Programming ADO for performance
Wed, Feb 17th 2010 12:21p Thierry Cayla This is a sequel to my previous post "Forget ODBC", this time I will focus on drastically improving the performance of data accesses using ADO. Say you have a collection of several thousands of Notes employee documents you need to update with data coming from an SQL Server or an Oracle database.
The first idea would be to write a LotusScript code similar to this one:
.lotusscript { font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 9pt; color: black; padding: 0px 15px 15px 15px; border-top: 1pt dotted bla [read] Keywords: lotusscript
notes
database
odbc
oracle
server
sql
49
Dynamically resize Notes dialog boxes and picklists
Wed, Dec 9th 2009 7:56a Thierry Cayla You've surely already heard end users complaining that all the useful information was not entirely visible at once when they are prompted for selecting values from a dialog box or a picklist.
With a little trick, there is a mean of resizing them at runtime and thus making your users happy.
You'll have to use special undocumented environment variables stored in the notes.ini file (I had to play riddles to find out the ones that are useful for our concern) that drive dialog boxes dimensions.
[read] Keywords: formula
lotusscript
notes
database
31
Please forget ODBC (each time it's possible...)
Mon, Nov 30th 2009 9:58a Thierry Cayla How many times I see posts in the Lotus DD forums from developers struggling with ODBC connections, system data sources on the Domino server, and all that painful stuff.
Connections to relational databases like Oracle or MS SQL Server can be set up much more easily with a few lines of LotusScript using a technique called ADO (ActiveX Data Objects).
This is made possible since the corresponding connection layer is included in every Microsoft OS since Windows 2000 (and especially on Windows 20 [read] Keywords: connections
domino
lotus
lotusscript
database
microsoft
odbc
oracle
server
sql
4
[How to] Add a Twitter side block to your BlogSphere blog
Mon, Nov 9th 2009 7:56a Thierry Cayla I am quite new on Twitter, and as I registered on the site, I noticed the "(You can also add Twitter to your site here)" link on the Settings page. Selecting "My Website" and "Profile Widget", I was quickly able to generate the JavaScript code needed to display the Twitter widget (it allows to display your last tweets). But as my blog runs on BlogSphere 3.01, the final step was to integrate it into a sideblock to eventually achieve the following result:
After several unsuccessful attempts [read] Keywords: javascript
blogSphere
css
profile
twitter
widget
13
How to synchronize "ANY" Notes database with your iPhone
Wed, Nov 4th 2009 5:55a Thierry Cayla Suppose you wished to carry away your most useful Notes data on your iPhone while being able to edit/add/delete records on the go and sync the edits back as well ? Say you have a Notes database like this one:
It could be nice to have it automatically converted this way...
...and the data the data kept in sync both ways, of course.
No need to wait for a new IBM piece of software, I'm going to show you how to achieve this right now in 4 easy steps. [read] Keywords: ibm
notes
database
iphone
10
"Clusterize" your scheduled agents
Wed, Oct 21st 2009 9:59a Thierry Cayla So your application server is clustered now, and your business-critical databases are highly-available. But what about the not less critical scheduled agents which are supposed to perform important processing to your data several times per day (or even more often than that)?
If the server on which they are scheduled on is down, they will cease running, and server clustering won’t be of any help.
Simply scheduling such agents to run on "-Any Server-" is not an option since it will lead [read] Keywords: agent
script library
application
server
11
Easy charting in the Notes client
Fri, Oct 16th 2009 10:58a Thierry Cayla What if you were able to chart your data in minutes and produce a dashboard that looked like the sample below in the Notes client ? Sure that it would make your boss happy and cause you to become the company's Notes development hero. Let's see how to achieve this in a breeze.
Like the vast majority of MS Windows users, chances are (if we can say) that you have Microsoft Office installed on your office (or even home) workstation.
What you maybe ignore is that MSO comes along with a quite [read] Keywords: notes
notes client
development
microsoft
office
36
"Splash screen" dialog box that closes automatically
Tue, Sep 29th 2009 1:31p Thierry Cayla There are some details that make up an application look really professional. Among them is the famous "splash screen" that displays when the application starts (like the one when the Notes client is launched), and closes automatically after a few seconds:
Today's challenge will be to implement this feature for a Notes client application.
Opening the dialog box won't be a problem, the proper code placed into the Postopen event of the database will easily do the work. But closing automati [read] Keywords: lotusscript
notes
notes client
application
database
10
Run several Notes clients at the same time
Sat, Sep 19th 2009 1:13p Thierry Cayla I posted this because it seems that some developers around me are not aware of the possibility to run several Notes clients at the same time on a workstation (without using a VM, of course):
I guess there is no need to convince anyone of the usefulness of this, the Notes client being unfortunately monotasked along with the Designer: while you run an agent on one, you can still work on the other Designer client, (or read your mails on the other Notes client), you can quickly switch between [read] Keywords: agent
designer
notes
notes client
R6
R8
vm
12
Freeze panes feature for a Notes view
Thu, Sep 10th 2009 11:28a Thierry Cayla "Freeze panes" is a spreadsheet feature that allows to keep some columns fixed in place while allowing the others to scroll horizontally.
You get it in Excel by selecting "Window\Freeze Panes" in the menu bar. This is very useful to keep your key values (like client name) while scrolling through a spreadsheet with numerous columns. In Notes, it often happens that you've got a view with a lot of columns, so when you scroll to the right, you lose sight of your first colums that usually contains t [read] Keywords: notes
5
Naming specifications: what about image resources ?
Thu, Aug 27th 2009 2:03p Thierry Cayla There have been lots of writings about variable or field naming conventions, but my concern at this moment is the proliferation of image resources in my Notes databases. It happen very often that the same picture is stored under different names in the same database, or different pictures under the same name in different databases. Furthermore, a developer who takes over a db will import his own images because the existing ones have no meaningful names. This leads to a quite messy image resource [read] Keywords: notes
database
12
Web service consumer widget
Tue, Oct 7th 2008 2:12p Thierry Cayla This post will demonstrate the implementation of a stock quote query widget that will display in the Notes sidebar. This is achieved within a couple of minutes using the new Web service consumer feature of the Notes 8.5 client. Of course, this sample is intended to be used as a starting point for developing other Web service clients and/or custom widgets. It will provide as well a basic knowledge for those readers who are not too familiar with the technical aspects of Web services. The full code [read] Keywords: notes
widget
widgets
