Author: lekkim

Positive, competent, out-spoken, frank and customer focused architect and developer with a strong foundation in web, cloud and product development. I'm a strong advocate for API first and cloud based solutions and development. I have a knack for being able to communicate and present technically complicated matters in conference, customer and training settings. I've previously acted as team member and leader in a product organisation.

Custom Sametime blackbox for bleedyellow.com

Over the last few days I have been working with Chris Whisonant from LOTUS911 / bleedyellow.com to write a custom Sametime blackbox for bleedyellow.com. In case you don’t know, a blackbox in “Sametime speak”, is what you write if you would like to get business card info from systems other than Domino Directory or LDAP.

This blackbox uses the DB2 JDBC drivers to plug into the Lotus Connections Profiles database at bleedyellow.com to get business card data from there. This means that if you update your bleedyellow.com profile with a photo your co-bleeders will now be able to see it when they hover their mouse over your name in Sametime.

Besides the photo we also surfase the blog-link and the timezone instead of company name and department as you can see in the screenshot below.

During my work with this blackbox and previous work I have done with the UserInfo API for two upcoming articles in THE VIEW on the same subject I have learned a lot of stuff, both good and bad, about the API. The API gives you a lot of flexibility but there are also major shortcomings so expect some blogging on this in the future. For now simply rejoice! 🙂

Now I invite you to update your Lotus Connections profile and share any comments you have on the hovering with me or Chris.

P.S.: I know there is a Lotus Connections plug-in for Sametime that provides hover-functionality from the Solution Catalog but I really wanted a server-based solution.

developerWorks article – Designing composite applications: Unit testing

Craig Wolpert and Jo Grant from the composite application team at IBM are on a roll. They have just published their fourth article on developerWorks on developing composite applications:

“The ease with which users can assemble composite applications from components increases the need to unit test your components before users use them. This article, fourth in our series on composite applications, describes how to test your components prior to assembling composite applications.”

Designing composite applications: Unit testing

Imagine combining this with Notes 8!

I was directed to a site for an interesting product by my subscription to Eclipse news. The piece wasn’t on Eclipse per say but on a product based on Eclipse. The product is called Tasktop and looks awesome. There’s a *very* nice Flash demo as well that I recommend you take a look at.

So what’s so special about this? Well besides being a nice tool with some, what appears to be killer functionality, it’s written on the same platform as Notes 8! (that would be Eclipse for those who hasn’t guessed that) It wouldn’t be a monumental task to bring it into the Notes 8 client. How’s that for a context sensitive workbench? Combine it with the workflow of Notes – you could work wonders. Imagine having context tasks in Notes combined with links to activities, e-mails, databases, views, Notes documents, Sametime transcripts, Quickr documents, documents on file shares… It makes my mouth water!

Wow!

IBM should definitely pick up on this. That would be nothing like my dear old Notes client! It would be Notes on steroids!

P.S.: I know I went a little overboard with the exclamation marks! 🙂

Podcast: Ze Frank – Keynote

Not for the easily offended but worth a listen.

“In this extremely funny RailsConf keynote, performer and consultant Ze Frank radiates the quirky energy and hip creativity of new media and the interactive web. Riffing on everything from nonsensical airline safety cards to the creation of an Earth sandwich…”

MP3 off IT Conversations

developerWorks: IBM Lotus Notes composite application podcast series

I haven’t listened yet but it sounds interesting. Too bad there isn’t a RSS feed for the series available.

“In this three-part podcast series on composite applications, you hear about the application development benefits and capabilities of IBM® Lotus® Notes® and Domino® 8, about how to integrate your Eclipse™-based or IBM Lotus Expeditor-based applications with Lotus Notes and Domino 8 applications, and about how to create composite applications in Lotus Notes and Domino 8.”

developerWorks: IBM Lotus Notes composite application podcast series

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.