I thought I'd share this tip as I just used it for the second time, so maybe you will one day.

Imagine you need to move a Domino database and its content to a different server. Chances are that the web address will change.

Let's say this database:

is moving to this new address:

How do you let users know? Do you setup URL Rewrite documents in the Domino Directory to auto-rewrite or redirect them as they come in? You could do, but an alternative is to simply display a page telling them it's moved, why it moved and that they should update their bookmarks accordingly.

You can then display a link for them to click to go to where they need to be. This tip describes a simple way to do that.

First, follow these steps:

1. Copy the database to its new location.
2. Delete all documents from the old database.
3. Remove all Forms, Views etc from old database.
4. Create a new Form called $$ReturnGeneralError in the old database.

It's this $$ReturnGeneralError form which does the magic:

Whenever a user visits any URL at the old address we can now show them a link to where they should be. The formula for the Computed Value you can see above is as follows:

oldSubDomain:= "server1";
newSubDomain:= "server2";
link:= "http"+@If(HTTPS="ON"; "s"; "") + "://" +
        @ReplaceSubstring(@LowerCase(Server_Name); oldSubDomain; newSubDomain) +
        @LowerCase(Path_Info);
        
"<a href=""+link+"">"+link+"</a>"

The beauty of this trick is that it should work for absolutely any working Domino URL from the old database. including all of the following:

• http://server1.acme.com/database.nsf/0/BC577A02327A584D8025778B00707230?Open
• http://server1.acme.com/database.nsf/contacts?OpenView
• http://server1.acme.com/database.nsf/pages/about

Because they will all be classed as 404/Errors the same form will be used to display the new location's link to the user. Simples!

This has also worked for me in the past when I've merged the content of one database with another. In that case rather than doing a replacement on the Server_Name field I did a replacement of the Path_Info string to update the file path to the new database.

SEO

When the web spiders next come crawling to index the old site they will get a lot of 404s. As I understand it, after a while it will stop indexing that content and forget it ever existed. Because we're providing the spider with a new working URL they should then index that instead. I know there are HTTP status codes (301) for doing this, but this done the same thing in a round-about fashion.

Recent Blog Posts

236

Mapping Document Collections To Views | Blog Thu, Apr 11th 2013 4:00a Jake Howlett It's now a couple of months since I wrote about a Super Useful Set of LotusScript Wrapper Classes, which I've written about on and off since February. Today I want to share a few more extensions I've made to them, which help massively when it comes to getting documents from views. Imagine the following use scenario: Dim factory As New CustomerFactory() Dim coll As CustomerCollection 'Let's get a collection from a view Set coll = factory.GetAll() 'Or you could to this Set coll = factory [read] Keywords: domino lotusscript notes database

218

Making Google Apps For Business Behave Like a Mail Client | Blog Wed, Apr 3rd 2013 4:16a Jake Howlett So, I mentioned that I've moved to a new PC and, for the first time in years, I didn't install a dedicated Mail client/app. Instead I'm using direct web access to Google Apps For Business (posh name for paid-for Gmail). The one thing I never liked about using Email in a browser is that I constantly close and re-open the browser. Thus, in effect, closing my email client, which I then have to remember to re-open. Now though I've made it seem like a real app. You can do this using Chrome's "a [read] Keywords: application email google

280

Documenting Your LotusScript Classes | Blog Wed, Mar 27th 2013 4:00a Jake Howlett Just a quick LotusScript tip: Hopefully you've been inspired by my recent adventures in creating custom LotusScript classes. If so, you'll have noticed that, when creating your own properties and methods in these classes that they get their own comments added in. For example, if you type "property get foo as string" and then press return, you'll see something like this:%REM Property Get Foo Description: Comments for Property Get %END REM Property Get Foo As String End Property Domino De [read] Keywords: domino lotusscript properties

242

The Perfect Desk Quest - 2013 Update | Blog Tue, Mar 26th 2013 6:20a Jake Howlett It must be time for another update on how my desk is evolving towards the elusive "perfect desk". Previous updates here. Here's my desk now, following a recent overhaul: The two main differences from before: The Lenovo T400 laptop and its docking station have gone and the left-most monitor has moved positions to be on the right. My desk needs to not only keep up with the way I work, but also the changes of the times. I decided it was time I got "with the times" and "embrace the cloud" an [read] Keywords: domino lotus notes database development email laptop microsoft office outlook server vm

217

Updating Glyphicons in Bootstrap | Blog Thu, Mar 21st 2013 4:00p Jake Howlett Using Bootstrap, whenever I want to an icon to an element, I simply write HTML like this: Add New And I get something like this: The choice of icons is documented here and the icons themselves are based on Glyphicons "halflings". All is good. However, recently I found myself wanting to use an icon to show that a document had some attachments. Naturally, I wanted a paperclip. Just like a magnifying glass denotes searching, a paperclip denotes a file attachment. Who knows why! To my sur [read] Keywords: css twitter

168

Easy Access to Sub-Collections of the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog Wed, Mar 20th 2013 12:30p Jake Howlett My favourite feature of the Wrapper Classes I keep going on about is the ready access they can give to any given class's related sub-classes. For example, let's say you have an object based on the Customer class and you want to find all their Invoices. Wouldn't it be nice to write code like this in a WQO agent:Dim customer As Customer, invoice As Invoice Set customer = New Customer(web.document) If customer.Invoices.Count > 0 Then Set invoice = customer.Invoices.getFirst() While Not i [read] Keywords: agent properties

192

Easy Access to Sub-Collections of the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog Wed, Mar 13th 2013 4:20a Jake Howlett My favourite feature of the Wrapper Classes I keep going on about is the ready access they can give to any given class's related sub-classes. For example, let's say you have an object based on the Customer class and you want to find all their Invoices. Wouldn't it be nice to write code like this in a WQO agent: Dim customer As Customer, invoice As Invoice Set customer = New Customer(web.document) If customer.Invoices.Count > 0 Then Set invoice = customer.Invoices.getFirst() While Not [read] Keywords: agent properties

229

Creating New Documents Based on the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog Mon, Mar 11th 2013 7:20a Jake Howlett So far, we've seen how to "wrap" an existing document inside a custom class, which is based on the DocumentWrapper subclass. But the document we wrap doesn't have to exist. We can use the DocumentWrapper classes to handle creation of new documents. Imagine that, anywhere in your LotusScript, you could write this: Set invoice = New Invoice(web.database.CreateDocument) invoice.Number = factory.GetNextInvoiceNumber() invoice.Value = 12345.98 invoice.Save() Wouldn't that be cool!? It's quite [read] Keywords: lotusscript database properties

376

Extending The LotusScript Wrapper Classes | Blog Fri, Mar 8th 2013 3:03a Jake Howlett The wrapper classes I blogged about in February went down a lot better than I thought they might. So, taking it further. Let's extend the DocumentWrapper class some more. Since first writing about them on here I've been busy using and extending them as I go. Here are a few examples of some of the properties I've added Simple Helper Properties Some very simple properties: WebLink, UNID and IsNew. Property Get WebLink As String WebLink = "/" + Replace(web.database.Filepath, "", "/" [read] Keywords: domino lotusscript database properties

426

How to Do Infinite Scrolling in Domino | Blog Wed, Mar 6th 2013 3:00a Jake Howlett Last week I linked to a Domino-based infinite-scrolling view demo and promised I'd write up how I did it. Even though the reaction to the demo was mixed I'm a man of my word, so here goes. It always surprises (worries!) me when I'm asked to either share a downloadable copy of a demo or write a how-to about it. Particularly when it's something that's all but completely web-based. The code is there to see; just a click away. That said, in this case, unless you're familiar with jQuery and/or [read] Keywords: agent domino lotusscript notes ajax application development server