Month: January 2008

Announcement: Sametime Awareness Simulator


So I’m finally done with version 1.0 of the Sametime Awareness Simulator (SAS) application that I hinted to during Lotusphere.

The purpose of the application is to solve the problem that all that run demos involving Sametime run into: How to get 20 users on Sametime, some available, some away etc. without running 20 concurrent Sametime Connect clients. With SAS you can simply manage all this from with one application.

From the screenshot on the right you can see the application with 3 users added. Only one is logged into Sametime and as you can see you can set the status for each individual user by right-clicking or using the menu or toolbar. There’s also a preference dialog for setting the hostname of the Sametime server to use.

I need you!

I’m interested in getting some initial feedback before releasing the application into the wild so if you need something like this let me know by e-mail (mh [at] intravision.dk). I’m looking for 5 people or so to test drive the application. Please only write if you’re actually going to use it and not if you just need a new toy… 🙂

I will be releasing it soon enough.

Technical stuff

The application is written in Java using the Sametime Java API and using the Eclipse RCP application framework. It runs as a standalone application so you do not need Eclipse installed.

Plans for future improvement

  • Configure SAS to automatically add a predefined set of users. Now you have to manually add the users each time the application starts.
  • Add update site functionality to allow for easy updates and bug fixes.
  • Add functionality to allow users logged into Sametime using SAS to respond to chats (using predefined responses or simply echo), join group chats and accept file transfers.
  • Log into Sametime as a server application and use the LightLoginService instead of a fullblown STSession per user.

Using Greasemonkey for Forum Friday

I read Declans post on Forum Friday as an addition to Show-and-Tell-Thursday and I think it’s a good idea. There was some discussion about a similar idea (Question Wedneyday) at the blogger BOF. If I’m to respond to posts in the Notes 8 forum (my primary focus) I want a nicer default footer.

I’m already using a Greasemonkey script I blogged about a while back for the LDD6/7 forum. Unfortunately there’s a difference between the HTML markup between the Notes 6/7 forum and the Notes 8 forum so the Greasemonkey script needs to take this into account.

Here’s the updated script (updates in bold):

// ==UserScript==
// @name          Notes/Domino 6/7/8 Forum Signature
// @namespace     http://lekkimworld.com/greasemonkey/ldd_signature
// @description	  Inserts my LDD Forum signature
// @include       http*://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd6forum.nsf/*?OpenForm*
// @include       http*://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/nd8forum.nsf/*?OpenForm*
// ==/UserScript==

// get elements
var e_subject = document.getElementById("Subject");
var e_body = document.getElementById("Body");

// handle Notes 8 forum
if (null == e_subject) {
	e_subject = document.forms[0].elements[1];
	e_body = document.forms[0].elements[2];
	e_body.style.fontFamily = "Verdana";
	e_body.style.fontSize = "11px";
}

// compose signature
var signature = "nn/Mikkel HeisterbergnVisit my Notes/Domino blog " +
    "@ http://lekkimworld.comnfor posts on Notes, Domino, Sametime " +
    "and how to use Java in Notes/Domino...";

// set signature
e_body.value = signature;

// set focus
if (e_subject.value == "") {
   e_subject.focus();
} else {
   e_body.focus();
   e_body.setSelectionRange(0, 0);
}

Feel free to copy the script and modify to your liking. Installation guide is in my previous post.

Caveat when converting an Eclipse Java project to a plug-in project

Based on some advise I got in the “Meet the Developers” lab at Lotusphere I converted a Java project to a plug-in project in Eclipse today. This will make it easier to manage my dependencies instead of manually having to export the model classes as a jar and including that. I tried it before but it didn’t work. Today I found out why.

The conversion via right-clicking and choosing “Convert Projects to Plug-in Projects” (in the “PDE Tools” section) went fine but afterwards the classes from the plug-in wasn’t found by my sidebar plug-in in Notes 8. Compilation in Eclipse went fine.

The issues turned out to be caused by Eclipse not automatically adding the compiled classes to the plug-in. To solve this I had to open the manifest (MANIFEST.MF), switch to the “Build” tab and in the “Runtime Information” section add a library named “.” (yes a period) on the top left and the source code folder I wanted to include on the top right.

Once I did that everything went smoothly.