Google saves the day for Notes plugin developers

Alan Cooke (member of the Redbooks team) just pinged me on Sametime and pointed me to a greate piece of news. As you might remember Google acquired Instantiations a while back. Instantiations developed a couple of developer tools for GUI building, code analysis and UI testing. Today all our prayers had been heard and Google is making all the tools from Instantiations free!!!. How sweet is that?!

The article referenced above describes the different tools and screenshots.

The reason this is important to you as a Lotus guy or gal is that WindowBuilder Pro for SWT makes it very easy to quickly mock up or build the GUI for your SWT based plugins. You simply drag’n’drop components onto the screen to build the UI. Think of the XPages UI but for SWT components. Very nice.

So how do you get the tools? Simply head over to the respective Google page to learn more and/or install. The direct links are:

Did I mention that all the tools are now free?!?

Once you go the tool page you’ll see a link to the “Download” page in the menu on the left. The page has links to update sites for easy installation. The tools work with Eclipse 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6.

P.S.: There is also a GWT designer tool (Google Web Toolkit) available (tool page is here). The tool is very nice if you develop GWT applications.

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:

  1. Because I kept receiving new betas of the Lotus Notes client from IBM Lotus and because XPD toolkit wouldn’t work with these betas
  2. I wanted to use newer Eclipse versions than what the XPD toolkit supported

It’s not that I don’t find the toolkit valuable but for the work I do it isn’t a requirement.

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).

OMG! Apple to allow other appdev languages than XCode

OMG!! On ZDNet Ed Burnette writes that Apple are relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to develop applications for the iOS platform. Now isn’t competition a nice thing?!

“Temperatures dropped about 30 degrees in Hades this morning when Apple announced they were relaxing all restrictions on the development tools used to create iOS apps. They will also be allowing 3rd party advertisers such as AdMob, but not analytics software such as Flurry.

The changes bring iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch development a bit closer to the laissez-faire policies of Google’s Android Market. Though the latter still does not require any kind of review or approval process before developers can upload new programs, Google can and does sometimes remove apps after the fact if its policies are violated.”

Apple lets in Java and Flash; should Android be worried?

Maintaining a Lotus Connections environment? Well then you MUST see this!

Today a new article on Lotus Connections was posted on developerWorks and it shows you how to install an administration interface for Lotus Connections into Websphere ISC (Integrated Solutions Console). The interface provides easier access to Lotus Connections configuration files and looks like a real killer plugin for ISC. I have got to try and install it tomorrow and see for myself as this is something that has been sorely lacking.

The article is called Introducing the IBM Lotus Connections administration web interface and below is a snippet from the article introduction.

“The administration console utilizes a series of Jython and Jacl script files to allow administrators to work with Lotus Connections. These files provide automated ways to access the Lotus Connections MBeans that change back-end settings in databases and configuration files that service a deployment. Working with these Jython and Jacl script files requires some programming and scripting knowledge; the ability to import packages in the terminal, assign and use variables, and other basic programming concepts, all in the Jython or Jacl languages, are required. These languages, while not inherently hard languages to use, are relatively specialized and might be unfamiliar to the average Lotus Connections administrator. Removing control of Lotus Connections from the administration console and putting it into a web-based solution alleviate the need for specialized skills, providing a cost of ownership reduction to Lotus Connections customers.”

Redbook: So we are writing this Redbook on plugin development – what do you wanna know?


As posted the other day my nomination to ITSO was accepted and I’m now on the team for writing a Redbook wiki on plugin (or component if you will) development for Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime and Lotus Symphony. We had our first call yesterday and we’re currently putting together the table of contents and discussing what to include.

For products versions we chose to target Lotus Notes 8.5.2, Lotus Sametime 8.0.2 and Lotus Symphony 3 beta 4. Of course we will try and make the samples work in prior versions but that’s the versions we’re aiming for. Any objections?

On the first call we also discussed the target audience for the wiki and defined who we’re writing for. Here’s what we came up with:

“We’re writing for Java developers with some experience in the language that is they know the syntax. We will aim to give them a high level introduction to the plugin model and give them the material to dive deeper and make sure the appropriate Eclipse resources are linked in. The specific topic sections should readable to those who want to dangle their feet but also deep enough to allow a Java developer that know about plugins to actually start building stuff to make production quality plugins. “

How does that sound?

I would be very interested in hearing what you (yes you!!) the Notes developer wants to know about plugin development and maybe what’s holding you back from getting started. Is it Java? Is it extension point documentation? Or is it something else? Please share and I’ll do my best to make sure it’s covered or at least written about here on the blog.

Eclipse Fall Training Series

“The Eclipse Foundation and Eclipse member companies are pleased to announce the fall 2010 training class series. The training is an excellent opportunity for software developers and architects to learn more about Eclipse Rich Client Platform (RCP), BIRT and Modeling technologies. Eclipse experts will lead the sessions, providing practical experience through classroom instruction and hands-on labs. Virtual and on-site classes have been scheduled in several countries from September 20 to November 5, 2010. “

Eclipse Fall Training Series

Updated! Introduction to Java programming

A lot of people ask me how to get started with Java programming so when I saw the below entry in the developerWorks newsletter I thought it should be communicated as far and wide as possible.

“developerWorks Java contributor Steve Perry took on the Herculean task of updating the “Introduction to Java programming” tutorials. This two-part series introduces the structure, syntax, and programming paradigm of the Java language and platform.”

Get started with Java technology