The Curse of TMTOWTDI
Tue, Nov 26th 2013 2:17p Jesse Gallagher TMTOWTDI is a Perl-ism, standing for "there's more than one way to do it". It
is often a blessing, particularly in the context of Perl, in that it results in
multiple synonymous ways to accomplish the same task, each of which fits best
in a different context.
However, as you might expect, this is a double-edged sword that can lead to
messy code and a difficult learning curve. It's this negative context that
bites the XPages platform in a number of ways.
One way is relatively benign bu [read] Keywords: domino
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database
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dojo
java
173
Building My App On Custom Renderers
Sun, Nov 24th 2013 7:18p Jesse Gallagher A little while ago, I mentioned how I have become smitten with custom renderers
- Java classes that take XPage components like application layouts and widgets
and render them in custom HTML. Though I've had a lot of other things to work
on in between then and today, my ardor for the subject has not dimmed. So
today, I mostly completed the process for my task-tracking app.
At a high level, the app is a fairly typical web app built using the
popular-for-good-reason Ace - Responsive Admin Te [read] Keywords: admin
xpages application
css
development
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properties
widget
widgets
99
Internalize This Deep Wisdom
Tue, Nov 19th 2013 5:17p Jesse Gallagher Toby Samples tweeted earlier an old blog post by Jeff Atwood about the virtue
of minimal code, and I think everyone would be well-served by reading it and
the articles it links to (the Wil Shipley post has since moved (incidentally,
if you don't currently pay attention to Wil Shipley, you really, really should
)).
I've found maintaining the goal of reducing the conceptual weight of my code to
be the most valuable tool in my belt. One way of doing that is to separate out
unr [read] Keywords: xpages
231
My Current Model Framework, Part 1
Sun, Nov 17th 2013 10:21a Jesse Gallagher As I do from time to time, I've recently been taking another stab at a standard
model framework for my XPage apps. My latest one has been proving its worth in
a couple apps I've been writing lately, and I'd like to go over the general
goals and advantages of the way it works.
The framework is focused on a couple main ideas:
Low Overhead. The Java language requires a certain amount of overhead to get
anything done, but I want to minimize that. The task of defining a new model
object con [read] Keywords: domino
xpages database
eclipse
java
openntf
251
I Am Terribly Excited About Custom Renderers
Tue, Nov 12th 2013 6:10p Jesse Gallagher It's much to my chagrin that it took me until this past weekend to properly
dive into custom renderers. I had seen them before, primarily when working with
mypic, but always avoided building my own, primarily because of what a hassle
they are to write. However, I'm now convinced that the hassle is worth it, at
least for some primary uses.
If you're not familiar with custom renderers, they're sort of an odd beast, but
they're the kind of thing where the concept eventually "clicks" in [read] Keywords: ibm
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css
java
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342
How I Want To Use Domino, Take 2
Wed, Oct 30th 2013 1:10p Jesse Gallagher A while back, I wrote a post about how I wanted to use Domino. The gist of that
was that I was enamored with the idea of using Domino as a back-end database,
but not necessarily as a app-dev platform on its own - basically, how you would
use a SQL or NoSQL database. Since then, I've doubled down on my use of XPages
as an app-dev platform with many advantages, but I still find it very useful to
imagine Domino not as "Notes apps on the web, now with a modern coat of paint",
but as a colle [read] Keywords: domino
inotes
notes
sametime
xpages css
database
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email
profile
server
sql
171
Thanks, Bruce
Wed, Oct 2nd 2013 8:12a Jesse Gallagher Though I'm not as eloquent on the matter as the many others who have shared
their appreciation for what Bruce Elgort has done for the community, I wanted
to be sure to pitch in as well. I have been active in this community for a
relatively short amount of time, but even before that Bruce's was one of the
names I knew looking in from outside, from his personal contributions to the
Taking Notes podcast and to his leadership of OpenNTF. And since I started
being actively involved in the com [read] Keywords: notes
community
openntf
podcast
taking notes
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URLs in XPages
Tue, Oct 1st 2013 6:11p Jesse Gallagher The topic of URLs came up today in a chat and in the most recent NotesIn9, and
I think this is an area that deserves some particular attention. When designing
any web app, it's easy to fall into some traps with URLs, and writing XPages
code juggles things around a bit - some things are much easier than usual, some
are insidiously harder.
At a base level, there are four main types of URLs you'll use when writing a
web app, distinguished by how they begin (don't quote me on the names, or [read] Keywords: domino
rich text
xpages css
server
374
Domino Wishlist, September 2013
Fri, Sep 20th 2013 10:11a Jesse Gallagher I joined in a tweet from Paul Hannan earlier about desired Domino features
(that's a very worthwhile thread to read - lots of great ideas from others) and
it's had me thinking about more on my list. Fortunately, I have a blog for this
kind of thing! I'm leaving off a couple big-ticket items like Eclipse-4.x-based
Designer on the Mac because IBM may not be required for that.
Make $WSIS not trigger crummy SSL behavior (really, first-class support for
proxies in front of Domino, not just I [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
notes
ods
xpages database
eclipse
firefox
java
mac
server
ubuntu
507
Progress on the org.openntf.domino Design API
Fri, Sep 6th 2013 4:14p Jesse Gallagher The primary focus of my recent work with the OpenNTF Domino API has been the
implementation of a fleshed-out design API. I've done a lot of work in my
Domino-programming career manipulating design elements, usually via DXL (such
as with my Forms 'n' Views app), and my aim is to codify all of that into the
API itself, eventually growing it to cover almost every design element that
Designer does (we'll see about Navigators, Composite Apps, and the like).
One of the big hurdles in recen [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
rich text
xpages java
openntf
properties
xml
349
Materials From MWLUG 2013
Sun, Aug 25th 2013 10:13a Jesse Gallagher I gave two presentations at MWLUG 2013 in Indianapolis, and here are the slide
decks and resources for those:
AD110: Write Cleaner, More-Manageable XPages Applications With Java
Slide Deck
My blog template on GitHub
My portfolio template on GitHub - I didn't actually go over this, but it was
original plan: it provides a simple example of using controllers and my new
model classes
XPages Scaffolding on GitHub - this is the template I use when creating each
new project and is the [read] Keywords: domino
xpages applications
database
java
openntf
314
Expanding your use of EL (Part 2)
Wed, Jul 24th 2013 10:15a Jesse Gallagher Last time, I said that my next post would delve into operations and comparisons
in EL, but I figured first it would be good to have a real-use example of what
I talked about last time.
In several of my apps lately, I've taken to using properties files to store app
configuration, primarily the server and file paths for the databases that store
the actual data. The standard way of doing this is to use the platform's
built-in bundle-handling abilities. However, that'd leave me stuck with e [read] Keywords: ibm
application
interface
java
properties
server
373
Expanding your use of EL (Part 1)
Tue, Jul 23rd 2013 12:13p Jesse Gallagher One of the main aspects to cleaning up the code of an XPage is the heavy use of
Expression Language (EL), which is XPages/JSF's shorthand language for binding
properties to values and methods. The most common kind you'll run across is the
kind you get for "free" when working with document data sources:
This is the essence of EL in a nutshell: the actual code behind the scenes can
be pretty complex, but EL handles that for you. It goes far beyond this,
though, in two important ways: a [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
xpages application
interface
java
javascript
properties
412
Couchbase Followup and a Github Repository
Tue, Jun 18th 2013 1:19p Jesse Gallagher Since my initial tinkering with Couchbase, I've been idly thinking about
improvements to the data sources and potential uses I may have for it.
As for the latter, I think I may give a shot to implementing IKSG's new
project-tracking system in it. I'll lose out on reader and author fields, but
otherwise it'd be a pretty direct translation between NSF or Couchbase data
stores.
For the former, I decided to drop my development code in a Github repository
and start tracking my to-dos there [read] Keywords: xpages database
development
java
xml
530
Couchbase Data Sources for XPages
Mon, Jun 17th 2013 8:19a Jesse Gallagher The other day, I attended a Couchbase Developer Day in Philly. If you're not
familiar with Couchbase, it's one of the young crop of NoSQL databases, and
more specifically a document database and a conceptual cousin to Domino by way
of Damien Katz. It's this similarity that makes it so interesting to me -
Couchbase's still-living predecessor CouchDB started life as Notes built from
the ground up for the web and the heritage is clear. Couchbase itself ends up
being like if you melted dow [read] Keywords: domino
notes
xpages database
java
properties
server
373
The "final" Keyword in Java
Sun, Jun 16th 2013 6:18p Jesse Gallagher Yesterday, I suggested that everyone enable finalizing parameters in their code
cleanups and, better, to do the same in their Java save actions; later, I set
Eclipse loose on the org.openntf.domino API to implement it there. Adding final
keywords to method parameters (and elsewhere where possible) is one of the
habits I picked up from reading Effective Java a bit ago, but it's kind of a
subtle thing and the benefits aren't immediately obvious.
If you're not at all familiar with the fina [read] Keywords: domino
database
eclipse
java
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Development Improvements, June 2013
Tue, Jun 4th 2013 11:22a Jesse Gallagher I'm always looking to improve my programming/development/administration
methods, and in the past couple months I've made a few more changes. To my
chagrin, these changes are mostly things that I should have been doing for a
while now and I've been sloppy to do them differently, but hey - fixing a
problem is still improvement!
Serious About Source Control
I've been using source control for a while now, and I hope everyone else has as
well. However, I've been lax in a couple ways, w [read] Keywords: administration
domino
dxl
notes
notes client
ntf
xpages application
desktop
development
java
mac
server
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407
Better Living Through Reverse Proxies
Thu, May 30th 2013 1:17p Jesse Gallagher A while ago, I set up Apache as a reverse proxy in front of Domino. Initially,
that was in order to serve a WordPress site on the same server, but since then
it has more than proven its worth in other ways, mostly in the areas of fault
tolerance and SSL support.
IBM recognizes those benefits, which is why Domino 9 on Windows comes bundled
with IHS; however, I am a responsible admin, so I don't run Windows on my main
servers. Fortunately, stock Apache does the job nicely... or it does usu [read] Keywords: admin
domino
ibm
notes
xpages server
vm
websphere
427
How I Got XPiNC Run-On-Server With SSO Working
Fri, May 17th 2013 5:14p Jesse Gallagher Among the new features in Domino 9 is this little guy, found on the Launch pane
of a database's properties when you set it to open an XPage:
If you've ever used an XPiNC application before, you'll know this is a godsend,
promising the vast performance benefits of running an app on a server combined
with the "the users are stuck using the Notes client" benefits of XPiNC.
I turned this on for a new app on one of my client's servers (let's say the
server name is ClientName-2/ClientNa [read] Keywords: admin
domino
notes
notes client
policies
sametime
xpages application
database
desktop
network
properties
server
334
Public Service Announcement - NotesIn9 is down.
Tue, May 7th 2013 11:16a Jesse Gallagher David Leedy has run into some trouble with NotesIn9.com being down and he asked
if I could help him get the word out about it, which I'm more than happy to do:
Hi - Just wanted to drop a note out there about my NotesIn9.com website.
Currently it's redirecting to someplace else for some unknown reason. I
assume it's been php hacked but I don't know.
My Wordpress site is generously hosted by Chris Miller and I've sent him a
note. Though since he's in the middle of the [read] Keywords: xpages bug
277
My Latest Programming-Technique Improvements
Tue, Apr 23rd 2013 9:18a Jesse Gallagher Over the past couple weeks, I've been trying out some new things to make my
code a bit cleaner and I've been having a good time of it, so I figured I'd
write up a quick summary.
Composed Method
First and foremost, I've been trying out the Composed Method of programming.
This is not a new idea - indeed, it's a pretty direct application of general
refactoring - but the slight perspective change from "factor out reused code"
to starting out with clean, small blocks has been a pleasan [read] Keywords: agent
domino
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lotusscript
xpages application
database
eclipse
java
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Java Traps and Misconceptions
Tue, Apr 23rd 2013 6:16a Jesse Gallagher I wrote a post over at the Social Biz UG site covering a number of traps and
conceptual hurdles I frequently see people running into when it comes to Java:
https://www.socialbizug.org/blogs/gidgerby/entry/java_traps_and_misconceptions?l
ang=en_us [read] Keywords: java
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Fun With Old XML Features
Tue, Apr 2nd 2013 11:18p Jesse Gallagher One of the side effects of working on the OpenNTF Domino API is that I saw
every method in the interfaces, including ones that were either new to me or
that I had forgotten about a long time ago. One of these is the "parseXML"
method found on Items, RichTextItems, and EmbeddedObjects. This was added back
in 5.0.3, I assume for some reason related to the mail template, like
everything else added back then. Basically, it takes either the contents of a
text item, the text of a rich text ite [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
notes
rich text
xpages java
javascript
openntf
xml
213
Release M1 of org.openntf.domino
Tue, Apr 2nd 2013 9:17p Jesse Gallagher Yesterday, we released milestone 1 of our improved Domino API. This is our
first tagged release meant for proper testing - all of the classes are
implemented, many of the banner features are in there, and we've been using it
in various real-world situations. I switched a couple of my side projects over
- my portfolio site, the code for this blog (though I haven't deployed the
template yet), and a couple personal game-related apps. That kind of testing is
going to be crucial in getting us [read] Keywords: domino
openntf
213
We Have The Technology: The org.openntf.domino API
Thu, Mar 21st 2013 7:13p Anonymous As Nathan and Tim posted earlier today, a number of us have been working
recently on a pretty exciting new project: the org.openntf.domino API. This is
a drop-in replacement/extension for the existing lotus.domino Java API that
improves its stability and feature set in numerous ways. The way I see it,
there are a couple main areas of improvement:
Plain Old Bug Fixes
doc.hasItem(null) crashes a Domino server. That's no good! We've fixed that,
and we're going through and fixing other [read] Keywords: agent
domino
dxl
lotus
notes
bug
database
java
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server
xml
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A Mini-Vacation With Ruby and the Domino Data Service
Sat, Mar 2nd 2013 4:11p Jesse Gallagher Since I've been neck-deep in LotusScript and Java for the past couple weeks, I
decided to take a bit of a sanity break today and play around with Ruby.
Specifically, I wrote a skeletal wrapper for the Domino Data Service in the
ExtLib and the first steps of a Rails app using it a bit. I don't expect this
to actually be useful down the line, or even necessarily to get any more work
put into it, but it was a fun diversion.
The API takes the same general shape as the normal Domino API, exce [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
database
java
server
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I Know Some Guys
Tue, Feb 26th 2013 12:09p Jesse Gallagher I've been a bit quiet lately, but that's mostly because I've been pretty busy
lately. After my old company began closing down, I started going whole-hog in
my consulting company, I Know Some Guys. Naturally, I can't go TOO much into
it, but the general gist is "so far, so good." We have a couple clients so far
and they've been keeping me busy indeed. A lot of that has involved classic
Notes client and web development, but I guess that serves me right for
snickering at people work [read] Keywords: domino
notes
notes client
consulting
database
development
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The Bean-Backed Table Design Pattern
Tue, Jan 22nd 2013 4:13p Jesse Gallagher First off, I don't like the name of this that I came up with, but it'll have to
do.
One of the design problems that comes up all the time in Notes/Domino
development is the "arbitrary table" idea. In classic Notes, you could solve
this with an embedded view, generated HTML (if you didn't want it to be good),
or a fixed-size table with a bunch of hide-whens. With XPages, everything is
much more flexible, but there's still the question of the actual implementation.
The route I've bee [read] Keywords: domino
notes
xpages database
development
java
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More On "Controller" Classes
Mon, Jan 7th 2013 6:14p Jesse Gallagher Since my last post on the matter , I've been using this "controller" class
organization method in a couple other projects (including a refresh of the
back-end of this blog), and it's proven to be a pretty great way to go about
XPages development.
As I mentioned before, the "controller" term comes from the rough equivalent in
Rails. Rails is thoroughly MVC based, so a lot of your programming involves
creating the UI of a page in HTML with a small sprinkling of Ruby (the "view"),
ba [read] Keywords: xpages development
java
javascript
properties
server
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"Controller" Classes Have Been Helping Me Greatly
Wed, Dec 26th 2012 3:14p Jesse Gallagher I mentioned a while ago that I've been using "controller"-type classes paired
with specific XPages to make my code cleaner. They're not really controllers
since they don't actually handle any server direction or page loading, but they
do still hook into page events in a way somewhat similar to Rails controller
classes. The basic idea is that each XPage gets an object to "back" it - I tie
page events like beforePageLoad and afterRenderResponse to methods on the class
that implement [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
xpages interface
java
server
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Moving From Ruby-in-XPages to Polyglot
Wed, Dec 12th 2012 1:18p Jesse Gallagher I've tweeted about this a couple times, but in some of my spare time lately
I've put together a new, cleaner implementation of the
generic-scripting-language support I first created back when I did my original
work with Ruby. I named the new project "Polyglot" and it has two facets:
The aforementioned generic-scripting-language support, done more cleanly and
with better capabilities.
A method for storing standalone page-generating scripts as documents in the
database that are executed [read] Keywords: domino
formula language
lotus
xpages database
java
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Programming Tips: Implied Booleans and the Ternary Operator
Tue, Dec 11th 2012 7:21a Jesse Gallagher This isn't Domino- or XPages-specific per se, but I figured I'd make a post
about some of my favorite stylistic bits in many programming languages: implied
boolean values and the ternary operator, which are distinct but often used
together.
What I mean by "implied boolean values" is when a language lets you use things
that aren't strictly comparisons or boolean values in if/then tests. The best
example for this is probably C (and no doubt the languages that came before
it): for a lon [read] Keywords: domino
xpages java
javascript
properties
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Putting Apache in Front of Domino
Sat, Dec 8th 2012 1:10p Jesse Gallagher The other day, for my side-project company, I wanted to set up hosting for a
WordPress site, ideally without setting up another whole server. The first two
ideas I had were pretty terrible:
Hosting it on Domino directly with PHP via CGI. Even if this worked, I assume
the performance would be pretty poor and I'd have no confidence in its general
longevity.
Hosting it on Apache on another port and using Domino to proxy through. While
Domino does have some minor proxy capabilities, they didn [read] Keywords: domino
css
linux
server
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My Current Data-Source Musings
Mon, Nov 26th 2012 5:10p Jesse Gallagher My quest to find the ideal way to access data in XPages continues. Each time I
make a new project, I come up with a slight variation on my previous theme,
improving in one or more of the various conflicting factors involved. The
problem, as always, is that the standard xp:dominoView and xp:dominoDocument
data sources alone are insufficient to properly separate business logic from
presentation. On the other hand, accessing view data in a way that is both
efficient and flexible via just the [read] Keywords: ibm
xpages java
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A Couple Blog Matters
Mon, Nov 26th 2012 5:10p Jesse Gallagher I've made a couple structural changes to the blog here. Normally, I wouldn't
make a fuss over things like that, but they're pertinent to the overall theme.
First off, I changed the links over on the right, adding a link to the
in-progress home page of my side-project company, I Know Some Guys. We're in
the market for contracts - web site projects, internal apps, and the like. I
may have more about that later.
I also promoted the link to my portfolio page to its own category. Since the [read] Keywords: ibm
xpages application
widgets
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The Ruby Builder for XPages
Wed, Nov 7th 2012 12:14p Jesse Gallagher After I got Ruby in XPages to the point where it's generally working enough to
power this blog, I set my sights on an even-more-important goal: being able to
write backing Java classes in Ruby. While replacing SSJS is quite handy, my
general use of inline scripting like that has declined significantly in favor
of Java classes.
Fortunately, JRuby has a language cross-compiler and some hooks to write
Java-compatible Ruby classes. Unfortunately, I was repeatedly stymied by a
couple things:
[read] Keywords: ibm
xpages application
eclipse
interface
java
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Self-Aggrandizement for Fun and Profit
Mon, Nov 5th 2012 8:15p Jesse Gallagher As I alluded to in my previous post, I decided to set up a "portfolio" site to
house a list of projects I've made or collaborated on and my recently-updated
resume:
http://portfolio.frostillic.us
The site itself is intentionally quite simple: it's meant to house clear
content, while further details are available on linked pages. Nonetheless,
despite its simplicity, it's allowing me to further refine a couple things I've
been tinkering with lately:
Bootstrap. Collaboration Today cam [read] Keywords: collaboration
domino
xpages applications
database
mobile
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Taking a Swing at the URL Problem
Sun, Nov 4th 2012 6:13p Jesse Gallagher In the new portfolio web site I'm setting up for myself, I've decided to see
what I can do about Domino's, and XPages' specifically, tendency towards
ungainly URLs. An XPage URL, particularly an auto-generated one from, say, a
view panel, can quickly become filled with undesirable elements - namely,
".nsf", ".xsp", "$$OpenDocument", "action=", and "documentId=". They all make
sense and serve important purposes for the server, and to a certain extent URLs
other than the main o [read] Keywords: domino
xpages database
server
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Improving My Development Process: Source Control
Mon, Oct 22nd 2012 2:11p Jesse Gallagher I think it's fair to say that most professional programmers know that they
should use source control, but, unless you work for a company that mandates it,
you treat it like flossing or going to the gym. However, unlike your personal
health and well-being, using source control is very important and can improve
your life noticeably.
I'm a recent convert, in part due to Domino's historic hostility to proper
source control. However, since 8.5.3 and its inclusion of the surprisingly good
So [read] Keywords: domino
notes
xpages application
database
development
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A Couple Things I've Been Trying Out Lately
Tue, Oct 16th 2012 12:09p Jesse Gallagher I'm always trying to figure out new tricks and (groan) patterns for my XPages
development, and I've had a couple trends and experiments lately that I think
are worth mentioning.
First off, I've been doing a lot of source control stuff lately, but that's a
topic for another post, currently in crummy-draft form.
Beyond that, I think I'll just start a list:
The joys of ExtLibUtil. Historically, I've had a general "JSFUtil" class (with
the name and original code copied from here), but [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
xpages database
development
java
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Building XPages servlets with FacesContext access
Thu, Sep 6th 2012 7:11a Jesse Gallagher I have a confession to make: I'm not crazy about XAgents. Don't get me wrong - they do everything they're supposed to and do it well. However, it's always kind of bothered me that you take a visual design element like an XPage and turn off all the higher levels to get back down to the core servlet. Plus, it muddies the list of XPages in the DB - some are actual XPages, some are just wrappers for scripts. So my objection is essentially pedantry.
However, the fact that my objection is wildly [read] Keywords: ibm
xpages application
database
google
java
openntf
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A Custom Control for dojox.widget.Toaster
Wed, Sep 5th 2012 8:14a Jesse Gallagher Update: Looks like Chris Toohey beat me to this by a couple months: http://www.dominoguru.com/pages/04092012113950.html
Marky Roden did a presentation at MWLUG that included, among other things, a demonstration of Pines Notify, a jQuery plugin that provides Growl-style notifications - something that could come in tremendously handy in a lot of situations.
I wanted to use something like this, but I decided to check to see if there's an equivalent in Dojo already, so I don't have to start incl [read] Keywords: css
dojo
properties
widget
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Quick-and-Dirty CKEditor Toolbar Setup for XPages
Tue, Sep 4th 2012 5:14p Jesse Gallagher A while back, I got annoyed by the lack of a "Source" button in the default rich text editor in XPages. After a bit of digging, I found that there is indeed one (not to mention a whole world of CKEditor toolbar plugins and enhancements) - just not by default. I think there's a way you can pick from a couple named "stock" toolbar layouts, but I ended up going the route of defining my own, naming each button in a group.
In CKEditor, at least pre-3.6 (and I guess it works later too), toolbars [read] Keywords: domino
rich text
xpages xml
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A Couple Updates to My Domino-One-Offs Repository
Tue, Sep 4th 2012 4:16p Jesse Gallagher I realized earlier that I let a couple of the classes in Domino-One-Offs stagnate relative to the versions I currently use. Since originally posting my convenience XML library and, more usefully, the DynamicViewCustomizer, I've tweaked both in my various projects to add more features I ended up needing.
com.raidomatic.xml
DynamicViewCustomizer
SortableMapView
The DynamicViewCustomizer has gone further down the path of Notes-client fidelity at the expense of a bit more overhead, doing things [read] Keywords: domino
notes
java
xml
102
An Extended Document Data Source To Support MIMEBean
Wed, Aug 22nd 2012 5:11p Jesse Gallagher Ever since I personally came up with the idea of storing serialized Java objects in Notes documents via MIME, I've been trying to use the technique all over the place, since it's basically the best thing since sliced bread.
My latest notion was that the pattern would be all the cooler if the serialized Java objects could be referenced directly in EL, so you could do something like #{doc.LineItems[3].cost}, pulling directly from a more-or-less normal Domino document. I decided to give implemen [read] Keywords: domino
notes
database
java
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Starting With Java Classes First
Mon, Aug 20th 2012 6:11p Jesse Gallagher Every time I make a new XPages app, I start by using the normal xp:dominoView and xp:dominoDocument data sources, on the theory that building with the standard set of components will keep things clean while I build on top of that. However, with each successive app, the time before I get annoyed at how messy the code has to be and start writing Java wrapper and management classes gets shorter and shorter.
For example, in my Forms 'n' Views mini-Designer app, I have the sidebar list of database [read] Keywords: xpages database
java
javascript
server
95
I Started Another Side Project
Thu, Aug 9th 2012 7:12a Jesse Gallagher While working on the view indexer thing (which seems to be taking the form of "yet another SQL exporter for Domino", but with some advantages), I started thinking about how I often want a nice, quick way to edit some views, forms, or stylesheets without having to launch Windows and Designer. The Mac client is there for views, but the experience still leaves something to be desired. In addition, I do very little lately that's intended to be seen directly in the Notes client - most views are se [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
notes
notes client
xpages dojo
mac
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102
This View Indexer Thing Might Be Worth Some Time
Sun, Aug 5th 2012 2:16p Jesse Gallagher I've put a little more time into my small view indexer from the other day, and it seems even more promising now. The editor I made for it might give you some idea of the potential:
Since the view building is all being done in Java, I decided to toss in the list of available JSR-223-compliant scripting languages currently available. The scripting context is given a variable "doc" that's a DocumentWrapper class I wrote that implements Map to make its use a bit easier. For added fun, I baked [read] Keywords: application
java
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101
I Went Crazy and Made a Small View Indexer
Sat, Aug 4th 2012 9:12a Jesse Gallagher Warning: this post is almost entirely pie-in-the-sky nonsense, untethered from reality. Probably.
So yesterday, for some reason, I got to thinking about Domino's view indexing and whether or not it can be readily done better. The current view indexer does its intended task with aplomb (most of the time), but it has its problems. For one, iterating over view indexes in Java (read: everything you should do in Domino today) is dog slow. More theoretically, since it deals only with summary data fo [read] Keywords: domino
rich text
database
java
oracle
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109
Mixing Dojo's BorderContainer with OneUI
Tue, Jul 31st 2012 7:14p Jesse Gallagher Chris Toohey's post earlier today reminded me of a technique I've been using in some of my apps lately. Since most of what I've been doing has been for internal and admin/reporting-type apps, I've been using OneUI extensively - it's straightforward with the Extension Library, looks pretty good, and the consistency of UI works for that type of application.
However, I ran into a problem with large views: putting a very horizontally-large table into the content area of OneUI breaks it horribl [read] Keywords: admin
notes
notes client
application
dojo
215
Faking Sortable View Data
Sun, Jul 22nd 2012 1:11p Jesse Gallagher There's a point in most decent-sized XPages apps I write where I switch from using standard data sources like xp:dominoView to writing Java classes that implement List, usually due to some multi-source data merging I have to do that would be extremely cumbersome or slow to do otherwise. This works well, but one problem is that view data sources have special powers that plain-Jane Lists lack, such as easy sortable column headers.
Having encountered TabularDataModel a bit ago when making an acti [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
notes
xpages database
development
java
oracle
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95
A Prototype In-App Messaging System for XPages
Mon, Jul 9th 2012 12:12p Jesse Gallagher Sven Hasselbach's post about ApplicationListeners the other day and the notion of post-MVC methods of app architecture got me thinking about the notion of generic messaging/events inside an XPages app. The first example that comes to mind is a project-tracking database where there may be events like "new task created" or "delivery ready for review" - business logic stuff where the fact that it's a document being modified is an implementation detail. In my actual project-tracking database a [read] Keywords: agent
notes
xpages application
database
interface
java
javascript
openntf
oracle
properties
xml
89
Using Lombok to Write Cleaner Java in Designer
Fri, Jul 6th 2012 4:15p Jesse Gallagher Java, as a language, has a number of admirable qualities, but succinctness is not among them. Even a simple "Person" class with just "firstName" and "lastName" properties can boil over with at least a dozen lines of boilerplate to add constructors, getters, setters, and equivalency testing. Fortunately, Project Lombok can help. Their main page contains a good video of the basics, while the Feature Overview page covers the rest. If you've written a lot of Java classes, I suspect that the v [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
notes
eclipse
java
properties
server
118
Basic Org Charts With xe:navigator and xe:beanTreeNode
Fri, Jul 6th 2012 7:14a Jesse Gallagher The topic of generating org charts on an XPage came up recently, and I decided to try my hand at making a pretty basic one using a technique similar to my re-use of Outline design elements from the other week. Not only are the generated hierarchies potentially useful, but it ended up providing a much cleaner example of how to recursively generate an Extension-Library tree.
To get started, I mocked up some basic data: I created a standard Domino directory database and created users with unique S [read] Keywords: domino
database
server
102
Using dojo.behavior
Tue, Jul 3rd 2012 6:16a Jesse Gallagher JavaScript in a browser is a messy business. While you can generally avoid writing a lot of client JavaScript when doing XPages development, it will eventually be necessary to get your hands dirty. While a bit of XSP.openDialog() here and there, things can get hairy when you want to start including the same or similar code everywhere. You can move the code blocks themselves off to a script library, but then you're still stuck including function calls inline.
Enter dojo.behavior. I ran across d [read] Keywords: domino
script library
xpages css
development
dojo
javascript
97
Book Review: XPages Extension Library
Mon, Jul 2nd 2012 4:14p Jesse Gallagher Unlike many development environments, there are only a handful of books about XPages. Combined with the historical lack of documentation, that makes all three - Mastering XPages, XPages Portable Command Guide, and XPages Extension Library - essential. In that sense, the quality of the book is a less important purchasing-decision factor than its mere existence.
Fortunately, XPages Extension Library doesn't skimp on quality or breadth of coverage. The sections of the book track the natural progr [read] Keywords: xpages application
development
dojo
eclipse
java
82
Use Interfaces All The Time
Wed, Jun 27th 2012 6:15a Jesse Gallagher In addition to being useful concepts generally, Java interfaces can be used literally in code as a way of keeping your code as clean and generic as possible. While you can't ever create a new object based on an interface, you CAN use interface names as object types for variables and parameters. For example, this is a legal way to create a Vector of Objects:
List someList = new Vector();
"That's great and all," you say, "but why bother doing that?" And indeed, in a simple case like a most [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
lotus
notes
xpages database
interface
java
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oracle
xml
83
Putting java.util to Use
Fri, Jun 22nd 2012 9:16a Jesse Gallagher I'm in the process of figuring out a good way to combine data from several sources into a single activity stream, which means that they should be categorized by date and then sorted by time. While that's a piece of cake with a single view, it gets hairy when you have several views, or perhaps several different types of sources entirely. Fortunately, abstract data types are here to help.
You're already using Lists and Maps, right? For this, I decided to use Maps and one of my personal favorit [read] Keywords: interface
java
oracle
wiki
135
Re-using Classic Domino Outlines, Rough Draft
Tue, Jun 19th 2012 3:14p Jesse Gallagher My current big project at work involves, among many other things, viewing individual project databases through a centralized "portal". These all use the same base template, but can be individually customized, usually with new or changed views. Additionally, I'm going to be granting web users varying roles that correspond to existing or planned access roles in the target database. The result is that I'm spending a good amount of time trying to dynamically adapt some classic Notes elements to [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
notes
xpages database
java
javascript
openntf
server
76
Reverse-Engineering File Formats for Fun
Mon, Jun 11th 2012 6:16a Jesse Gallagher Well, okay, it wasn't for fun; it was for work. About a year and a half ago, I had occasion to parse the contents of shared object files from a Flash Media Server ("*.fso" files), and I figured it might be interesting to go back over the kind of things I had to do to accomplish that.
The first thing I did was to search around to see if anyone else had solved the same problem. However, while there are plenty of parsers for "Flash shared objects", not the least of which is in Flash itself, i [read] Keywords: java
server
wiki
89
Ruby Builder First Draft: Intriguing Failure
Sat, Jun 9th 2012 7:14a Jesse Gallagher For a while now, I've been fiddling with trying to make an Eclipse builder that smoothly translates Ruby files into Java classes and adds them to the project to be compiled, the idea being that, rather than only using Ruby inline in XPages or via "script libraries", you'd be able to write all of your supporting Java classes in it as well.
I'd been giving it about an hour or so of frustration every couple of weeks, but yesterday I decided to hunker down and make it work. After patching the [read] Keywords: xpages eclipse
java
openntf
119
XPages MVC: Experiment II, Part 4
Mon, Jun 4th 2012 5:12p Jesse Gallagher To finish up my series on the infrastructure of my guild forums app, I'd like to mention a couple of the down sides I see with its current implementation, which I'd generally want to fix or avoid if re-implementing it today.
Roll-Your-Own
One of the strengths of this kind of MVC setup is that it works to separate the front-end code from the data source. It would be (relatively) easy for me to replace the model and collection classes with versions that use a SQL database or non-Notes document [read] Keywords: domino
formula language
notes
rich text
xpages bug
database
java
javascript
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Ruby for XPages Programmers, Part 1
Wed, May 30th 2012 8:11p Jesse Gallagher Since I'm always gabbing on about Ruby, I figured it'd be useful to give an overview of the language and, in future posts, why it's worth using for XPages scripting. I don't plan to write an exhaustive tutorial for the language (they're aplenty on the web), but I'll go over the basic concepts and some of how it compares to EL, Server JavaScript, and Java.
Ruby is a dynamic, object-oriented language with functional-programming features and syntax designed for programmer-friendliness. In te [read] Keywords: formula language
lotusscript
xpages java
javascript
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XPages MVC: Experiment II, Part 3
Mon, May 28th 2012 5:11p Jesse Gallagher Continuing on from my last post, I'd like to go over a couple specifics about how I handle fetching appropriate collections of objects from a view and a couple areas where I saved myself some programming hassle.
As I mentioned before, both the "manager" and "collection" classes inherit from abstract classes that handle a lot of the dirty work. The AbstractCollectionManager class is by far the smaller of the two, containing mostly convenience methods and a couple overloaded methods for gene [read] Keywords: rich text
xpages database
interface
java
properties
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XPages MVC: Experiment II, Part 2
Thu, May 24th 2012 6:12p Jesse Gallagher Continuing on from my last post, I'd like to go over the collection and model structures I used in my guild-forums app.
I set up the data in the Notes DB in a very SQL-ish way (in part because I considered not using Domino initially). Each Form has a single equivalent view (for the most part), which is uncategorized and sorted by default by an ID column. There is one column for each column that I want to sort by and, in the case of simple documents, one for each applicable field, containing on [read] Keywords: domino
ldd
lotus
notes
xpages database
java
javascript
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125
XPages MVC: Experiment II, Part 1
Wed, May 23rd 2012 1:07p Jesse Gallagher As I've mentioned a couple times, my largest XPages app to date is the site I did for my guild's forums. The forum part itself isn't particularly amazing, considering it's almost harder to NOT write a forum in Domino than it is to write one, but it gave me a chance to try my hand at abstracting data access away from the XPage.
I put "Part 1" in the title because I figure it will be best to break the topic up into at least three parts: the overall idea and the result, the structure of the [read] Keywords: domino
rich text
script library
xpages interface
javascript
server
105
Optimizing for the Wrong Thing
Wed, May 23rd 2012 6:13a Jesse Gallagher My apartment has a core logistical issue: it has two floors and the connection is a spiral staircase. This is generally fine for normal use, but it's a giant hassle when moving in or out: the building has to hire some guys to essentially dismantle the stairs to turn each step to one side so they can hoist large objects like bookshelves and beds up and down.
In order to make this mildly more practical, the building decided to replace one of the upstairs windows in each apartment with a model th [read] Keywords:
110
XPages MVC: Experiment I
Tue, May 22nd 2012 3:12p Jesse Gallagher Now that I've had a bit of time, I've started trying out some ideas for new ways to do XPage development. Specifically, I'm trying out the "XPages as the Controller" setup I pondered last time. The general goal is this:
There would be one XPage for each zone of concern (I don't know the right terminology): Posts.xsp, Users.xsp, etc.
The XPage itself would have almost nothing on it - it would exist as a trigger for the server to load an appropriate Controller class, which would in turn [read] Keywords: domino
xpages development
server
sql
79
More Musing About Controllers
Sun, May 13th 2012 6:12a Jesse Gallagher I've been thinking more about this MVC thing, thanks to re-learning Rails. I'm fairly convinced that moving as much code as possible out of the XPage and into wrapper objects is a big improvement (convinced enough that it feels silly that wasn't doing it already), but it still feels not quite right.
Two parts of the MVC trinity are straightforward in modern Domino development: Forms and wrapper objects are the Model and XPages are the View. The Controller is where things get muddy. Off the t [read] Keywords: domino
xpages application
development
server
77
The Language of the Platform
Thu, May 10th 2012 5:12p Jesse Gallagher The most recent episodes of Hypercritical and Build and Analyze discuss a new third-party iOS development environment called RubyMotion. Essentially, RubyMotion is an iOS version of MacRuby: an implementation of Ruby on top of the native Objective-C runtime, allowing programmers to write native apps in Ruby. This is similar in nature to JRuby and the like, in that the Ruby objects you deal with are real objects in the underlying platform, and you manipulate them in the same way, at near-native s [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
notes
development
java
javascript
mac
server
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Separation of Concerns
Wed, May 9th 2012 5:12p Jesse Gallagher A while back, I wondered about the right way to write XPages. Things have changed a bit since then - Domino has gotten a bit better, the Extension Library exists and is great, and I'm a bit more adept with the environment. The forum app, which I should probably write a post explaining one day, came together kind of like how I mentioned there - Java classes to wrap all of the Domino access, which dramatically reduced the amount of code in the XPages themselves.
Still, I'm not sure I'm doing i [read] Keywords: domino
xpages java
properties
widgets
xml
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Swapping Between JRuby Embed Methods
Tue, May 8th 2012 7:12a Jesse Gallagher When going about making Ruby in XPages work, I had to figure out which of the three JRuby embed methods to use: Core, JSR 223, and BSF. For my purposes, it seems like the need for BSF was obviated by JSR 223 (there are some differences, but I'm not sure they matter to me), so it's really a choice between the first two. I've tried both, and I keep swapping between them (the next beta, if things stay stable, will likely switch back to Core) and between various configurations inside them, due to [read] Keywords: xpages javascript
openntf
server
wiki
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A Quick-and-Dirty "$$ViewTemplateDefault" (-ish) for XPages
Thu, May 3rd 2012 6:11p Jesse Gallagher 8.5.3 brought with it the very-handy "Display XPage Instead" property for views. It's great! That way, you can keep more of your existing URLs in old apps or just generally use cleaner ones in new apps - XPages are awesome, but ".xsp" in the URL is not.
In a full-blown app, you're probably going to point each view to its own XPage containing the hand-crafted fancified version. Sometimes, though, you just want to toss a xe:dynamicViewPanel on a page and that's good enough. However, unlike [read] Keywords: domino
xpages database
java
javascript
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The Greatest Domino Poster of All Time
Fri, Apr 20th 2012 5:13p Jesse Gallagher My company is moving out of the offices it has inhabited for... longer than I've been alive, basically. During this move, we've had plenty of opportunities to come across relics of its past form as an instructor-led training location: old courseware, ancient versions of Windows, NetWare, and Notes/Domino (from before it was Domino), and some priceless marketing materials. Some of the posters we've found are worth a good chuckle or two (a NotesMail poster boasting "Finally, a mail system you [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotus
notes
notesmail
exchange
exchange
server
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LotusLearns did a poor job copying my post
Fri, Apr 20th 2012 5:13p Jesse Gallagher So apparently, this site LotusLearns has been re-posting quite a few Lotus blogs without permission, and my recent Ruby action plan post made the cut. It's bad enough to see my post aggregated without permission and plastered with ads that don't make me any money, but it's even worse that the replica of the post is thoroughly corrupt.
For one, it leaves of the "S" in the opening "So". Additionally, the XSP markup I posted is passed through to the browser unencoded, leaving a bunch of bla [read] Keywords: lotus
ntf
xpages
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Arbitrary Scripting Languages in XPages
Thu, Apr 19th 2012 7:12p Jesse Gallagher I think I've settled on JSR 223, the generic "Scripting in Java" specification, as the likely best way to embed Ruby. It seems like the "correct" way to do it and generally the cleanest. I don't like the notion that the way to customize the runtime is by setting system properties, so I'm still a little wary, but it'll do for now, in any event.
The side benefit of JSR 223 (and this would be true of BSF as well) is that it supports a crapload of languages, and it does so in a very unified [read] Keywords: xpages java
openntf
properties
server
wiki
Wherein I Go A Tad Insane
Wed, Apr 11th 2012 6:12p Jesse Gallagher A bit of conversation earlier about Rails set my brain onto a disastrous course. Since I've been doing so much with Ruby lately, it's only natural to have the question of whether anything can be done related to Rails hovering nearby at all times - Rails brought Ruby to prominence and is itself an amazing piece of software with a lot to teach. It's not, however, a natural fit for Domino - Rails, to my knowledge, wears its SQL proudly, and any attempt to use Domino as a backing data source woul [read] Keywords: acl
domino
ibm
ntf
xpages database
eclipse
java
server
sql
websphere
xml
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Making A Project Out Of The Blog and Ruby
Tue, Apr 10th 2012 5:12p Jesse Gallagher Now that I have the blog in Domino and acting as an accelerating incubator for Ruby-in-XPages (man, I need a better name for that), I decided I may as well put 8.5.3's filesystem synching to good use and put the whole thing up on GitHub with everything else:
https://github.com/jesse-gallagher/frostillic.us-Blog
I've also started keeping a todo list in the README file there with my notes and future plans for the blog, the Ruby runtime, and a tentative "Misc" section.
As for the interpreter [read] Keywords: domino
notes
xpages application
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File Under "Man, I Hope Designer Still Works After This"
Sun, Apr 8th 2012 4:12p Jesse Gallagher Well, I think the new blog has gone relatively smoothly, other than my accidental re-posting of my SQL-migration post (which oddly seems more popular than its first run, just one day earlier). That means it's time to get started on the next phases.
Other than the mundane setting-up-a-blog stuff like implementing search and proper draft posts, I have a lot of work to do surrounding my Ruby bindings. Since I'm going to eventually want Ruby "script libraries" and other handy non-inline uses, I [read] Keywords: domino
eclipse
sql
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Import from SQL to NSF: It's So Easy!
Sat, Apr 7th 2012 9:12p Jesse Gallagher I decided I should probably finally get around to moving this blog from WordPress to Domino, if for no other reason than to have a perfect testbed for the weird stuff I've been doing lately. The first task is to write an importer, so I decided to just do a straight SQL rows -> Domino documents import. This couldn't be easier if you follow this simple guide:
Write a Java agent that uses the appropriate JDBC connector for your database. In my case, it's MySQL, so I had it do a "show tabl [read] Keywords: agent
domino
database
java
mysql
sql
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Making the Dogfooding Switch
Sat, Apr 7th 2012 9:12p Jesse Gallagher I've finally done it: I've switched my blog over to Domino. I did it for a couple reasons:
To silence the voice in the back of my head constantly saying "why are you using WordPress? You're a freaking web programmer! Write your own!"
To put my Ruby-in-XPages code through its paces in the way only a live site can.
I've already had to fix a couple holes in my Ruby adapter, mostly revolving around the fact that I haven't bothered to properly handle serialization and JSF's StateHolder in [read] Keywords: domino
notes
notes client
xpages blogging
javascript
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Import From SQL to NSF: It’s So Easy!
Fri, Apr 6th 2012 6:13a Jesse Gallagher I decided I should probably finally get around to moving this blog from WordPress to Domino, if for no other reason than to have a perfect testbed for the weird stuff I've been doing lately. The first task is to write an importer, so I decided to just do a straight SQL rows -> Domino documents import. This couldn't be easier if you follow this simple guide:
Write a Java agent that uses the appropriate JDBC connector for your database. In my case, it's MySQL, so I had it do a "show tabl [read] Keywords: agent
domino
database
java
mysql
sql
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Ruby-in-XPages is Inching Towards Practicality
Wed, Apr 4th 2012 7:12p Jesse Gallagher I've made some more encouraging progress today in my quest to be able to actually use Ruby when doing XPages development. I implemented method binding (as opposed to just value binding) and found a way to shim in the interpreter so that Ruby can be used for early events like beforePageLoad. The revised code is up on my GitHub profile:
https://github.com/jesse-gallagher/Domino-One-Offs
That last part was kind of tough - I found structures for custom Application objects in the XSP Starter Kit, [read] Keywords: domino
xpages application
development
java
javascript
openntf
profile
properties
server
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#{ruby: ‘it’s a start’}
Tue, Apr 3rd 2012 5:13p Jesse Gallagher Oh man, I think this might actually work. Feeling adventurous this evening, I decided to look into the XPage runtime's expression language handler. After poring through tons of methods, interfaces, implementation classes, EXTENDED implementation classes, and disparate JARs, I narrowed the prefix handler down to the "FactoryLookup" property of the IBM-specific variant of facesContext's Application. With that, which is basically a hash, you map a prefix to a handler factory (it's always facto [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
application
java
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Putting the Domain Catalog to a Bit of Use
Tue, Apr 3rd 2012 11:13a Jesse Gallagher Since I kind of backed my way into Domino development and administration, there are a number of areas of the server's functionality that I'm either unfamiliar with or casually brushed off as unreliable or not overly useful.
The Domain Catalog is one such area: I've been vaguely familiar with it, but have never bothered to tend to it or use it to solve problems. Fortunately, a problem it's perfectly suited to fell into my lap. In an overarching administration database, I want to get from a d [read] Keywords: admin
administration
dblookup
domino
database
development
properties
server
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What Makes the Hassle Worthwhile
Mon, Apr 2nd 2012 8:13p Jesse Gallagher I've been toying with my Ruby servlet a bit this evening and it didn't take long to start having some fun. For example, here's a snippet from a page I'm building with Markaby, which is an aging little library that makes building HTML pages declaratively a cinch:
$database.views.sort { |a, b| a.name b.name }.each do |view| li { a view.name } unless view.name =~ /^\(.*\)$/ end
That prints out the names of all the non-hidden views in the database, sorted alphabetically, inside an HT [read] Keywords: agent
database
java
javascript
server
82
My Recurring Ruby/Domino Dream
Sun, Apr 1st 2012 4:11p Jesse Gallagher As is no doubt clear by now, one of my obsessions when it comes to Domino is trying to make my programming life better, and one of the best ways I can think of accomplishing that is if I can make it so I can program in Ruby instead of one of the godforsaken languages natively supported.
In general, my attempts towards this goal have fallen into three categories:
Accessing Domino from Ruby as one might a normal database. The very-much-in-progress fruit of this is my Domino API for Ruby projec [read] Keywords: agent
domino
dxl
ibm
notes
rich text
xpages database
eclipse
java
password
properties
server
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In Between My Project and XPages
Thu, Mar 15th 2012 1:13p Jesse Gallagher Despite my grousing about the state of programming for Domino in general and Designer in particular, I'm still mostly a fan of XPages. I use it for my guild's web site and pretty much every new project at work. However, I haven't been able to crack migrating my main work database template over.
Without getting too much into it, the point of the template is to create one database per project to act as a project web site listing online events with arbitrary registration forms and exit evaluati [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
notes
notes client
rich text
rich-text
xpages database
java
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166
Basic Eclipse Plugin Installation in Designer
Thu, Mar 15th 2012 12:12p Jesse Gallagher Since Domino Designer is based on Eclipse, one of the nifty advantages is that you can use some of the same plugins as vanilla Eclipse. That "some of" is a big caveat, since Designer's base isn't the latest Eclipse, so some plugins won't install, won't work, or will even cause Designer to stop launching until you manually remove them. So... proceed with caution.
The first thing you have to do is to enable Eclipse plug-in installation, which is something you've likely done if you've inst [read] Keywords: domino
application
eclipse
vm
workspace
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Quality of Life: Eclipse Color Themes
Sat, Mar 10th 2012 5:12p Jesse Gallagher Well, this is a nice quality-of-life improvement: the plugin Eclipse Color Themes, which (so far) works just fine in Designer (8.5.3). Having to go through every single editor type and manually pick each color for each code element every time I wanted to change a color theme was always a huge annoyance, particularly compared to other editors. Fortunately, that plugin handles it pretty well, though it unsurprisingly doesn't support LotusScript, so that's still manual. I installed it without pro [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
eclipse
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How I Want To Use Domino
Wed, Mar 7th 2012 9:11a Jesse Gallagher From my perspective, there are three main problems with Domino: the limits, the client, and the server. Now, that's a lot of stuff... most of the product, in fact. However, the facts that I'm still programming for it and that my company's 16GB project-tracking database is as snappy as it was when it was empty attest to the core quality of the product. Off the top of my head, I can think of a number of things that make Domino salvageable:
Reader fields. These are hard to beat and hard to fi [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
xpages database
integration
java
javascript
password
security
server
sql
wiki
60
Some Niceties of Implementing a Notes API
Mon, Feb 20th 2012 6:11a Jesse Gallagher There are a couple things about writing my Ruby wrapper for the C API that make it particularly fun, mostly related to getting to add abilities that I desperately wish were there in the normal APIs.
Ruby-style (forall) looping. Anyone who has iterated over a NotesDocumentCollection knows the drill: set a variable to the first element, start a while loop, and make sure to set the variable to the next one at the end. Writing it one time isn't so bad. Writing it hundreds of times, though? It ge [read] Keywords: dxl
ldd
lotus
notes
rich text
database
java
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Started Work on a Ruby Wrapper for the C API
Wed, Feb 15th 2012 6:13p Jesse Gallagher As I had mentioned before, I've been tinkering about with the Domino C API, specifically with Ruby. Although I'm not sure I'll actually have a use for it (from what I can tell, the C API is very tied to ID files and threads, which would make a multi-user web server thing cumbersome), I've decided to go for it and write a wrapper for the API generally based on the Java/LotusScript API. This is serving a number of purposes:
It gets me off my (metaphorical) duff and in front of a text editor [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
java
server
wiki
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This Dynamic View Customizer Is Getting Into Shape
Mon, Feb 13th 2012 8:12a Jesse Gallagher Since last week, I've made two nice improvements to my dynamic view customizer:
I added some support for twistie images when the referenced DB is on the same server. The code assumes that the referenced images are image wells with at least two entries, but I can't imagine why that wouldn't be the case in practice.
I vastly improved my handling of color columns. Previously, I had been resorting to hacky methods like hidden s read by JavaScript or surrounding s styled to take up the whole c [read] Keywords: domino
css
java
javascript
server
xml
216
Enhancing xe:dynamicViewPanel For My Own Purposes
Thu, Feb 9th 2012 7:11a Jesse Gallagher I think I have my view rendering problem licked. To recap, I've been working on a way to show views in XPages that met a couple requirements:
Entirely dynamic. Since this will be for a combined reporting site that will show views from customized project databases of wildly varying needs, I couldn't make any assumptions about view layout, categorization, or content. It should pull as much display information from the view design as possible.
Fast. Some of these views have thousands of rows, [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
ibm
ldd
lotus
notes
notes client
xpages database
java
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xml
94
Formatting View Content on the Web
Wed, Feb 1st 2012 8:11a Jesse Gallagher My current work project involves displaying arbitrary views from various databases into a combined reporting site (written in XPages). This has presented me with two hurdles: pulling in the data completely and accurately and then figuring out a good way to format it.
The former problem is one of the few areas where it seems like "classic" Domino development has an edge: views render rapidly and, as long as you've configured the server to display lots of rows or add in pager controls, complet [read] Keywords: domino
dxl
ibm
notes
xpages css
development
dojo
java
server
116
Getting My Feet Wet With Ruby and the Domino C API
Thu, Jan 26th 2012 2:13p Jesse Gallagher My search for a useful way to use Domino as a database back-end for a Ruby front-end has continued and, more specifically, has continued to be difficult.
I gave a shot to the Java CORBA API. Initially, that went well: after grabbing NCSO.jar from my Designer installation, enabling DIIOP on the server, and setting up JRuby, I was able to connect to the server using the host name, canonical user name, and password. Great! However, once I exported my app's Java model classes (modified to use Note [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
notes
notes client
R5
database
development
java
password
server
76
A Couple Handy Domino Java String Utils
Wed, Jan 25th 2012 10:12a Jesse Gallagher As most developers probably do, I have a grab bag of "utility" functions/methods I use across various projects, and I figured I'd post a few of the handier ones.
The first is a basic XML-encoding function that just takes a string and returns something suitable for putting into an XML or HTML file. I've been too lazy to figure out if the standard Java library has an equivalent that doesn't involve creating an actual XML document in memory, so I just took the one I use for LotusScript and po [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
notes
java
xml
89
Confound It; That’s Two APIs Down
Sun, Jan 22nd 2012 9:13p Jesse Gallagher In the interests of getting crap done, as soon as I was finished with my previous post, I fired up TextMate and a couple Terminal windows to start writing a Ruby wrapper for the DAS API.
It started out great! Wanting to avoid the minor hassle I ran into before with Ruby's built-in Net::HTTP library, I did a quick search for Ruby HTTP/REST libraries and picked one that worked well, named HTTParty. Before long, I had the rudimentary elements of a Notes API working, with classes to represent the [read] Keywords: domino
notes
xpages database
java
server
sql
xml
