In this article I will demonstrate how to implement a cool notification technique using Pines Notify. This small (7k min) js library provides a wealth of flexibility and a feature set second to none. It can use multiple different CSS libraries (bootstrap, jQueryUI and others) so integration into your site is quick and simple.
Introduction
Pines Notify is a notification popup capability which is easily integrated into a website. Like most jQuery plugins there is a methods to instantiate the capability and the ability to pass in multiple parameters. There are certainly other popup style plugins but this is easy to grasp and the examples are very good.
We are going to look at how to make some complex function popups like these…
Examples of Pines Notify popups
Demonstration
There are two demonstration pages this week
The first demonstration is a basic port of the Pines Notify buttons from the original example into an XPage.
Pines Notify provides a basic shell for popup creation and the capability for multiple custom configurations. A “popup” by default is created on the top right of the screen and disappears after a fixed period of time. The the position, CSS, length of time shown, transparency, contents, callbacks and other features can be controlled through the use of parameters. There are too many to mention in one article but they can all be seen at the example website.
Sample Notification
Adding Pines Notify to an XPage
The Pines Notify download contains the .js files (readbale and minified) and a basic css file. These are easily added to our database as files in the WebContent folder.
Adding Pines Notify js and css fields to our database
Once we have added the js and css files to the database they can be added to our XPage as a resource(s)
Pines Notify has a basic format for activating. Here is a sample button from the website:
<button class="btn source" onclick="$.pnotify({
pnotify_title: 'Regular Notice',
pnotify_text: 'Check me out! I'm a notice.'
});">Regular Notice</button>
In this format the button does not work correctly when added to an XPage as it causes a page refresh when clicked. To turn this into an functioning button we must use an <xp:button> like this one
The Pines Notify examples website gives us the code we need to create each button
Taking the sample code from the Pines Notify examples page
And to convert this to our XPages button we just need to copy and paste this code and insert it into the <![CDATA[ code section above. Using this we can quickly and easily convert the examples into functioning XPages buttons.
Pinning Notifications
By default all Notifications have the ability to "pin" them to the screen. Should they contain information the user wishes to retain, they can do so
Pinning your notification
Closing Notifications
By default all notifications can be closed before they fade out using the X in the notification
Stacking notifications
Pines Notify notifications always stack on top of each other, so you never have to worry about position or overlaying issues, they will organize themselves nicely.
Showing all notifications
By default there is a bar added to the screen which allows user to see the last and/or all previous notifications.
Showing all previous notificaitons
Working this into XPages functionality
Javascript alert boxes have been used since the start of the web but they require a user click and an unnecessary interaction from the user if the point of the notification is just that – to notify the user of something.
In our XPages applications we could potentially notify the user after:
Successful REST update from the server
partialRefresh completion
form submission
Pager completion
General application workflow progress
Validation failure
really the possibilities are endless and really up to you the developer.
Examples
My demonstration site examples page has illustrated a number of buttons taken directly from the website and I have also added some notifications to the other jQuery in XPages examples (linked in through the menu).
On my second Demonstration page There are 4 simple examples of real application uses for Pines Notify
Dojo Toaster Widget
On the XPages server without the need for jQuery you can use the dojo toaster widget to provide a notification capability. You should take a look at Chris Toohey’s well written article on Mastering the Dojo Toaster for XPages to get a comparison.
Thanks
To Alan Hurt for pointing me in the direction of this plugin
Google Chrome 27 – now with added voice searching
Wed, May 22nd 2013 9:04a Mark Roden The new Chrome v27 went live today with a new voice search capability using the HTML5 media capabilities the browser asks to use my microphone and when it does it allows you to speak your query rather than type it.
It is similar to the capability which has been in Android Jelly Bean 4.2 for a while now which I find very useful and I am becoming more reliant on it – we still have some accent issue to get over though.
Below is a quick video demonstrating that it still has some hurdles to get [read] Keywords: google
205
Writing a single library for SSJS and CSJS validation – failed attempt #1
Sun, May 19th 2013 6:04p Mark Roden In this article I will demonstrate my first futile attempt to consolidate CSJS and SSJS libraries so that we only have to write validation once. I will also discuss JavaScripts Closures which unless you have already encountered them will make your head hurt thinking about it
Introduction
I was reminded in one of the comments on my blog last week about how it is still a pain in the butt to have to write client side JavaScript validation (to provide a good user interface) and server side JavaScr [read] Keywords: ldd
lotus
dojo
firefox
interface
javascript
password
server
xml
196
XPages ND9 (Dojo 1.8) does not work with other AMD loaders (and the work around)
Tue, May 14th 2013 6:10p Mark Roden Today I took a new jQuery plugin that I was playing with from an R8.5.3 environment where it worked, to an R9 environment and it failed – I figured it had something to do with something I had been reading about over the last month and in fixing my problem this lead to a more serious realization that I KNOW other people are also going to come across.
Background
A brief scan of the last month’s discussions on Xpages and jQuery Mobile 1.3 reveals a number of posts started by Dave Leedy [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
notes
R8
xpages bug
database
dojo
mobile
properties
EXTJS in XPages #9 – Infinite scrolling rebooted and reborn – v4.2 BufferedRenderer
Mon, May 13th 2013 5:29a Mark Roden In this article I will introduce the new EXTJS v4.2 Infinite scroller – the BuffererRenderer. The whole concept of infinite scrolling has been rewritten in the new version of the grid and it had made a huge difference to responsiveness and stability of the infinite grid.
EXTJS in XPages series
Here are links to all of the previous articles in this series
EXTJS in XPages #8 – Selecting data from the grid and opening a document
EXTJS in XPages #7 – Doing an @Unique(@DbColumn) equivalent [read] Keywords: xpages ajax
application
database
javascript
properties
server
xml
215
Shorthand Conditional JavaScript variable checking using ||
Sun, May 5th 2013 6:23p Mark Roden In this article I will highlight a shorthand method of JavaScript conditional variable checking. The || operator is commonly recognized as “OR” but it’s usage is broader than some people would think.
You might have occasion to have a variable declaration purposefully override a desired value. In this example the start will be zero unless the start variable has been declared with and assigned value:
Long Hand
var start
/*..bunch o' code..*/
if (!start){
start = 0
}
[read] Keywords: javascript
JavaScript variable hoisting
Wed, May 1st 2013 8:16p Mark Roden In this article I will give a quick overview of JavaScript hoisting and explain why sometimes your variables are not doing what you expect them to.
In the following example we have a very simple variable declaration and function:
var msg = "hello world"
function sayHi(){
alert(msg)
}
sayHi()
If you run this through firebug you get the expected message in the browser
However if you change the code slightly you do not get the initially expected response. When you run the following code [read] Keywords: javascript
493
Make your XPages more maintainable – JavaScript Callback functions
Sun, Apr 28th 2013 6:39p Mark Roden In this article I will attempt to explain the purpose and benefits of using callback functions in JavaScript.
Introduction
Basic JavaScript functions look like this normally like this
function addMe(a, b){
return a+ b
}
JavaScript variables normally look like this
var a = 2
var b = 3
Finally we would call the function to add the variables
var theTotal = addMe(a, b)
//5
Seems simple enough
Setting a variable to a function
But we can also combine them into something like this
va [read] Keywords: xpages ajax
application
development
dojo
javascript
