What's New in Lotus Expeditor Client for Desktop and Toolkit 6.2.3 

This article provides a brief list of some of the new and changed capabilities of the Lotus Expeditor Client for Desktop and Lotus Expeditor Toolkit 6.2.3.

Lotus Expeditor Client for Desktop 6.2.3

The Lotus® Expeditor Client for Desktop 6.2.3 provides bug fixes, serviceability and performance improvements, as well as new features over the previous release, Lotus Expeditor Client for Desktop 6.2.2.

Here are the Highlights of these new features.

General

• The client has been upgraded to provide Eclipse RCP SWT at the 3.6.2 level.
• The JVM has been upgraded to the IBM J2SE 6.0 SR9FP1 release level.
• Supported platforms added in this release include Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, Citrix 6.0, RHEL 6.0/6.1, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 SP1
• The plugin jar files in the product install package are now compressed using pack200 compression, reducing the overall size of the product install package.
• The update site that is shipped as part of the product package is now compressed as a zip file. This reduces the size of the product install package and reduces the complexity of the package.

Install

• Two new options have been added for silent install on Windows, and one option has been deprecated. The two new options which have been added are ADDFEATURES and REMOVEFEATURES. These options provide an improved and simplified method of specifying the install features which are to be added or removed during a product install, upgrade or modify. The SELECTINSTALLFEATURES option has been deprecated.
• Improved install performance.

Composite Applications

• The CAI URL now supports a page alias parameter for navigation to a specific page with an alias.
• A new component API allow you to easily create Java based components with JWidget.
• Role based component support is now available for Lotus Notes 8.5.2.
• IBM WebSphere Portal Server 6.1.5 + iFix PM07035 support enables Portal Administration of composite applications running on the Lotus Expeditor Client.
• The Linux Native Application Viewer component provides a simplified way for a Linux (GTK) based native applications to be launched and embedded inside a composite applications

Widgets and LiveText

• New Widget Provider APIs that allow a developer to create a new widget type beyond what is provided in the platform.
• Added the ability to open web widgets in an external browser or in a specific embedded browser engine.
• Added the ability to open web widgets in the local web container.
• New widgets menu Tools/Widgets/'Install this widget' allows users to install widgets embedded (extension.xml link) in web pages.
• 'Export' action now appears on the context menu of a widget.
• Added the ability to edit a widget preferences if the widget was installed from the corproate catalog.

Security

Single Sign On Support

In 6.2.3, Expeditor provides support for Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA) which allows components to achieve single sign-on to resources through the use of the Windows credentials of the currently logged on user. Once enabled, authentication will be triggered automatically for all connections where the corresponding server responds with a SPNEGO challenge. Therefore, it is not necessary to provide a client account for all SPNEGO protected resources that will be accessed by the platform. Components and consumers whose implementations rely on the accounts framework or who do not use the Java URL handler may create an account for authentication. IWA accounts can be created through the Accounts and Home Portal Account preference pages through the use of the OS-CRED authentication type.

IWA is enabled by selecting the "Enable integrated Windows authentication" checkbox on the Network Connections preference page.

Considerations:

• IWA is only supported on the JVM that ships with the product and is limited to Windows platforms.
• The Windows client must be unlocked by a domain user.
• Admin users running on Windows Vista or Windows 7 with UAC enabled must launch the platform with administrator privileges.
• Added Session Expiration support
• Improved reliability

Web Container

The Lotus Expeditor Web Container was updated to be compatible with WAS 7.0 in the Expeditor 6.2.2 release. The Web Container is now compliant with the Servlet 2.5/JSP 2.1 specifications. The following is a list of features that are now supported by the Web Container:

• Support for annotations applicable to servlets, filters and listeners. For example, @PreDestroy, @PostConstruct, @DeclareRoles and @RunAs.
• Servlet name wildcarding support - provides capability to bind multiple servlets using a wildcard '*' to a single filter.
• Multiple URL pattern support for servlet and filter mappings - provides capability for multiple URL patterns to be associated with servlet and filter mappings.
• Removed restrictions on HTTP method support - Web Container now supports standard HTTP methods, such as GET, POST, DELETE, PUT, HEAD, TRACE and OPTIONS, as well as extension methods if required.

Embedded Browser

• Xulrunner is upgraded to 1.9.2.10, with plugin-out-of-process support, and improved support in HTML/CSS/javascript rendering, stability, performance and security.
• Support BrowserFunction Javascript-Java bridge on Xulrunner, which enable calling Java code from Javascript code.
• Support AlertListner and CertificationErrorListener on Xulrunner, which provide opportunity to customized the Alert/CertificationError messages.
• Improved memory usage on both IE-based and xulrunner-based browsers.

Micro Broker

• Lotus Expeditor micro broker has added the ability to work with the High Availability features of IBM WebSphere MQ 7.0.1.

Other

• The About Dialog includes a new button that displays the component version information.
• Serviceability data collection under the Help > Support > Collect Support Data menu option now includes support for dynamic trace enablement during a collection
• The IBM Support Assistant serviceability data collector wil now automatically launch standalone collector on any UI data collection failures
• An additional medical dictionary is provided for US English spelling.
• This dictionary contains the medical terms from the medical.dic dictionary, which was provided previously in the old Notes (pre 8.5.1) spelling dictionary format, plus some updated medical terms added recently.
• This dictionary complements the English US spelling dictionary in the spell checking and spell correction of texts including medical terminology.

Deprecated and Removed Components

• DB2e: The DB2e client for Windows and Linux has been deprecated in the desktop client. Usage of DB2e should be discontinued and applications should be changed to use Apache Derby for local database capabilities. DB2e iSync support for Apache Derby is still available for database synchronization and the DB2e client is still supported in the Lotus Expeditor Client for Devices.
• Web Services Remote Portlet (WS-RP): WS-RP support has been removed from the desktop client. Please contact IBM support for additional information.
• MQ Everyplace: Lotus Expeditor micro broker is the recommended messaging provider for use with Lotus Expeditor, and for connecting applications to the enterprise. This replaces MQ Everyplace (MQe). Usage of MQ Everyplace should be discontinued and applications should be changed to use the Lotus Expeditor micro broker. The MQ Everyplace features are no longer part of the client installation.
• Configuration Admin: Lotus Expeditor recommends the use of Eclipse preferences rather than the Configuration Admin service. Eclipse preferences can be managed through the Expeditor Server or the Portal Server policy. Usage of the Configuration Admin service should be discontinued and applications should be changed to use Eclipse preferences. The Configuration Admin service will be removed in a future release.
• Common Inventory Technology (CIT) scanners used by the Enterprise Management Agent have been deprecated in the desktop client and will no longer be part of the client installation.
• Restricted Workbench: The Restricted Workbench environment is being deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
• Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10: Support for the SLED10 OS is being deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

Lotus Expeditor Toolkit 6.2.3

The Lotus® Expeditor Toolkit 6.2.3 provides bug fixes, new features, performance enhancements and usability changes over the previous release, Lotus Expeditor Toolkit 6.2.2.

The Toolkit is supported on the following platforms:

• Eclipse 3.4.2 with WTP 3.0.4
• Rational Application Developer 7.5.3

Supported Operating Systems:

• Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2
• Microsoft Windows Vista Service Pack 1
• Microsoft Windows 7.0
• Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.4 Desktop
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED) 11

New Features

• Web tools are upgraded to support multiple J2EE levels
• Web Modules [2.2 - 2.5] are supported.
• The following Annotations are supported:
• @PreDestroy annotation support for servlets, jsps, filters and listeners
• @PostConstruct annotation support for servlets, jsps, filters and listeners
• @RunAs annotation support for Servlets
• @DeclareRoles annotation support for Servlets

• Plugin Templates: Plug-in Templates are provided with Lotus Expeditor Toolkit to generate applications for Lotus Notes, Lotus Expeditor, and so on. The following templates are provided with the Toolkit's project creation wizards:
• Side Shelf Template
• Menu Template