Using IBM Lotus Expeditor Toolkit 6.2.1 with IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.1 

Summary: Get started using IBM® Lotus® Expeditor Toolkit for development of applications for IBM Lotus Notes® V8.5.1. Learn which installation options to select, how to configure the toolkit, how to include the Notes.jar, and how to launch a sample application on your target environment.

IMPORTANT: This article contains information applicable to Lotus Notes v8.5.1. See also the wiki article, “Using IBM Lotus Expeditor Toolkit 6.2 with IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.”

IBM Lotus Notes V8.5.1 is built on the IBM Lotus Expeditor V6.2.1 platform; thus many of the same applications can run on both these platforms. For the Java^TM, J2EE, and Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP) developer, this means that you can use your existing tools and skills to build applications for Lotus Notes and Lotus Expeditor, using Lotus Expeditor Toolkit.

This article explains how to use Lotus Expeditor Toolkit in conjunction with the Eclipse Integrated Development Environment (IDE) or IBM Rational® Application Developer for WebSphere® Software to build and test Java and J2EE applications for use with Lotus Notes.

Although the environment is different from that of IBM Lotus Domino® Designer, Domino developers can use the toolkit to write Java applications that can interface with existing NSF-based applications.

Prerequisites

• JavaSE JDK 5.0+

• Eclipse 3.4.2 for RCP/Plug-in

• Lotus Notes 8.5.1 (trial download available from developerWorks, Windows or Linux OS platform)

• Required Update Site: Lotus Expeditor 6.2.1 Toolkit

• The toolkit is an Eclipse update site that is installed into the Eclipse or Rational IDE.

• Optional Update Site: Eclipse Web Tools Platform (WTP)

This is used for Java EE development and is used by the sample in this article. This can be installed from the predefined Ganymede Discovery site available in the Eclipse Update Manager.

Table 1 summarizes the required software.

Table 1. Required software

Application type or required function	Minimum prerequisite software for Lotus Expeditor Toolkit
Standard Java Plug-ins, Eclipse RCP and eRCP	Eclipse 3.4.2 (aka Ganymede) for RCP/Plug-in Developers
Web Application Java, JSP, Servlet	Eclipse 3.4.2 (aka Ganymede) for Java EE Developers
Web Application Portlet container	Rational Application Developer 7.5 or IBM Rational Software Architect 7.5

Installing and configuring the toolkit

To install the toolkit, follow these steps:

1. First, unzip the file to a temporary location.
2. Open the index.html file in a Web browser and following the installation instructions see the Installing the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit 6.2.1 article on this wiki. Notes developers need only install the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit feature.

Figure 1. Lotus Expeditor Toolkit V6.2 update site



4. When the installation process is complete, you are prompted to restart the platform. Click OK.

To configure the toolkit:

After restarting the IDE platform, you are presented with the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit Configuration window (see figure 2). You can configure the IDE environment by following these steps:

1. Select Lotus Notes 8 from the Test Environment drop-down list.
2. Click Browse, and then select the \framework\rcp\eclipse directory; click OK.
3. The Notes 8 VM will appear automatically in the VM Name drop-down list; click OK.
4. It is also recommended to enable the option “Display the first time a workspace opens” in the Test Environment Configuration Preferences section, so that the configuration dialog box only displays the first time the toolkit is used in a workspace.

(You can change this preference later, if needed, by using the menu options Window > Preference > Client Services.)

Figure 2. Lotus Expeditor Toolkit Configuration window



When you click OK in the Toolkit Configuration window, the IDE reconfigures for development against Lotus Notes.

Creating a Client Services plugin Project for Lotus Notes

Plug-ins for Lotus Notes are considered part of the Client Services stack in Expeditor.

1. Select File > New > Project, and then expand Client Services (see figure 3).

Figure 3. Create a Client Services Project window



2. Fill in appropriate details for the project or accept the defaults.

Importing the notes jar library as a project dependancy

NOTE: This step is optional.

If you will be using Notes-specific APIs or accessing Notes data directly you will leverage the notes.jar library that is shipped in the client. While this will give you full access to the Java APIs it will also limit your plug-in to only run within Notes as notes,jar is not part of the stand-alone Expeditor, Sametime, or Symphony clients.

You are now ready to begin developing Lotus Expeditor and J2EE applications and components that you can run in Lotus Notes V8.5.1.

Importing a sample

Lotus Expeditor Toolkit provides many samples that work in both Lotus Expeditor and Lotus Notes V8.5 environments. When you use Rational Application Developer, you can import the samples from the Help system:

1. To start, select Help > Help Contents, from Rational Application Developer. The Help displays in a new window.
2. Expand Samples in the left-hand pane of the window; Lotus Expeditor samples appear under the Showcase, Application, and Technology samples sections.

For our purposes, we show how to import the samples when you are using only the Eclipse IDE. The samples are installed when you install the toolkit and must be imported into your workspace. Follow these steps to import the property broker sample into your IDE workspace:

1. Select File > Import > General > Existing Projects into Workspace, and then click Next.
2. Select the Select archive file option, and then click Browse.
3. Use the Browse dialog box to select the property broker sample. The sample archive is located at \plugins\com.ibm.rcp.tools.samplegallery2_6.2.0.\archive\propertybroker.jar.
4. Click Open and then click Finish. The property broker sample is imported into your workspace as shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Property broker sample

Launching from the toolkit

Lotus Expeditor Toolkit provides a custom preconfigured launcher that can be used to launch Lotus Notes 8.5 without the need for additional configuration settings. You can access the launcher, named Client Services, as follows:

1. Select Run > Run Configurations, from the IDE menu.
2. Select the Client Services launcher in the left-hand pane, and then click the New button. This creates a new instance of the Client Services launcher as shown in figure 5.
   
   Figure 5. Creating a new instance of the Client Services launcher
   
   
   NOTE: To create a configuration for debugging Domino Designer plug-ins instead of for the Notes Client, set the Personality field to com.ibm.designer.domino.personality and in the Run a product field, select com.ibm.domino.designer.product.dde.
   
   Also, note that the Runtime JRE field should be correct by default, but if it doesn't contain “Notes” or “ibm,” it's wrong, and you should select a different one.
   
3. When you select the Target tab (see figure 6) of the launch configuration, you see that the Lotus Notes 8.5 target has been selected already. Because there can be only one Lotus Notes instance running at any time, shut down Lotus Notes before launching from the IDE.
4. Click the Run button to launch the Notes 8.5.1 platform. After you log into Lotus Notes, you see your normal Notes workspace.

Figure 6. Target tab of the launch configuration window



If you imported the property broker sample as shown earlier, you can now start the sample from the Lotus Notes Open menu:

1. Select Open > Property Broker Color Sample.
2. After the sample is open, double-click a color name on the left-hand pane to update the applicable views to that color (see figure 7).

Figure 7. Color List View Sample application view



The communication between the views is done via the property broker component, which is part of the Lotus Expeditor platform and therefore available in Lotus Notes 8.5.

Conclusion

This article has described the process for installing and configuring Lotus Expeditor Toolkit for use with Lotus Notes 8.5, including how to configure the environment, import a sample application, and launch the application using your target runtime environment.

Resources

Download: IBM Lotus Expeditor V6.2.1:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/downloads/ls/lxpd/learn.html

developerWorks Lotus Expeditor page:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/products/expeditor/

developerWorks Lotus article, “Using IBM Lotus Expeditor Toolkit V6.1 with IBM Lotus Notes V8 and IBM Lotus Sametime”:
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/expeditor-notes-sametime/

developerWorks Lotus article, "Getting started with the IBM Lotus Expeditor Toolkit V6.1.1":
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/expeditor-toolkit/?S_TACT=105AGX01&S_CMP=LP

About the author

Pierre Carlson a Senior Software Engineer at IBM and the lead developer for the Lotus Expeditor Client and the architect of the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit. He has been working with Eclipse technology and OSGi technology since before they worked with each other. Pierre has been at IBM since 1998, working on a variety of products including printers, operating systems, network appliances, Web applications, software development tools, devices, and desktop runtime environments. He has degrees in computer science from the University of Utah and Texas State University.