Why I'm not using the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit
Every time I get questions on developing plugins for the Lotus Notes 8 platform I mention that I really can't comment too much on Lotus Expeditor Toolkit installation and usage questions. The reason is that I do not use the toolkit when developing for Lotus Notes. Since I get the question so much I thought I would take it to the blog as well.
The main reason I started developing for Lotus Notes without the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit was due to two reasons:
- Because I kept receiving new betas of the Lotus Notes client from IBM Lotus and because XPD toolkit wouldn't work with these betas
- I wanted to use newer Eclipse versions than what the XPD toolkit supported
I understand why you might want to use Lotus Expeditor Toolkit as it may be considered easier (if you're not so Eclispe savy), because you have to! or because you need to switch target platform often (Notes -> Symphony -> Sametime).
How do you launch in debug then?
I configure Eclipse for Notes like this: http://lekkimworld.com/pages/eclipse35_notes852.html
I configure Eclipse to launch DDE instead of Notes like this: http://lekkimworld.com/2008/12/10/developing_plug_ins_for_domino_designer_in_eclipse_dde.html
Once you have configured Notes to launch from Eclipse in a launch configuration you may also launch in debug mode. I sometimes have some CSS styling issues in the client but generally it works perfectly for me.
I configure Eclipse to launch DDE instead of Notes like this: http://lekkimworld.com/2008/12/10/developing_plug_ins_for_domino_designer_in_eclipse_dde.html
Once you have configured Notes to launch from Eclipse in a launch configuration you may also launch in debug mode. I sometimes have some CSS styling issues in the client but generally it works perfectly for me.
Re: Why I'm not using the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit
Hi Mikkel,
Any idea if this works for 8.0.2 releases as well? Could I try to use eclipse 3.6 with it? I am stuck using eclipse 3.2 with 8.0.2 as recommended by IBM with the 6.1.2 expeditor toolkit but I would really like to be able to make use of some of the plugins for eclipse they require 3.3 or higher.
Any idea if this works for 8.0.2 releases as well? Could I try to use eclipse 3.6 with it? I am stuck using eclipse 3.2 with 8.0.2 as recommended by IBM with the 6.1.2 expeditor toolkit but I would really like to be able to make use of some of the plugins for eclipse they require 3.3 or higher.
Re: Why I'm not using the Lotus Expeditor Toolkit
I got notes 8.0.2 to work in 3.6 eclipse after a massive amount of configuration. Setting the run configuration was particularly annoying because for Lotus Notes 8.0.2 you need to point to three folders in your target platform:
framework\ecliose\plugins
framework\rcp\eclipse\plugins
framework\shared\eclipse\plugins
and they seem to contain multiple versions of the same jars. So you have to go through the list of 700ish plugins and deselect the duplicates. Have you found an easier way to do this? I think by installing the expeditor toolkit it somehow automatically handles the dupes when configuring a client services runtime
framework\ecliose\plugins
framework\rcp\eclipse\plugins
framework\shared\eclipse\plugins
and they seem to contain multiple versions of the same jars. So you have to go through the list of 700ish plugins and deselect the duplicates. Have you found an easier way to do this? I think by installing the expeditor toolkit it somehow automatically handles the dupes when configuring a client services runtime