If in doubt throw more memory at it
I have had more memory added to my Tomcat hosting and the blog already seems to be running better. Thanks to those who have been pointing the problems out to me.
Really like being able to minimize sidebar plugins to an icon
Prior to Notes 8.5 it wasn't really an option to load many sidebar plugins as they, even when collapsed, would take up a great deal of screen real estate. From Notes 8.5 you can choose to minimize a sidebar plugin to an icon at the bottom of the sidebar panel which is really nice. You do this is in the part menu by selecting "Minimize to Icon".
In my Notes 8.5 client I run the following 10 sidebar plugins:
- TwitNotes (well of cause)
- Sametime
- Day-At-A-Glance
- OnTime Team-At-A-Glance (think Day-At-A-Glance but for the OnTime Group Calendar)
- Document Viewer
- Epilio Calculator
- Activities
- My Widgets
- Formul8
- Secret Agent
You might say: "but what about performance when running so many sidebar plugins?" Well due to the way Eclipse is constructed no code from the the sidebar plugins will be loaded until you activate it so having many minimized plugins is without any performance penalty. All that is needed to show a minimized/collapsed sidebar plugin can be read from its plugin.xml file.
TwitNotes - 1.0.5 released to the update site
Finally after talking about it for a long time and working on it for even longer I'm happy to announce that I have uploaded TwitNotes v. 1.0.5 to the update site. This release became bigger than first expected and required more work than expected so I'm really happy to get it out there. Before you go ahead and upgrade/install let me tell you a little about what has happened with TwitNotes since the last public release (v. 1.0.3).
The first and most important is that TwitNotes 1.0.5 runs on Notes 8.0.1, 8.0.2 beta 2 and Notes 8.5 public beta 1 (I admit I haven't tested on Notes 8.0). The second biggie is that I have rewritten the entire HTTP layer to use the HTTP classes built into the Lotus Expeditor framework (more on this is a separate post). This affords me automatic authentication (due to integration with the Accounts API) but also, supposedly, proxy support. I'm not behind a proxy but the feedback from beta testers is positive. The third and final thing that has changed is that TwitNotes now have two tabs - one for normal tweeting and reading tweets (the UI you know) and the second for searching for Twitter posts (using the service formerly known as Summize). See this post for more info (although the UI has changed slightly).
The caveat
As noted above this release took more work than first expected but I'm really happy about the result and as noted I ended up scrapping my own HTTP layer. By doing that I got automatic HTTP authentication and proxy support. The drawback is that TwitNotes now require a patched version of the org.apache.commons.lang plugin if you're running Notes 8.0.1 or Notes 8.5 public beta 1. This is due to some rather unfortunate packaging of this plug-in from IBM Lotus. For some reason this patch isn't required on Notes 8.0.2 beta 2.
On the positive side I have a conference call with IBM on Friday. This is to confirm that the patched version of the plug-in that I submitted makes it into the next releases of Notes so this no longer will be an issue once 8.5 and 8.0.2 are released.
For now however it means that you have to patch your Notes install (if running Notes 8.0.1/8.5 public beta 1) before installing TwitNotes 1.0.5. It's really easy and only takes a minute or two. See below to installation instructions.
If you wonder why patching the plugin is necessary read the separate post (Why patching the org.apache.commons.lang plugin is necessary).
Installation
- Close your Notes client
- Download the org.apache.commons.lang plugin that's appropriate from the list below (remember that Notes 8.0.2 beta 2 doesn't require the patch).
- Locate your Notes installation directory and open the framework/rcp/eclipse/plugins directory (e.g. C:\Notes8\framework\rcp\eclipse\plugins).
- (optional) Rename the file called org.apache.commons.lang_2.2.0.yyyymmdd.jar from something else.
- Copy the jar-file you downloaded to the directory optionally replacing the copy that's already there.
- Install TwitNotes using the update site I have setup (http://update.lekkimworld.com/attentionotes/) or refer to the somewhat outdated installation guidelines for instructions.
Wrap-up
That's it. I hope you will install TwitNotes and that it will work for you! :-) As always comments and suggestions are more than welcome.
Why patching the org.apache.commons.lang plugin is necessary
As part of the core Lotus Expeditor framework a number of Apache Jakarta Commons libraries are supplied as plugins. Unfortunately the org.apache.commons.lang plugin is incorrectly packaged which means that developers cannot reuse code from this library. This goes for all Notes 8 releases so far (Notes 8.0, 8.0.1, 8.0.2 beta 1, 8.0.2 beta 2, 8.5 beta 1).
The problem is that the plugin manifest file (MANIFEST.MF) doesn't export all the packages of the library but only the root package. The *right* thing would be to export all the packages (e.g. org.apache.commons.lang.exception, org.apache.commons.lang.math etc.)
Luckily the problem is quite easy to fix and it will be in upcoming releases. For now, as a developer, the easy way to solve the problem is to simply modify the manifest by unzipping the plugin, changing the MANIFEST.MF file and rezipping the plugin back up. I have done this on all my machines and will be supplying a patched version of the plugins so you can run TwitNotes 1.0.5 on these releases.
Patching this plug-in wont affect other code in my eyes.