Important: This article contains information applicable to Lotus Notes v8.5. See also
Using IBM Lotus Expeditor Toolkit 6.2.1 with IBM Lotus Notes 8.5.1.
Get started using IBM Lotus Expeditor Toolkit for development of applications for IBM Lotus Notes V8.5. Learn which installation options to select, how to configure the toolkit, how to include notes.jar, and how to launch a sample application on your target environment.
IBM Lotus Notes V8.5 is built on the IBM Lotus Expeditor V6.2 platform. Because of this, many of the same applications can run on both of these platforms. For the Java, J2EE, and Eclipse RCP developer, this means that you can use the same tools and skills that you already have to build applications for Lotus Notes and Lotus Expeditor using Lotus Expeditor Toolkit. In this article, you will learn 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, Lotus Domino developers can use the toolkit to write Java applications that can interface with existing NSF-based applications.
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Prerequisites:
Required Update Site:
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 Update site available in the Eclipse Update Manager.
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 |
Web Application Java, JSP, Servlet | Eclipse 3.4 + Eclipse Web Tools Platform 3.0.2 |
Web Application Portlet container | Rational Application Developer 7.5 or IBM Rational Software Architect 7.5 |
If you are not already a Rational Application Developer user, you can download and install an evaluation version of the software. Prior to installing Lotus Expeditor Toolkit in Rational Application Developer, be sure to install to the latest fix pack of the Rational software.
Installing the Toolkit
- Unzip the file to a temporary location
- Open index.html file in a web browser and following the installation instructions.
Notes developers only need to install the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit feature.
Figure 1. Lotus Expeditor Toolkit V6.2 update site
When the installation process is complete, you are prompted to restart the platform. Click
OK.
Configuring the toolkit
After you restart the IDE platform, you are presented with the toolkit configuration dialog box. You can configure the IDE environment by following these steps. See figure 2 for the final settings.
1. Select
Lotus Notes 8 in the test environment drop-down box.
2. Click
Browse, and then select the
\framework\rcp\eclipse directory and click
OK.
3. The Notes 8 VM will appear automatically in the VM Name drop-down box.
4. Click
OK.
It is also recommended that you select the option
Display the first time a workspace opens in the Test Environment Configuration Preferences dialog box. This selection causes the configuration dialog box to be presented only the first time the toolkit is used in a workspace. You can change this preference later, if needed, by choosing
Window > Preference > Client Services.
When you click
OK in the Toolkit Configuration Dialog, the IDE reconfigures for development against Lotus Notes.
Figure 2. Lotus Expeditor Toolkit Configuration window
Creating a Client Services Plug-in Project for Lotus Notes
Plug-ins for Lotus Notes are considered part of the Client Services stack in Expeditor.
1.
File > New > Project then expand
Client Services
2. Fill in appropriate details for the project or accept defaults.
Optional: Importing notes.jar as a project dependancy
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.
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. To start, choose
Help > Help Contents from Rational Application Developer. The help displays in a new window. Expand
Samples in the left pane of the window and there are Lotus Expeditor samples appear under the Showcase samples, Application samples, and Technology samples sections.
For our purposes, we show you how to import the samples if you are using only the Eclipse IDE. The samples are installed when you install the toolkit and need to be imported into your workspace. Follow these steps to import the property broker sample in your IDE workspace.
1. Choose
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 3.
Figure 3. The property broker sample
Launching the toolkit
Lotus Expeditor Toolkit provides a custom preconfigured launcher that can be used to launch Lotus Notes V8.5 without the need for additional configuration settings. You can access the launcher, named Client Services, by choosing
Run > Run Configurations from the IDE menu. Select the Client Services launcher in the left pane, and then click the
New button. This creates a new instance of the Client Services launcher as shown in figure 4.
Figure 4. Creating a new instance of the Client Services launcher
If you select the
Target tab (see figure 5) of the launch configuration, you see that the Lotus Notes V8.5 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. Clicking the
Run button launches the Lotus Notes V8.5 platform.
Figure 5. The Target tab of the launch configuration window
After you log into Lotus Notes, you see your normal Lotus Notes workspace.
If you imported the property broker sample as shown earlier, you can now start the sample from the Lotus Notes Open menu. Choose
Open > Property Broker Color Sample. After the sample is open, double-click a color name on the left to update the right views to that color. The communication between the views is done using the property broker component, which is part of the Lotus Expeditor platform and therefore available in Lotus Notes V8.5. See figure 6.
Figure 6. The Color List View Sample application view
Conclusion
This article reviewed the process for installing and configuring Lotus Expeditor Toolkit for use with Lotus Notes V8.5. It showed how to configure the environment, import a sample application, and launch the application using your target runtime environment.