Notes 8.0.2 selection check marks.

New style of selecting documents.

Notes 8.x introduced a new way of selecting documents in the views. The whole row is highlighted and you can select several documents by holding the shift key or the ctrl key down. I guess most of the windows user know how this works.

But hey!! You can still turn the old style selection on. To do this you go to Preferences -> Basic and in the bottom of the list there is and option to show selection marks for selected documents.
This has been received as good news by the community, but beware.

Playing with this i noticed..

1. This work for mail and calendar and to do only, hence I believe this settings should be under the mail and calendar part of preferences and not Basic.

2. With the new style selection performing action on highlighted documents in a search result actually works.

I'll elaborate:

Doing a view search with the 'keep current order' or 'show all documents' will return you search result nicely. When you highlight a document and press an action like 'Reply without attachment' this will work!!

Now if you turn on the old style selection type, running action from the same search result sorting will fail, and you will get an error "No document is selected" Hah!! All the documents is selected, what gives?

In eariler clients this truly fails. The client gets all confused about which document is the selected one. In the above mentioned search result sorting types all docments are selected and hence have the selected check mark to the left. You may end up replying to the wrong document.
Who really studies the original text included in the reply message body field?

My hopes for the future

As the parameter to turn the old selection style on or off is in the basic section, I hope this is because this is something to be enabled for all views in any databases. By doing this, executing actions from a sortable search result will finally work...

I just could not resist!!!

...Finally. Redmond got it right this time.

..and here's my dog.

For all foreign readers of my blog, you probably don't know this. "Snill hund" means "Good dog".
This blog was intended to have some posts about my dog. But as you've might have guessed, it does not.
Until now.

Well, the familys dog is a Labrador Retriver. He's brown and almost a year old. And he really is a good dog. His name is Jaro.

Almost backed into beeing a dog owner, this has been quite an experience. Having a dog is something that the adults in the family must want. The responsibilty will be on mom and dad, no matter how many promises you might get from your children. That beeing said, it grows on you. Now I would not miss it for the world. It's a lot of fun, and a bit of hard work (agility training!).


In the picture you can see Jaro on top of "Lyderhorn" on of the mountains surounding Bergen.
A good two hour walk.

mSuite is Enterprise Ready!!

Just installed muite 5.x and this is really promising. The Admin user interface much more intuitive. The mSuite client is elegant. I'm happy as a fiddle. I get my mail instantly without draining my battery.

This version is a huge leap from the last version.

mSuite gives you up to 4 (or is it 5?) mailboxes and addressbooks. You could have your private mail and helpdesk or other department mail.
Note that you should pay attention to how you organize your addressbooks or you will end up with duplicate entires.

You install you mSuite Server on one of your Domino Servers and add the
mSuite Proxy in your DMZ. Note that you will need Windows 2003 as server OS. These to applications is on the same media, just select what you want to install.

Now that Intellisync kick's the bucket be sure to give mSuite a try. You will not be dissapointed.

Lotus 8.0.2 Installation with sucess.

The awaited new Lotus Client has arrived. Promisses about faster startup time and lower memory footprint has to be checked out. Checking the bloogs in the comunity I got over this article about a new setup parameter for mulituser install. Thanks to Chris Miller for posting links to several technotes for Domino/Lotus Notes 8.0.2.

The parameter is: setup /v"SETMULTIUSER=1/qb"

The parameter for multiuser setup worked fine. But I managed to mess it up when I under the Client setup created a new location document, figuring that I didn't want to use the default 'Online'.

The Client soon warned me about this beeing a muliuser install and that , if I wanted to change notes user, I should log of Windows and log on with a different windows user.

Do not ignore this!! I did and it gave me some trouble. Sure the client works fine the first time after log on. This beeing a muliuser setup I switched windows user and started Lotus Notes.

Again a setup procedure to follow. Stating username, pointing to server and ID file and off I go.
Works perfectly. This is really promissing. There nothing else to do and to log off windows again with my first user.

I start the client and it shows me the blue expeditor frame. And nothing more. Frozen!

Well ofcourse, it must be the ~notes.lck file that causing this. It wasn't. I could not find anywhere.

After some trial and error, I figured it must be someting with my location document.
Removing the location document I created and setting the default 'Online' location document fixed the problem. Now I'm happy.

Multiuser setup works like charm, just mind Your location document setup.

BTW: This setup was done on a windows xp system with no previous Lotus Notes installation wtih the All Clients setup files. Multiuser setup with All Clients... sweet!!

To keen on "Don't allow URL Open"!!

Well back for ILUG where I attended to Admin Blast session with Paul Mooney, I was packed with tips and good things to with my servers. I could'nt wait.

The "Don't allow URL open" setting on the database seemed like a good place to start.
This property locks down your database for web access. Domino URL's will not work.
You would use this on any database you want to secure.

I ofcourse ran of and put this on our Domino Directory. We don't want anybody to hack their way in to that ofcoure. Turning this seems like a good thing. But there are some gotcha's waiting.

First of all this setting replicates. Beware of that.

You may want to turn "Dont' allow...." on on your web server, but keep it off elsewhere in your production environment. Typically you may have a dedicated web server for inhouse web services and for your Domino Web Access server. You will need the Address Picker in these environment. Turning on "Don't allow URL open" will brake the Address Picker.

You need to be aware of that this setting stops everty url request that has an '?' in it like
myDatabase/myDocument?Openform .. and so on.

Second, the Domino Web Access dailog does use the type of URL that is beeing blocked. My mistake!! I tought it was a servlet. In that case it wouldn't be blocked.

So there you have it. The setting replicates thru you domain and it breaks the Domino Web Access Address Picker. I've asked Paul Mooney about the impact of this setting on BleedYellow, he didn't answer. I guess he left to finnish Fluffy off. My bad for asking silly questions instead of doing my own resarch.

So this setting should probably not be turn on on your administration server. Secure it using ACL. You could however turn this on on other servers that do not replicate back to the admin server ,which in my opinion, Domino Directory databases should not do.

ILUG 08 Day 3

The last day of ILUG 08 is over. Some good session today to.

I've got to hear about Lotus Quickr from Rob Novak. His presentation about Quickr was good and informative. There where goods tips about notes.ini tasks added by Quickr that You don't really need. And Quickr adds a line "ServerTaskAt4" that run some qptools. Just remove this and run the tools yourself when You need too. These qptools tasks takes up huge resources.

Next I was at the Sponsor session where we where introduced to the GSX Monitoring Tools.
Seems very ok. I will check it out.

I really enjoyed Chris Millers' presentation on Sametime Gateway. Very clear and concise presentation about do's and dont's when it comes to setting up and installing the Sametime Gateway. He had his say about the 'networking guys' also.

Closing session was 'Thank You, Tank You", sponsor gifts and "Feck off".

Overall a good three day gig, and the sponsor got more of my attention here compared to Lotusphere. Some other arrangements made me miss out on the speedgeeking but maybe next time.

ILUG 08: Seccond day.

It was an early start this morning compared to yesterday. A lot of information to digest and still more to come I guess.

The session attended today was:

Setting up and Maintaining Domino Test Environments Painlessly.

Rob McDonagh got to swear!! (and Paul Mooney got harrased). Very good and interessting session. A good developement and test environment is my wet dream! We where introduced to some "Bad Ideas" and "Worst practices". I nod my head in confirmation. Then to the best practices. Some good ideas and a tool to "duplicate" users and group for the production to the test environment was presented.


The Day from Notes Hell and How I Got Through it Without Breaking a Sweat.

This was a sponsor session. And that is great. There are many of them and they are scheduled on the same time in all the tracks. This means that you have to attend one.
Ytria have a great set of tools to do all sort of stuff to get you out of almost every whole you could imagine. Used without training and a portion of paranoia Ytria tools will bury you.
Don't get me wrong, the tools are great and I hope my company buys some of them. But with the power to fix things quickly, one could also destroy this just as easily. I guess a good tool in the hands of a fool, still makes him a fool.

The Full Monty 8.5

With the risk of beeing hurt by flying give aways I attended Mary Beth Ravens session, as I promised. Very good session and informative.
In short

• The 8.5 client will be very good!! (Hurrah!!)
• We didn't get everything in there before the deadline (Bummer!)
• We know about the shortcomming, we will fix them (Hurrah!!)
• The client load much much faster!!! (Hurrah!!)
• Cool new calender features (integrate google calendar, iCalendar feeds , other peoples calendar, team calendar etc etc etc.
• There is a new Workplace, expect to put any link on your desktop. (Hurrah!!)
• The horisontal tab is now more like a vertical three structure, sort of bookmarks meets tabs and clearly Windows explorer inspired. Looks great. (Hurrah!)
• The new workplaces does not work! Yet! (Bummer!)

Well there's a lot more to mention. See Bill Buchans blog.

ILUG 08: First day and last night.

And I'm Dublin for ILUG 2008, which I hope (and firmly believe) will be great. If the first evening can be taken as a clue about the follwing days this is promising. I guess it was our Lotusphere backpacks that gave us away, as Mary Beth Raven came up to us and said hello.

For You who don't know she is I can tell You that she is the lead product designer for the Lotus Notes Client. Read her blog, it's first hand information. I got the chance to discuss some features of the Notes Client, and humbly ask for better Citrix presentation support. I'll review them and maybe (It was late!!) post them om Ideajam.net

The first day of ILUG 08 featured and opening session. We were all welcomed by Paul Mooney, and presented key notes by Nick Shelness and Alan Lepofsky. To sum up:
Nick Shelness: We got the computing power but still waiting for the Killer App!.
Alan Lepofsky: Lotus is getting there!!

Now this is my view of what was presented, and I do believe this to be true. Lotus is very inovative and Lotus 8 based application may very well be the "Killer App!" we are waiting for.


Ofcourse I had to attend the Admin Blast session with Paul Mooney. If you ever have the chance, don't miss it. Already seen it? See it again. 90 minutes of great tips, this session is a must. I guess you will find a version of the presentation on his website, go and check it out.

I also attended Bill Buchan session about Web Services. Great!! Some very good information here and some pointers about caveats when it comes to designer/server version mixed.
We where also shown how easily one could make a Webserver comsumer using the generated WSDL file for a web service provider. It's pretty slick.

To top of the day I had to check out the speedsponsoring. Every sponsor got 5 minutes to present their product(s). The whistle blows and I move on to the next stand. And there is a lot of good products here. Some of them seems to meet my company needs and customer needs ofcource. I guess it boils down to pricing and return on investment.

Configuration documents - 'Best of Breeds' solution

Reading the assono.de web site I came across a tip from Thomas Bahn. As I'm not as steady in german, I had ot use the Babelfish to translate from german to english. Much can be said about the translation but I'll leave that alone for now. On to the tip...

It's a 'Best of Breeds' Solution approach to configuration documents or setup documents.

Profiledocuments has been much used to create and access database\application setup information. This solution is fast and the code to write and access the data is clean and slick.

However profiledocument has been prone to errors when it comes to replication and ofcourse is cached when loaded. Especially when using profile documents to hold counter, sequnencenumber, workflow status and such, this will be a problem.

The solution is simple but elegant:

1. Create the setup/configuration document using normal document creation methods like @Command[Compose];"MyConfigDoc")

2. In the QuerySave or PostSave add code to create a Profile document containing only the setup documents UniversalID.

@SetProfileField("ConfigUNID" ; "ConfigUNID" ; @Text(@DocumentUniqueID) )

Now You haver Your profile document with the UNID that references the Configuration document. Extracting the data from the document is as easy as this:

ConfigDocID := @GetProfileField ("ConfigUNID";"ConfigUNID");
@GetDocField (ConfigDocID; "Config_CustomerEmail")

This is not much different than the direct use of ProfileDocument:
@GetProfileField ("MyConfigDoc";"Config_CustomerEmail")

Notice that You only need one line of extra code in the 'Best of Breeds' Solution.

This example only shows implementation using Formula, LotusScript should be just as easy to implement.

There's a new "kid" on the block.

Well that is not true at all is it, the kid is not a kid at all, he's adult, in his prime and with a brighter future than ever.

It seems the talk of the town more than ever before is ..eh synchronisation. Well "D'oh"!

I've posted this comment below to this article:

"Syncronization is the demand. Domino replication is the technology. Lotus Domino time tested solution called replication is somehow overlooked in this article. Lotus with support for muliple os'es client types are decades ahead of Microsoft.

Read more about the "new" software offering from IBM here http://www-306.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/notes/"

We'll see if the comment gets posted or not. It has to be approved the site artice author...

Thomas Bahn as Assono should get a job at IBM marketing :-) Read this.

Skinn for Lotus notes!!

Heyyy





Vi alle har vel lekt med skinns tenker jeg. Hvem husker vel ikke de dager Winamp ble smykket med diverse lekre layouts? Her kunne vi jo leke oss med skins av biler, favorittband og eh.. lettkledde damer.





Skinns har nå tatt veien til Lotus Notes klienten. Hvor nyttig det er kan diskuteres, men for en kort periode så øker Lotus Geek faktoren for dem som måtte ha fått til dette. Bare se..

Du kan lese mer om dette her.

Go on waste Your time!!

IBM lanserer Domino og Lotus 8.0.1

Endelig!!!!
Domino 8.0.1 og Lotus Notes 8.0.1 lanseres i morgen!! Nå kan vi leke oss med gøye ting som Goolge Widgets, og en ny DWA Lite.

Sjekk mer her -> Release Notes fra IBM.

Spennende.....

Yikes It Looks like that? UI Worst Practices.

Her presenteres vi ulike "Worst Practices" for grensesnitt.. og hvordan vi kan gjøre det bedre.
Vi skal lære av andres feil ;-).

I Notes kan vi lage applikasjoner så raskt at vi glemmer UI! (Notes is a RAD application). Men brukere liker ikke applikasjoner som kaster bort brukernes tid. Og brukerne er nå bortskjemt med gode applikasjoner på web. (Yeah Buzzword again: WEB 2.0).

1. Please!!!
Lag feilmeldinger som brukere forstår, og hvordan feil kan rettes eller hvem skal meldes om feilen. Og en feilmelding kan jo være stilig. Og det finnes en base med gode feilmeldiner for alle de rare kodene som Lotus kan komme opp med.

2. Bruk riktige kontroller, Checkbox'er, Radio Button osv.

3. Bruk farger riktig!!

Notes applikasjonen skal ikke se ut som Smarties.

Bruk farger som er i samme farge palette. Vet du ikke hva det er? Google it!

4. Ikke la Domino Server bestemme design på web.

Bruk CSS, Dojo, Ext.nd osv. Domino UI har ikke endret seg siden 1997.

5. Tabs gone wild.

If you see a "twidgie" you have to many tabs. En "twidige" er disse pilene du får når du har for mange tabs. Ikke ha mer en 6-8!

6. If they can't do it, don't show it.

Ikke vis nagivering, knapper osv som brukeren IKKE har lov å trykke på.

7. Skjerm og papir er ikke det samme.

Lag 'Printer friendly' versjon av dokumentene.

8. Composite Applications.

Dette er vanskelig, og det er lett å gå overbord med dette. Desktopen i "composite applications" må ikke i sum bli for vanskelig. La komponentene handle sammen og relatere til hverandre.

9. Poler applikasjonen din.

Ikke gi brukerne default Lotus Domino design.

10. Alt trenger ikke å se ut som 'Notes Mail'.

Tenk nytt. La brukere filtrere informasjon, søke, presentere i rapport (alt trenger ikke være i et view).

Du trenger ikke alltid ha 2 -3 ui pane.

11. Business drives applications, applications drives infrastructure.

Admin bestemmer ikke hva som er lov og ikke lov.

12. Your App is not a video game.

Grafikk skal ha en hensikt.

Forsiktig med bakgrunner.

Ikke kast bort plass, ikke plasser ting for tett.

Husk fargevalg.

13. Don't asume.

Hvor lett er det ikke å anta at brukerne tenker det samme som deg?

Gi gode hint om hva som forventes eller hva som kan gjøres.

14. Feedback!

Brukere har

Oppsummert:

Ui må være logisk, klart og konsist og lett å bruke.

Formula og LS morro!!

Ricky Oliver presenterer hva du kan gjøre med Formula og LotusScript. I samme rennet avliver han myten om at LotusScript er død, glemt og forlatt til å dø i et ensomt mørke.

Vi får vite litt om hva vi kan gjøre med to ulike formula kommandoer: @Sort og @Transform.
Her er det noen gode tips om hvordan vi kan sortere lister i Formula. Denne er meget nyttig
og, som han pekte ut, langt lettere en det som er beskrevet i hjelpefilen.

@Transform er formula sin versjon av en Forall loop. Denne behandler hvert element i en liste og resultatet av behandlingen legges tilbake på den samme posisjon i listen.

På LotusScript siden fikk vi presentert metoder for å få tilgang og opprette designelementer "On-the-fly". Her ble det brukt til å generere en enquete eller spørreskjema. Spørsmål ble laget av sluttbruker og nødvendig form og views ble generert. Ganske stilig.

Hva han hadde å fortelle om kan du finne på hans egen blog http://www.lotusgeek.com/.

Ext.nd din Lotus Domino applikasjon til web.

Frisk og utvilt i morgen gikk turen tilbake til "The Swan" og "The Dolphin".

Først var jeg på en gjennomgang av noe som heter "Ext.nd"....(?). Ja det var vist det 'Ext.nd".

Dette er biblotek som gir deg javascript tilgang til Domino design elementer. (Wow!)

Noe som egentlig er veldig kult. Dine views, outline osv vil oppføre seg som om de var i Notes. Flytt på kolonner, sorter kolonner osv, høyreklikk å få frem ( noen av) egenskapene.

Her får du altså bedre views, Picklist dialog (med og uten single categories), flere views på samme side, ordentlig date picker osv. Og dette med kun 10 linjer kode pr design element.

Mye fint man kan få til på Web altså. Verdt å studere videre for her er det mye somkan brukes i påvente av 8.5 klienten.

Meeeeen det er noen begrensninger. Den håndterer ikke kategorier i views, kan ikke velge flere dokumenter og i et view og prosessere dem, alle view actions i et view vil ikke automatisk fungere på web osv.

Derfor: Les dokumentasjon nøye før dette brukes. Det kan dekke dine behov eller kanskje ikke.


Ikke løp til sjefen "guns blazing" og fortell at du kan få en notes database på web med 10 kodelinjer.


Mer om Ext.nd finner du blant annet på http://www.openntf.org/ , søk på Ext.nd. Foredragsholder antydet ny versjon innen en uke. Vi får se. Her kan du lese enda mer (og laste ned ext.nd for Domino).

Lotus Domino Designer 8.5 - Gonna rock You.

I dag ble vi presentert for den nye designerklienten, og den er bra. Denne er basert på Eclipse, og nei du trenger ikke lære deg Java (men du kan).

Her var det mye nytt. Bokmerker er vekke (applaus), Mini scrollbar innen hver type design element er vekke (hurra!!). Infobokser er på vei vekk og blir erstattet med et "properties pane".
Og hør...Lotus Domino Designer får "code completion" type ahead som fungerer!!! I LotusScript editor, Java, JavaScript og HTML. Code completion vil også fungere for dine egne klasser!!! (endelig!).

Det er mye i den nye klienten som er rettet mot Web 2.0. Buzzword til side, dette er ganske enkelt ellegant. Nytt designelemet XPages som da blir til Web 2.0 internett sider. For dem som kjenner Visual Studio produktene eller Borland Deplhi vil tankegangen her være kjent. Xpage vil være et design element som inneholder "controller" og ikke felter. Feltene må faktisk "mappes" til kontrollene, og en Xpage må mappes til et dokument/form.

Så hva kan vi gjøre med dette? Jo vi kan lage utrolig stilige web applikasjoner. Raskt!

Det er gode metoder og løsninger for det meste. Jeg avslutter med å eksempelvis nevne at vi trenger ikke "$$Return" lengre!!!,
.....og at submit knappen er forenklet
........og at Xpage får sin look and feel fra stylesheets.

Nevnte jeg de nye lekre JavaScript design elementene: Richtext, Outline, View, Actions?

Lotusphere Opening General Session.

Heyy!!

Dette var tøft. Siden det er min første gang her så var jeg jo spent på hva som var i vente. "Rockekonsert" faktoren var høy. Denne ble etterhvert avløst av en symfoni (selvsagt!) med Orlando Symphony Orcestra.

Når det gjelder hva som ble presentert der kan jeg ikke gjøre annet en å peke til Arne Nielsen sin blogg mynotesblog.blogspot.com. Ser ut som han fikk med seg det meste. (Det er vanskelig å hoppe etter Wirkola så denne gangen prøver jeg ikke)

Jumpstart session på Lotusphere 2008

I dag har det vært Jumpstart Sessions. En liten smakebit på ulike teknologier i Lotus sitt univers.
Jeg fikk med meg:

"Lotus Notes/Domino Application Developement With DXL"


Dette var en ok gjennomgang av bruk av DXL for å eksportere data fra Lotus/Domino databaser. DXL er kort fortalt Domino XML, en måte å representere Lotus/Domino design elementer og dokumenter via XML.

Foredragsholderne ble spurt om det også var mulig å få ut deletions stubs på denne måten.


Svaret på dette var 'Yes'.


Nytt i Lotus/Domino 8 er at en kan trekke ut bestemte felt via DXL. Utrekket vil bli representert i en 'valid' og 'well-formed' XML. Denne kan da importeres inn i andre Notes databaser ned til 6.x versjon. Eneste krav er at Lotus Klient /Domino Server har DTD for Lotus/Domino 8.0 klart.

DXL prosjektet tar sikte på å kunne eksportere 100% av Notes/Domino database. I dag er den fremdeles noen design elementer og noen strukturer i dokumenter som ikke lar seg eksportere ut til XML.

Spennende å se hva dette kan brukes til....


"Web Services Bootcamp."


Bill Buchan holder her er underholdene innlegg om Web Services i Lotus Domino, her får vi vite hvordan dette skal settes og på og hvordan dette skal brukes. Ut over det å gi god informasjon er mannen virkelig god til å underholde sitt publikum. Latteren satt løst blant publikum meg selv inkludert.


Litt om det som ble tatt opp var hvordan web services kan settes på R6, R7 og R8 samt hvordan Lotus klient kan benytte seg av en Web Service. Her kan en bare tilføye at dette er lekende lett i Lotus Nots 8.

Sjekker ut området.

Turen til the Swan ble utført i går. Der var det ingen kø!!. Selv ikke alle skilt og logoer var på plass, men det kom etterhvert som vi var der.

Registrering gikk raskt og jeg fikk utlevert min "Badge". Den ligner vel mest på en 'Jeg reiser alene' pose. Fra de mer erfarne Lotusphere deltakerne får jeg vite at "The Badge" er en del av kroppen den neste uken. Det er nødvendig for å komme inn på ALT!

Etter registrering var det ikke noe fast program. Vi fikk oss en bedre lunsj, en betjent buffe faktisk. Denne slo ihjel alle fordommer om amerikanere og store store porsjoner med mat.

Med vår "veteran" gikk vi rundt området var innom "The Swan" og så til "The Yath and Beach".

Solen tittet frem og varmet oss godt men ble ut på kvelden avløst av tordenvær. I nyhetene her har de gått ut med tornado advarsel!!

Kvelden i går ble noe amputert. Jeg sovnet og gikk glipp av kveldens middag....

Staying intouch.

Når man er vekke fra kjente og kjære kan det greit å holder kontakten. MSN Live Messenger er blitt et godt stykke "bloathware", og dermed ubrukelig.

Derfor har jeg nå lagt inn 'Pidgin'. Dette lille programmet har en rekke plugins og det viktigste: Den støtter IBM Sametime!!

Fremme i Orloando!

Lotusphere 2008 er snart i gang, og denne gangen er jeg med!!

Etter en ganske så lang flytur var det "touchdown" i Orlando 01:00 norsk tid. Det skulle bli 19:00 lokal til. Etter å ha erklært at jeg ikke har skumle hensikter med mitt besøk samt at baggasjen min er fri diverse grønne planter var jeg velkommen til United States Of America.

Amerikanerne er hyggelige og det var ikke noe skummelt dette.

På dagens program står registrering til Lotusphere, og ellers er dagen åpen, kanskje en tur på på
The Epcot Centre.