The Big Lie From Gartner
Mon, Aug 9th 2010 7:14p Peter Presnell divI almost choked on my cornflakes this morning when I read a blog entry by Tom Austin at Gartner - a href=http://blogs.gartner.com/tom_austin/2010/08/08/big-red-flag-ibms-ed-brill-suggests-you-not-read-gartner-research-on-notesdomino-email/Big Red Flag - IBMs Ed Brill suggests you do not read Gartner research on Notes/Domino email/a. I couldnt believe the crap that was being served from a blog with the Gartner name in its banner. I had read Ed Brills a href=http://www.edbrill.com/ebrill/ [read] Keywords: collaboration
domino
ibm
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notesdomino
consulting
development
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exchange
exchange
microsoft
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242
Inside LotusScript: Using Dynamic LotusScript
Fri, Aug 6th 2010 9:44a Peter Presnell divSince joining GROUP my focus has been on developing test strategies for some pretty amazing applications now under development. This requires me to conduct a great many unit tests of LotusScript functionality... (Think 1,00s of tests here because these guys write code pretty fast).. I have previously blogged about ways to generate a href=http://planetlotus.org/6b4630automated test plans/a. That is a big help when it comes to creating large test plans, but the issue still remains with ho [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
notes
applications
database
development
planetlotus
planetlotus.org
SharePoint Fails To Make The Quadrant
Sat, Jul 24th 2010 1:03p Peter Presnell For me a href=http://thisweekinlotus.com/This Week In Lotus/a has become compulsory listening each week. One of the interesting points mentioned in a href=http://thisweekinlotus.com/audio/twil.nsf/dx/this-week-in-lotus-008-market-leading-connectionslast weeks edition/a was the fact that not only was Lotus (Connections/Quickr) named by IDC as the a href=http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32050.wssWorldwide Market Shared Leader in Social Platform Software/a, but the fact that Micro$o [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
lotus
notes
quickr
application
development
planetlotus
planetlotus.org
sharepoint
social software
Lotus Notes Is/Will Be Enterprise 2.0
Fri, Jul 16th 2010 8:47a Peter Presnell For those that have seen the quot;Project Vulcanquot; vision (and understood it) I expect there is an understanding that IBMs intentions are to aggressively target cloud computing and Enterprise 2.0 with the full force of the Lotus brand. This will see important changes being made to most (if not all) products in the Lotus portfolio, including Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes probably has the biggest footprint of any product in the Lotus portfolio, so it makes sense that it has a very important role [read] Keywords: connections
ibm
lotus
notes
application
development
enterprise
google
networking
planet lotus
sharepoint
Why Microsoft is wrong in their SharePoint bring to market approach.
Fri, Jul 9th 2010 10:17a Peter Presnell Over on Yancy Lents sister-site a href=http://www.planetsharepoint.org/Planet Sharepoint/a there is an interesting article - a href=http://www.officeandbusiness.be/2010/07/08/why-microsoft-is-wrong-in-their-sharepoint-bring-to-market-approach/Why Microsoft is wrong in their SharePoint bring to market approach?/a. I find it interesting because it raises the point about who the target audience should be for a product. It mirrors recent debates on Planet Lotus about the positioning of Lotus N [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
microsoft
planet lotus
sharepoint
HP: I Give Up - But You Sure Suck
Thu, Jul 8th 2010 3:18a Peter Presnell Warning: This is NOT a technical article on LotusScript of XPages, this is 100% a a rant.... br /font color=#d3d3d3./fontbr / A a href=http://planetlotus.org/686ce4few months back/a I blogged about an amazingly bad customer experience I was having with HP. Little did I realize that that HP had a whole lot more bad treatment in store for me, its customer. It is now six months since I first placed an order on-line for a new computer from HP. I am a slow learner, and perhaps a little too s [read] Keywords: lotus
lotusscript
notes
xpages planetlotus
planetlotus.org
Real Notes Programmers
Wed, Jul 7th 2010 2:17p Peter Presnell I havent yet officially started at Group but already my computer is starting to have all manner of weird and wonderful products added such as the Eclipse Plug-In Developer Kit, Expeditor, Subversion etc. And then there is that java thing... I have often heard about these things but have never really had a great need to truly understand them. Mainly because my clients never paid me to use these new technologies. They hired me because I was a Real Notes Programmer...br /br /olliReal No [read] Keywords: admin
domino
expeditor
lotusscript
notes
applications
eclipse
java
laptop
sharepoint
@TodayInLotusDev
Mon, Jul 5th 2010 11:17p Peter Presnell Below is a summary of news making the rounds during the extended July 4 weekend inside the yellow bubble that may (or may not) be of interest to Lotus Notes developers.br /br /bLotus Notes Classic/bbr /olliIn a follow-up to a previous article by a (composite= -= 2.0= 2.2= 5= 6= 7.= 8.5.2.= @na= a= ability= about= adams= add= adopt= allows= amazon= an= and= andrew= announced= application= applications= applications.= are= article= as= be= before= bernd= books= brill= browser.= by= cadwell.= calle [read] Keywords: domino
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lotusscript
notes
sametime
xpages application
applications
css
dojo
eclipse
enterprise
mobile
openntf
python
widgets
376
An offer too good to refuse
Fri, Jul 2nd 2010 4:39p Peter Presnell a href=http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/dotdomino/resource/BLOGS_UPLOADED_IMAGES/OfferLetterRedacted.jpg target=_blankimg alt=image src=http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/dotdomino/resource/BLOGS_UPLOADED_IMAGES/OfferLetterRedacted.jpg style=width: 100%; display: block; margin: 1em 1em 0pt 0pt; float: left; position: relative; //a [read] Keywords: lotusnotes
bleedyellow
bleedyellow.com
@TodayInLotus
Wed, Jun 30th 2010 11:47p Peter Presnell Below is a summary of todays news making the rounds inside the yellow bubble that may (or may not) be of interest to Lotus Notes developers.br /br /bLotus Notes Classic/bbr /ollia href=http://www.codestore.net/store.nsf/unid/BLOG-20100630-0433Jake Howlett/a comments on the use of the LotusScript DataType statement as a way to identify the type of data continued in Lists./li/olbLotus Notes Standard (Composite Applications/Eclipse/Widgets)/bbr /olli@NA/li/olbLotus XPages/bbr /ollia href=http://www [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
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lotusscript
notes
sametime
sntt
xpages applications
blackberry
eclipse
ideajam
iphone
java
openntf
sharepoint
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OOP: Part 14 Subforms And Custom Controls
Tue, Jun 29th 2010 11:47a Peter Presnell IBMs implementation of OOP within Lotus Notes is far from perfect. In fact, it would be very easy to assume that IBM do not see OOP as being a target for Lotus Notes developers. One of the areas in which an Object Oriented Programmer must overcome some additional obstacles is when it becomes necessary to add business logic to either a subform (LotusScript) or a custom control (SSJS). While it is possible to expose a Subform on its own via a DialogBox it is more typical that a subform or [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
lotusscript
notes
application
development
java
oop
planetlotus
planetlotus.org
properties
Podcasting At Its Best
Sun, Jun 27th 2010 8:17p Peter Presnell If you are a member of the Lotus Notes community and have participated in the recent debates about Lotus Notes positioning as an application development platform and havent already done so, I would strongly suggest having a listen to the Episode 5 of This Week In Lotus - a href=http://www.thisweekinlotus.com/audio/twil.nsf/dx/this-week-in-lotus-005-if-we-build-it-will-they-comeIf we build it, will they come?/a Congratulations and well done to the participants in this weekends
podcast. For m [read] Keywords: collaboration
lotus
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application
applications
community
development
enterprise
podcast
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@TodayInLotus
Sat, Jun 26th 2010 3:18a Peter Presnell Here is a summary of todays news in and around Lotus Notes development.....br /font color=#d3d3d3./fontbr /bLotus Notes Classic/bbr /olli@NA/li/olbLotus Composite Applications/bbr /olli@NA/li/olbLotus XPages/bbr /ollia href=http://www.timtripcony.com/blog.nsf/d6plinks/TTRY-86R4V2Tim Tripcony/a concludes his excellent series about REST APIs in which he outlines a technique for authenticating users without relying on the standard Domino token-based process. In Part 6 Tim explains the front-end [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
notes
notes client
xpages applications
blackberry
development
eclipse
firefox
integration
interface
openntf
Quick Tip: Launch Database in Browser
Wed, Jun 16th 2010 10:47p Peter Presnell When developing Notes applications that run on both the Notes and Web clients it is often useful to provide an Action within the Notes client version of the application to launch the application in a Web browser. The Notes client itself doesnt provide such an option so I often place an action inside my application to do this. The following is a formula that can be used to perform this operation. It uses the NAB on the current server to identify trhe DSN assigned to the server and also looks [read] Keywords: dblookup
notes
notes client
application
applications
database
server
Introducing YPages
Tue, Jun 15th 2010 3:17p Peter Presnell This is the first in a new series targeted at Notes developers who already have a large investment in Notes Classic applications that are looking to migrate or expand the capabilities of their applications with the addition of XPages without significantly changing the look and feel of the existing applications. It is based on work I am doing to expand my ∙dominoFramework from being a solution for Notes Classic to also provide solutions using XPages. I call this YPages because I am trying [read] Keywords: notes
xpages application
applications
bleedyellow
bleedyellow.com
database
development
dojo
interface
linking
server
Why The Lotus Notes Managed Beta Program Rocks
Sat, Jun 5th 2010 12:17p Peter Presnell Most people living inside the yellow bubble (and hence likely to be reading this blog) will know that IBM now has an on-going managed beta program for Lotus Notes. But some of you may not yet discovered this gem. This program has to be one of the greatest initiatives by IBM to get members of the general Notes community involved with future releases of the product. IBM has a design partner program that allows a select few individuals/organizations to get involved, but this is a quot;by invita [read] Keywords: administration
domino
ibm
lotus
notes
application
applications
bug
community
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135
Quick Tip: NotesCSEventOwnerDocument class
Fri, Jun 4th 2010 3:18p Peter Presnell Many LotusScript developers know there are a range of Notes product classes available that have never been documented by IBM. One of these is the NotesCSEEventownerDocument class. This is one of a group of classes IBM have developed to support the calendar functionality of Notes mail databases. While the class is undocumented, it can be used (at your own risk) to add calendar-type functions to your own applications. Within my own Notes applications the most common use of this class has [read] Keywords: calendaring
domino
ibm
ldd
lotus
lotusphere
lotusscript
notes
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applications
database
OOP: Part 10: The Constructor
Tue, May 18th 2010 6:47p Peter Presnell In a href=http://planetlotus.org/6b8514Part 9/a of this series I shared a few ideas about how it is possible to automate the creation of a shell for a LotusScript class by including property definitions based upon a Form definition or the fields contained in an existing Notes document. Properties are perhaps the most frequent and least complex components for a class so automating this task is a big win for Notes developers. It frees up time to focus on the all important business logic. I [read] Keywords: lotus
lotusscript
notes
application
applications
database
development
oop
planetlotus
planetlotus.org
properties
OOP: Part 5 Defining Classes For Domain Catalog
Tue, May 11th 2010 6:44p Peter Presnell In a href=http://planetlotus.org/6b1b38Part 4/a I outlined a scenario for a new application to be built. It is a Notes Application catalog. Even before I get the chance to sit down with my manager to determine the detailed requirements I know I am going to have to extract data from the Domain catalog which, for my company, holds information about all the Notes databases across our entire domain. To do this I have two core objects.br /br /1) The Domain Catalog Database that holds all the [read] Keywords: acl
domino
ibm
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application
applications
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planetlotus
planetlotus.org
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213
Quick Tip: Adding Style To Tables in Notes Client
Tue, May 11th 2010 10:14a Peter Presnell I have been a big fan of using CSS to style my Forms. It allows me to develop Form much faster as I can initially focus on the placement of fields on the form. I have a single subform I add to all my forms that includes the logic for bringing in the necessary CS (CSS files attached to subform). By using the same CSS (which has been slowly refined over time) allows me to add the styling layer to my applications with a few clicks. Not only does this approach make more more RAD, it allow me [read] Keywords: ibm
notes
notes client
applications
bleedyellow
bleedyellow.com
css
interface
OOP: Part 3 - Wiring A Form Or Xpage To A Class
Sun, May 9th 2010 1:14p Peter Presnell In a href=http://planetlotus.org/6ada60Part 1/a of this series I demonstrated a simple way to wire a View to a Class. Today I will show a simple way to wire a Form to a Class and the comparable process of wiring an XPage to an Object. This is perhaps the most common requirement in implementing Object Oriented Programming within Lotus Notes applications as the Form is where most of the action tends to take place between the user and the application in Classic Notes and (as we know) the XPage [read] Keywords: domino
lotus
lotusscript
notes
application
applications
javascript
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Quick Tip: Making Icon Columns Editable
Thu, May 6th 2010 8:44p Peter Presnell I am not sure the why but columns defined as a formula in which the formula is a constant value cannot be made editable. Why would you want to make such a column editable I hear you ask? Well, inviewedit is one technique that can be used to add icons to a standard Notes view that trigger a specific action to be performed. e.g. You could add one or more icons next to each document in a view that allows the user to rate the document, add a tag, add a comment etc. By intercepting the edit [read] Keywords: notes
Vulcan Gestures
Mon, May 3rd 2010 1:14p Peter Presnell Perhaps the best known Vulcan gesture is the a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulcan_saluteVulcan Salute/a in which a V shape is formed with two fingers to each side of the V. I have a sneaking suspicion that by the time Project Vulcan becomes an integral part of our lives in the yellowverse that gestures will become an important part of the language for developers. For Lotus Notes developers the event model will rely less on events such as onClick, onDoubleClick, onChange, onFocus etc. [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
apple
application
applications
blackberry
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Quick Tip: Cloning Notes Database Using LotusScript
Fri, Apr 30th 2010 3:14p Peter Presnell The NotesDatabase class provides a CreateCopy method which creates an EMPTY copy of a database. Unfortunately there is not a simple method available to take a fully copy of a database. In creating my ∙dominoFramework 2.0 I have added a new clone method to my Dominodatabase class that provides a simple call to create a full copy of a database. The following code for this method could be adapted to create a function that:-br /olliCreate a new empty copy of the source database (iDB) usi [read] Keywords: acl
lotusscript
notes
database
profile
properties
server
133
Quick Tip: Locating a users mail file
Tue, Apr 27th 2010 2:44p Peter Presnell If you are looking for a way to access the mail file for a specific user, the following code may be of help. It is contained in the next generation of my ∙domonoFramework and demonstrates how the NotesRegistration class can be used to do the lookup. First you need a name of a server in the local domain. This more than likely is the server hosting the current database, or if running locally, will most likely be stored in the current users INI file.br /prediv style=font-family: sans-serif; [read] Keywords: database
profile
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Quick Tip: Refreshing a Profile Document
Mon, Apr 26th 2010 6:44p Peter Presnell Profile documents have a few features that make them both a joy and an pain to work with at times. One of these is the fact that the contents of profiles documents are cached in memory for the duration of a Notes client session. This makes them much faster to retrieve and allows you to temporrily store data in them without having to commit to saving the data to disk. There can be occasions though where you may need to refresh the contents of the profile document from disk (e.g. to ensure [read] Keywords: lotusscript
notes
notes client
profile
Another new (potential) Domino Designer 8.5.2 Feature
Thu, Apr 22nd 2010 7:21p Peter Presnell I just found this one today......br /br /When multiple design elements are selected in Domino Designer the Properties tab changes to show the Design tab only and it becomes possible to set Design Attribute for multiple design elements at the same time. These are settings such as Prohibit Design, Hide From Web Browser etc. A small change, but another useful one for developers.br /br /bNote:/b Notes 8.5.2. is still in beta and IBM may decide to take away any or all of the amazing features be [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
notes
properties
Yet Another Great Notes 8.5.2 Feature
Tue, Apr 20th 2010 11:21p Peter Presnell Even as a member of of the Notes 8..2. managed beta program, I am never sure what I am going to find next. There is some documentation available but it appears IBM have kept a number of surprises for us all to find for ourselves. Of course, I may have missed this in a document somewhere, but I was surprised to find that when I attempted to request import somebodys contacts from Outlook into Notes To my surprise my Notes 8.5.2 client now provided a great new tool to help me manage the impor [read] Keywords: ibm
notes
bleedyellow
bleedyellow.com
outlook
Product Review: Domino Designer 8.5.2
Mon, Apr 12th 2010 10:47a Peter Presnell During Lotusphere IBM provided a pretty detailed coverage of the feature they planned to include as part of Notes 8.5.2. I provided a a href=http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/dotdomino/entry/notes_8_5_2_first_showing_lotusphere7?lang=en_ussummary of the features/a in a blog posting during LS. A few days after Lotusphere, IBM commenced their managed beta program for Notes 8.5.2. This has meant the growing number of members of this program plus Business Design Partners are getting a first han [read] Keywords: domino
ibm
lotusphere
lotusscript
notes
bleedyellow
bleedyellow.com
development
eclipse
laptop
Quick Tip: Identifying The Language of a Script Library
Sat, Apr 10th 2010 6:14p Peter Presnell If you ever find yourself writing LotusScript code that is processing design documents, one of the ways to identify the programming language of Script Libraries is to test for the presence of the fields $ScriptLib (LotusScript), $ServerJavaScriptLibrary (SSJS), and $JavaScriptLibrary (JavaScript). These are the fields into which the source code are placed by Domino Designer. With Java it seems to be a lot more complicated and is based upon the way the java library is built. But you could [read] Keywords: domino
lotusscript
script library
java
javascript
126
Quick Tip: Splitting White Space
Fri, Apr 9th 2010 5:14p Peter Presnell I am sure (or hoping) someone may have a better way, but I have been trying to figure out a way to split a line of LotusScript code into an array of words based upon either a space or tab being used between each word. Split seems to work if I want to split using a space OR a tab character but does not allow both to be combined. I therefor devised my own Split function which is capable of taking any of the standard whitespace characters (space, tab, newline). It works by first replacing the [read] Keywords: lotusscript
∙dominoFramework: DominoDocument.Save
Tue, Apr 6th 2010 10:51a Peter Presnell As part of the development of ∙dominoFramework 2.0 I am adding a number of new classes as well as greatly expanding the properties/methods supported in the existing classes. One of the new methods being added is DominoDocument.Save. A key difference between this new method and the existing NotesDocument.Save method is that the DominoDocument.Save method will first check for the presence of a SaveOptions field in the document. If such a field exists and it has a value of quot;0quot; then [read] Keywords: notes
applications
development
properties
158
Quick Tip: Using NotesSession.create
Mon, Apr 5th 2010 12:22p Peter Presnell When writing LotusScript code there can sometimes be situations in which you need to use a Notes product class as a way of performing simple calculations or transformations.br /br /e.g. The following code can be used to get the current users name in Abbreviated form.br /
prediv style=font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; color: black; border: 1pt dotted black; padding: 15px; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 198);font style=color: blue;Dim/font MyName font style=color: blue;As/font font style [read] Keywords: lotusscript
notes
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Quick Tip: Using PNG Files As Image Resources
Sun, Apr 4th 2010 1:21p Peter Presnell While doing XPage development I learnt that I could add PNG files to my Notes applications by storing them as File Resources. What I didnt realize (until today) was that you can actually import PNG files as normal Image Resources. While looking at the image resources in the new Journal template (notebook8.ntf) I noticed one of the images was a png file. The trick seems to be to import the PNG as a GIF image. The import dialog does not display existing PNG files in the selected folder, [read] Keywords: notes
ntf
applications
development
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Quick Tip: Logical Deletes
Sat, Apr 3rd 2010 3:48p Peter Presnell Lotus Notes Applications can support as many as three different types of deletions:-br /olliHard Deletes - Where the document is physically removed from the database and cannot be recovered/liliSoft Deletions - The document is marked for deletion but is retained in the database for a period of time (typically 48 hours) before a server task physically removes them. Before then the document can be restored.br //liliLogical Deletions - The document remains in the database but no longer appears (a [read] Keywords: lotus
notes
application
applications
database
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203
Saving Notes: The Use Of Tiers
Sat, Apr 3rd 2010 2:17p Peter Presnell One of the comments posted on one of my recent a href=http://planetlotus.org/681109blogs/a was from a href=http://www.lotusguru.com/Kevin Pettitt/a (aka Lotus Guru). Kevin suggested that one of the solutions to the growing levels of corporate governance slowly killing off Lotus Notes applications was to tier production servers in a way that power users could be free to continue to develop applications in a style they prefer while allowing a higher level of compliance for IT developed/supported [read] Keywords: administration
domino
lotus
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applications
development
planetlotus
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security
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361
Never EVER Buy A HP Computer
Tue, Mar 30th 2010 11:48p Peter Presnell A little off topic from my normal blogs, but I have to warn those of you living in the US if you are ever tempted to purchase a HP computer for your own use at home... Forget It. HP provides what must be one of the worst sorrowful examples of customer service I have ever experienced. Dont believe me - then read on.....br /font color=#d3d3d3./fontbr /Just before LotusSphere I needed to to purchase a new computer to replace the main computer I use for all my own personal Notes development (O [read] Keywords: agent
domino
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development
openntf
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Lotus Notes: No Arms and Possibly Legless
Mon, Mar 29th 2010 8:17p Peter Presnell Last Friday I a href=http://planetlotus.org/681118posted a blog/a about some potential signs that seem to occur within organizations in which Lotus Notes is slowly dying. It seems that at least some of you agree that these signs occur with greater regularity than we would like. So yesterday I posted a href=http://planetlotus.org/683698another blog/a in which I proposed that one of the first areas that might be addressed is the level of understanding key decision makers within an organizati [read] Keywords: ibm
lotus
lotusscript
notes
application
blogging
community
development
java
javascript
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planetlotus.org
