When should I use Connections and when should I use Quickr?

As all I’m often asked the question on what exactly the difference between Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr is. And like most it’s often a wavy answer I give. I just recently was pointed to a blog post by Luis Benitez Louis Richardson (When should I use Connections and when should I use Quickr?) which is really is a good resource. Besides being a good read Louis list 5 good points about Lotus Quickr that sets it aside from Lotus Connections:

  • Membership
  • Ownership
  • Purpose
  • Duration
  • Content Control

Go read it!

Please note: This post was changed to give credit where credit is due. Thanks Luis.

TwitNotes v2 beta 2 released

TwitNotes v2 beta 2 is now installable from my update site at http://update.lekkimworld.com/twitnotes2. Comments are more than welcome either here or via twitter as a reply to @lotustwitnotes. This release adds retweet support and fixes a date parsing issue for non-English clients. I also increased the number of tweets shown in the list from 20 to 100 and made sure direct messages are never deleted from the on-disk cache.

Known “issues” of the top of my head:

  • Need to figure out the best UI for the tweet list
  • Additional context actions needed?
  • Need to add retweet support
  • Need to add drag’n’drop support
  • Need to add LiveText integration

Please note: Although I use the client as my primary Twitter client it is a beta so please treat accordingly.

TwitNotes v2 beta 1 released

TwitNotes v2 beta 1 is now installable from my update site at http://update.lekkimworld.com/twitnotes2. Comments are more than welcome either here or via twitter as a reply to @lotustwitnotes.

Known “issues” of the top of my head:

  • Need to figure out the best UI for the tweet list
  • Additional context actions needed?
  • Need to add retweet support
  • Need to add drag’n’drop support
  • Need to add LiveText integration

Please note: Although I use the client as my primary Twitter client it is a beta so please treat accordingly.

How much functionality before a TwitNotes v2 beta release?

As I hinted to on twitter earlier I’m wondering how much functionality I need to add before releasing a beta of the new TwitNotes v2 (follow @lotustwitnotes to stay in the loop). Below you can see a screenshot of how TwitNotes looks as of now (7 pm Friday night). I did change the blue color to make it slightly easier on the eye. The current code takes a tweetdeck like approach and allows you to switch between tweets from friends, mentions, favorites and direct messages. You may also add columns for certain users and I’m going to add search support (add a column for a search) before releasing. Of course you can also tweet.

What I want to know is how much more to do before releasing a beta install. Let me know if you have an opinion by commenting below or tweeting me.

The Next Release of Java: Java JDK 7, out mid-2011

News from JavaOne:


Mark Reinhold confirmed that “Plan B” is now the plan of record for the next release of Java, with JDK 7 scheduled for mid-2011, with support for other languages on the JVM (InvokeDynamic) and many small improvements (parts of Project Coin). Things that don’t make it into JDK 7 are planned for JDK 8, including Project Lambda and Project Jigsaw, scheduled for late 2012. Markus Eisele, software architect, provides details about Java SE 7 and Java SE 8.

Janice J. Heiss: Plan B Wins

Save the date: XPages Documentation Discussion

I found this via the LotusUserGroup.org newsletter and I found it worth passing along.

On Monday, November 8th, give a shout out to the documentation team for Lotus Domino Designer. The team is looking to get your feedback on how helpful you find the Domino Designer User Guide (XPages) Help and will be moderating a forum on the topic at
LotusUserGroup.org/forum for you to shout out your comments
And observations.

The XPages Help provides information that is necessary for
developing web applications using the new XPages technology
available in Domino Designer. Do you like the newly added
controls and properties reference sections? Have some feedback orsuggestions on the usability of the documentation – content that works well, content that needs improvement? This is your chance to really impact the XPages documentation content.

So mark your calendar. Bob Harwood, the Information Development (ID) Lead for Domino Designer, the Domino Designer ID team, and Cara Viktorov, ID Usability Feedback Lead, will be moderating the forum, live, the week of November 8, 2010. Plan to join in and ask questions, share experiences, and collaborate about Domino Designer Help.

Date: November 8, 2010
Forum: http://www.LotusUserGroup.org/forum

What is new in 8.5.2 for XPages

Lotus Notes/Domino 8.5.2 is out and the other day I was hosting an XPages training session so I thought a little bit about what’s new with XPages. Of course XPage ninjas like Matt has already written about it (Matt White: What’s new with XPages in 8.5.2) but as I was reading up I found some links I wanted to highlight. Most info may be found on the IBM wiki.

  • onClientLoad Event. Its now possible to add scripts in the events to be executed when the page is submitted or this panel or some containing panel is partial updated.
  • Extensions API
  • Two new Global Objects for Server Side JavaScript, sessionAsSigner (open a session using the signer rights) and sessionAsSignerWithFullAccess(open a session using the signer rights, while giving it full access to the data)
    • sessionAsSigner – Assigns credentials based on the signer of the of XPages design element. The session is restricted by the application’s ACL and the security tab of the server’s Domino Directory entry.
    • sessionAsSignerWithFullAccess – Assigns credentials based on the signer of the of XPages design element and allows full administrative access to the application’s data. The signer must have the right to such access or the session is not created.
  • New resource xp:headTag – this allow you in an easy way to put stuff into the header of a XPage
  • XPages ECL to Permissions updated to include more Java Permissions
    In V851 of XPages, security for executing Java code in XPages in the Notes Client was very restricted. For XPages V852, the Java Permissions managed by the XPages ECL settings have been broadened to be similar to the set of Java Permissions allowed by Java Agents and to bring a level of equivalence between Java Permissions allowed for XPages on Domino Server (Unrestricted) and XPages in the Notes Client. For example, in V851 the ECL Network permission only covered the Java SocketPermission, now it covers NetPermission and other related Java network permissions.
  • Referencing a Managed Bean from JavaScript now supported in XPiNC. This fixes a bug where a Managed Bean, first referenced in JavaScript (which triggered the creation of the Bean) caused a security exception. The workaround was to first have this Managed Bean referenced and created as a DataSource (referencing the Bean from then on was fine). This bug is now fixed.

New functionality was added in Notes 8.5.1 to make MyWidgets more dynamic

In Lotus Notes 8.5.1 a small, but very useful, addition was made made to the MyWidgets funtionality. From Notes 8.5.1 the preferences that you specify for your widgets may be computed by the platform instead of being mapped to something you specify via LiveText or text selection. Below is a small snippet from an extension.ml file showing how a value is normally mapped to a parameter (in this case “Mikkel Flindt Heisterberg” is mapped to the “name” parameter).

<preference name="name">
<value>Mikkel Flindt Heisterberg</value>
<displayName>name</displayName>
<enumValues/>
<enumDisplayValues/>
<datatype></datatype>
<isEnum>false</isEnum>
<isRequired>true</isRequired>
<isHidden>false</isHidden>
</preference>

So what if you want to use the current username or the current date? Well up to now you were at a loss or you had to incorporate the functionality into the service you linked to. But since this isn’t always possible IBM added the option of specifying it in the widget itself.

The way to do it is by using a “name” or “date” command in place of the static text (“Mikkel Flindt Heisterberg” in the example above). The syntax is as follows:

${command:parameter}

The following two commands are available:

  • name
  • date

As you might be to format the date or specify the part of the username you need (common name, organization etc.) you use “parameter” part to further instruct the command. Below is some documentation on each of the commands.

  • ${name:nameType}
    For example: ${name:cn}/${name:ou}/${name:o} will resolve to “CommonName/OrganizationlUnit/Organization.” For example: ${name:dn} will resolve to the user’s full distinguished name.
  • ${date:dateformat}
    For example: ${date:yyyy MM DD} will resolve to the current date (in this example “2009 03 20”). The “dateFormat” should be a valid Java date format string.

Using the “name” command the above XML snippet becomes:

<preference name="name">
<value>${name:cn}</value>
<displayName>name</displayName>
<enumValues/>
<enumDisplayValues/>
<datatype></datatype>
<isEnum>false</isEnum>
<isRequired>true</isRequired>
<isHidden>false</isHidden>
</preference>

Information is available in the infocenter (Using a widget property to filter a current user name or date)