/dnug-announcement-the-new-openntf-alliance?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/dnug-announcement-the-new-openntf-alliance
See here for the OpenNTF press release.

See here for a developerworks article about the new Alliance or see here for information about the Alliance directly on OpenNTF.

I won't repeat all the information from these sources in this blog entry but let me tell you how happy I am what we have accomplished. My special thanks goes to Brent Peters and Russ Holden who have given me the task to work on this mission. I also want to thank Steve Castledine who I've had the pleasure to work together with for the last months. With his passion, his strong development skills and his knowledge of the community it's fun to work with. In addition there are many other people who have been involved in making this happen, both from IBM internal as well as the people who most of you know well and who are now part of the Alliance.

I'm glad that eight members in addition to IBM have stepped up to move Notes/Domino application development to the next level. I'm confident that we'll find even more members now that the Alliance has been established.

The Notes/Domino application platform has always been very strong to build applications rapidly. With XPages this rapid application development even gets more powerful since XPages leverage standard (web) programming patterns, technologies, etc. and enable a big range of developers to build applications and building blocks. OpenNTF allows now this community of developers (customers, partners, freelancers) to share these assets easily and use and extend each other's assets. I think that not only IBM will benefit from this new Alliance, but that the new Alliance will be as valuable for many other companies who use Notes/Domino for application development. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/dnug-announcement-the-new-openntf-alliance http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/dnug-announcement-the-new-openntf-alliance?opendocument&comments Mon, 11 May 2009 05:45:55 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/floating-panel-xpages-control Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/floating-panel-xpages-control?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/floating-panel-xpages-control floating panel. Essentially this control is just a wrapper for the dojo.dnd.Moveable class which can now be easily used in XPages. You can run it live here.



Custom control: ccFloatingPanel

In order to use the floating panel in your app, add this custom control to your XPage.

The content to display within the panel can be defined in two ways:

1. Property of custom control

Property name	Type	Default	Description	Sample value
text	string	“”	Text to display in floating panel	"Drag this panel and move it around."

Sample:
"Drag this panel and move it around.">



2. Via editable area

In your XPage in which you have dropped the custom control you can now drop other controls from the palette by dropping them within the editable area of the floating panel control.

Sample:
"Drag this panel and move it around.">
       
               "editableAreaFloatingPanel">
                       


                       "Here you can add controls " id="label1">
                       "via an editable area or via " id="label2">
                       "a property of the control." id="label3">
               
       
]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/floating-panel-xpages-control http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/floating-panel-xpages-control?opendocument&comments Thu, 7 May 2009 00:30:00 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/simple-navigator-xpages-control Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/simple-navigator-xpages-control?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/simple-navigator-xpages-control
You can get it from the OpenNTF catalog and you can try it live here.




With this control I want to demonstrate how I think re-usable XPages controls (as opposed to custom controls only) should be documented so that they can be as easily as possible reused. Each re-usable control needs to document the following topics:
1. What design elements belong to the custom control
2. The properties of the custom control(s)
3. The URL parameters supported by the custom control(s)
4. The client JavaScript APIs
5. The server JavaScript APIs
6. The used stylesheets

Here is how I've done it for the simple navigator.


How to re-use control in custom application

Copy the following design elements from navigator.nsf in your nsf or ntf:
•        Custom control: ccSimpleNavigator
•        Custom control: ccSimpleNavigatorConfig
•        JavaScript library (client): SimpleNavigatorClient
•        JavaScript library (server): SimpleNavigatorServer
•        Resources-Themes: blue


Custom control: ccSimpleNavigator

This is the core custom control of the navigator. There are three properties to configure what links to show.

Property name	Type	Default	Description	Sample value
itemTitles	string	“”	Comma delimited string with potentially multiple values	“Navigator UI Test,Navigator Server API Test,Navigator Client API Test,Navigator URL Param Test, OpenNTF.org"
itemLinks	string	“”	Comma delimited string with potentially multiple values	“NavigatorTest.xsp,NavigatorServerAPITest.xsp,NavigatorClientAPITest.xsp,NavigatorURLParamTest.xsp?selection=3,http://www.openntf.org"
selection	int	0 (if used in Xpage) compositeDate.selection if ccSimpleNavigatorConfig is used	Index of to be selected navigator item (starting at '0')	0

Sample:
selection="#{javascript:compositeData.selection}"
itemTitles="Navigator UI Test,Navigator Server API Test,Navigator Client API Test,Navigator URL Param Test, OpenNTF.org"
itemLinks="NavigatorTest.xsp,NavigatorServerAPITest.xsp,NavigatorClientAPITest.xsp,NavigatorURLParamTest.xsp?selection=3,http://www.openntf.org">



Custom control: ccSimpleNavigatorConfig

A navigator is typically used on multiple pages. To define its configuration only once there is a second custom control that should be used in custom XPages and that contains the core navigator custom control.

Property name	Type	Default	Description	Sample value
selection	int	0	Index of to be selected navigator item (starting at '0')	0

Sample:
"0">



URL parameters

There is one URL parameter to define the navigator item that needs to be selected. This parameter overwrites the value that has been defined in the compositeData of either of the two custom controls.

Sample:
http://localhost/navigator.nsf/NavigatorURLParamTest.xsp?selection=3

A constant has been defined in the JavaScript library 'SimpleNavigatorServer'.
var URL_PARAM_SELECTION = "selection";


Server side JavaScript library: SimpleNavigatorServer

Class SimpleNavigator

Methods	Input	Output	Description
getItemCount	-	int	returns the count of navigator items as int
getItemTitle	index:int	string	returns the title  as string of the navigator item at position 'index' (index starting at '0')
getItemLink	index:int	string	returns the link  as string of the navigator item at position 'index' (index starting at '0')
getItems	-	Array of strings	returns an array of strings with the titles of all navigator items
getSelection	context:XSPContext	int	returns the index of the selected navigator item as int. returns '0' if nothing is selected (index starting at '0'). pass in  'context' (XSPContext) so that the parameter can be read from the URL
getSelectedItemTitle	context:XSPContext	string	returns the title of the selected navigator item as string. pass in   'context' (XSPContext) so that the parameter can be read from the URL

The class SimpleNavigator is initialized automatically by the custom navigator control. To use it you need to obtain an instance of this class (singleton):
SimpleNavigator navigator = getSimpleNavigatorInstance();
See the unit test XPage 'NavigatorServerAPITest' for more.


Client side JavaScript library: SimpleNavigatorClient

Class UISimpleNavigator

Methods	Input	Output	Description
getSelectedItemTitle	-	string	returns the title of the selected navigator item as string
unselectAllItems	-	-	removes the selection in the navigator, if anything is selected

The class UISimpleNavigator doesn't have to be initialized. To use the class simply create an instance:
var navigator = new UISimpleNavigator();
alert(navigator.getSelectedItemTitle());
See the unit test XPage 'NavigatorClientAPITest' for more.


User styles and themes

The theme 'blue' is used by the navigator control.

The following styles which come with Lotus Domino 8.5 out of the box (not in navigator.nsf) are used by the core custom control. They can be modified by copying and pasting them into the NSF with the navigator and refering to them in the theme 'blue' instead of refering to the default files.

styleClass="lotusMenu"
styleClass="lotusBottomCorner" id="lotusBottomCorner"
styleClass="lotusInner" id="lotusInner"
styleClass=”lotusSelected”

Additionally the following style is used by the core navigator which can be modified directly in ccSimpleNavigator:
styleClass="lotusMenuSection2"

Furthermore the following styles from Lotus Domino 8.5 are used by the sample and unit test XPages:
id="lotusFrame"
class="lotusBanner"
id="lotusMain"
id="lotusColLeft" ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/simple-navigator-xpages-control http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/simple-navigator-xpages-control?opendocument&comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 07:09:18 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/unit-tests-for-xpages Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/unit-tests-for-xpages?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/unit-tests-for-xpages see here.

To test functions with the framework you create an object with one or more testcase functions as properties of that object. A testcase is any function starting with the string 'test'. A suite should also have a name property to help identify it in the test results. To run the tests you pass the function into the UnitTesting.runSuite() function (UnitTesting is defined in an external file).

Here is a simple sample test suite that tests the built-in Math.abs() function:

(function(){
var testSuite = new function()
{
this.name = 'Math Tests';
this.testAbs = function(unitTester)
{
unitTester.assertEquals(Math.abs(-1), 1, 'Incorrect conversion');
}
}
UnitTesting.runSuite(testSuite);
})();

Here are the sample results of the sample unit test in the NSF:
]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/unit-tests-for-xpages http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/unit-tests-for-xpages?opendocument&comments Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:32:15 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/22.04.2009143214NHEPR8.htm Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/22.04.2009143214NHEPR8.htm?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/22.04.2009143214NHEPR8.htm OpenNTF catalog and then the XPages login control.



This XPage custom "login" control (ccLoginControl) can be added into your XPages. There is a sample "LoginTest" XPage within this nsf together with a cut down "Blue" theme which uses the oneui.

The control detects whether authentication is basic or session based and behaves accordingly (no logout for basic etc).

There is an optional parameter "logoutRedirectURL" which can be used to set a redirect when users log out of the application (otherwise they get directed to the root). This is set within the custom control's properties when adding to your XPage.

To run the nsf file in your environment you will need to sign the template.
]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/22.04.2009143214NHEPR8.htm http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/22.04.2009143214NHEPR8.htm?opendocument&comments Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:58:51 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/red-unread-marks-in-notes-8-standard Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/red-unread-marks-in-notes-8-standard?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/red-unread-marks-in-notes-8-standard
In order to use it go to the OpenNTF catalog and the component 'Notes Themes'. This sample can be installed via drag and drop into your Notes client..


]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/red-unread-marks-in-notes-8-standard http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/red-unread-marks-in-notes-8-standard?opendocument&comments Thu, 9 Apr 2009 02:52:26 -0400 http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-composite-application-component-on-openntf-property-converter Niklas Heidloff http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-composite-application-component-on-openntf-property-converter?opendocument&comments http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-composite-application-component-on-openntf-property-converter see here.

The property converter is a composite application component that can be put between two components to convert the property that goes over the wire via JavaScript snippets.

Here is a little sample to describe the component. The property converter is the rectangle at the bottom. The company of the person you select in the contacts list is sent to the property converter which converts the property and publishes a new one with the URL of that company. The web browser displays the URL when you select another person.


You can install this component either via drag and drop from this catalog entry (upper right corner "Try it") or via the local update site that is included in the zip file that you can download. After the installation you'll see this component in the Composite Application Editor palette:


It is currently not possible to hide this component (due to a limitation in Notes 8.5 that hopefully will be resolved soon). It has not been tested whether you can access the notes.jar from the JavaScript code. The script can use the 'importpackage' function to access and instantiate Java objects.However, there might be some classloading issues that need to be worked around. ]]> http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dxcomments/new-composite-application-component-on-openntf-property-converter http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/heidloffblog.nsf/dx/new-composite-application-component-on-openntf-property-converter?opendocument&comments