If you are using or going to use XPages in your organization you need to get the Extension Library – it is already included in 8.5.3 UP1 and in the future it is just going to be part of the standard install and we won’t even consider it an “add on”.
And if you are a developer using the Extension Library, like you should, then you NEED to buy this book and read it. I am not understating that fact, you need to buy it, otherwise you are doing yourself and your company a disservice. What I realized very quickly was that I thought I knew the Extension Library, when in fact I had only scratched the surface and how much more functionality I could be taking advantage of. I have used many parts of the Extension Library now for a few months and I have stolen re-used parts of the example database like the REST services and basically copied and pasted them. I never really understand what they were and how the worked, but didn’t need to either………my loss apparently.
So what’s it do for me?
It just makes you better – and unless you improve and get better, someone else’s going to be doing your job for you!
What this book does is it breaks down all those sections you see every day in the Control Palette and explains it in simple to understand manner.
Extension Library controls in your Designer Control Palette
For example…
Chapter 2 – Installation and deployment, written from the perspective of someone who’s had to do it, a LOT and you know they know what they are talking about.
Chapter 4 – Forms Dynamic Content and Morecontains a section on the Dynamic Content control – that is the equivalent of computed Subforms – who knew!! Excellent !!
Chapter 5 – Dojo made easy- this does an excellent job of explaining how dojo is integrated into the XPage designer client with good examples!!
and I still prefer jQuery, but now I have an even better understanding of why
Chapter 9 – The Application’s Layout has a history of OneUI and while I still think it is massively over complicated for what it needs to be, there are clear explanations of how it breaks down and how you can manipulate each separate section for your evil needs
Chapter 11 – REST services took my knowledge from 10% to 90% in an hour. Soooooo many applications for this capability, I *really* wish I had had this 10 years ago!
Chapter 12 – XPages gets relational – oh yes it does baby!
Chapter 13 – Get Social – I would love to get social and now I know how to – (but I am not social and will now go back in my corner and cry)
Talk to me like a person – not a machine
You know when you add an ExtLib custom control to your XPage and you see the “All Properties” and 95% of the explanation seems alien speak to you? This book provides the “real person” explanation of the property and what it does for you. Laying all the properties out together in one place also makes is a whole lot easier to understand the control, its purpose and how you use it!
details on client – que?
Is really IBM speak for….
oooh that’s what it means
The Authors
To varying levels I have gotten to know the authors of this book over the last few months and they a genuinely some of the best people you could ever hope to meet. They wrote this book because they are just like you and me – developers – and they want to spread their knowledge and make the whole community better.
Conclusion
This book was written by developers for developers and like I said, you owe it to yourself and your company to check it out. The cost of the book is less than an hour’s worth of your time to your company and unless you are an XPage ÜberGenius already, you cannot help but learn from this book and it will pay for itself the first day you really sit down and read it.
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
191
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
213
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
491
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
260
Webcast: jQuery The World’s Most Popular JavaScript Library Comes to XPages – now on YouTube
Fri, Apr 26th 2013 7:39a Mark Roden It was an absolute pleasure to do my jQuery in XPages presentation for the 3rd time (publicly) earlier this week and it was as part of the TLCC and Teamstudio webcast series highlighting some of the people and presentations from the community.
There were 430 people registered for the webcast and at its peak there were over 300 people watching.
As with each presentation, podcast and screencast I have had the privilege of being a part of, I am humbled by knowing that I am able to help other develo [read] Keywords: xpages community
javascript
podcast
