Notes 8(.0.1) against Sametime 7 limited use server

I’m at a customer site today where they are running Notes 7.0.2 but would like to experiment with (the new) Notes 8.0.1 Standard client. The upgrade of select users went fine but the embedded Sametime client was unable to connect to the Sametime 7 Limited Use server. After some searching on Google and in the developerWorks forums the problem was easy to solve thanks to posts there and some additional searching. I simply needed to add the client ids of Notes 8 and Notes 8.0.1 Standard to the sametime.ini and restart Sametime.

The steps are as follows:

  1. Find sametime.ini on your Sametime server – it’s in the binary Domino directory. Open it in a text editor.
  2. Find the line starting with VPS_ALLOWED_LOGIN_TYPES in the Config-section.
  3. Append 1231 and 1233 to the end of the list (that is “,1231,1233”).
  4. Save and close the file.
  5. Restart the Sametime services (tell staddin quit, load staddin).
  6. Happily log-in using Notes 8(.0.1) Standard. In my case it took a couple of minutes for the change to be picked up but as always being patient pays off.

References:

Why you as a Notes guy or gal should care about Eclipse 3.4

First off this is quite a geeky post I suppose but bear with me – there’s a nice screenshot at the bottom of the post…

The Eclipse foundation is busy developing Eclipse 3.4 which is what will form the base for Notes 8.5 Standard. At least that’s what I’m hearing since the new Expeditor platform is based on Eclipse 3.4. Why should you care as a Notes developer? Why because each release of Eclipse adds significant performance improvements and many new features are added to the underlying platform. While we cannot know which features has already been ported to the Expeditor platform which is the base for Notes 8(.0.1) Standard it is at its core based on Eclipse 3.2.2.

Lots of features has been added since Eclipse 3.2.2 was released (Eclipse is currently at Eclipse 3.3.2) and many of them could have big impact on you as a developer or a Notes user. Why you say? Because the features of Eclipse will directly affect the platform support available to you if you develop SWT plug-ins or if you just use Notes 8 Standard (and don’t we all). Below is a sample list of improvements in Eclipse 3.3 I compiled from the “New and Noteworthy” documents for Eclipse 3.3M1 to 3.3M7.

  • SWT on Vista (win32). SWT now gets everything right on Microsoft Vista
  • Faster JPEG/PNG image loading. JPEG images now load from 30 to 70 percent faster, and PNG images load 2 to 3 times faster, depending on the image.
  • New DateTime control. Your users can now enter dates or times using the new DateTime control. You can see the DateTime control in action on the DateTime tab of the SWT ControlExample. The ControlExample is included with the other example plug-ins (see the “Example Plug-ins” section of the 3.3M3 download page).
  • Mozilla everywhere. Mozilla can now be used as the underlying browser control on Windows and OS X, providing that you have XULRunner installed and registered. To use this just create your Browser with the SWT.MOZILLA style.
  • Native features on Vista (win32). SWT is now exploiting more of the native features of the Vista platform. For example, using native double-buffering on Vista win32 makes painting in double-buffered canvases twice as fast.

As you can see some of them could have big impact on you as a developer or user. Everything from better Windows Vista integration to using Mozilla as the embedded browser to just having a DatePicker control could be the difference that makes it worth it.

I’m not saying it is so but that last one could be why I’m having problems with the Sametime screen capture tool on Vista.

As to Eclipse 3.4 I also just perused the “News and noteworthy” documents for the Eclipe 3.4 milestones (M1, M2, M3, M4, M5) and there is some nice stuff in there as well such as the possibility of setting an alpha value for shell (ie. the underlying SWT control for windows). This could make for some killer UI’s. Below is an example screenshot.

Can’t wait to have a much more mature Eclipse platform as the basis for my Notes client.

Sametime screencapture problems on Vista

I’m having major issues with using the Sametime screen capture tool on Vista (I’m on Notes 8.0.1 Standard on Microsoft Vista Ultimate). The tool works but it’s like the cursor is “stuck” somehow and the selection tool is very sluggish. Wierd!

The *very* wierd thing is that it works much better when the tool is started from the sidebar plug-in Connect client than from an active chat. Not perfect like on Windows XP but much better. Go figure!

Update: Now it’s also sluggish from the sidebar…

Dannotes in April 2008


It looks like I’ll be presenting two sessions at the Danish Notes Usergroup, Dannotes, in April 2008. One session will be on developing custom Sametime blackboxes and configuring the blackbox system in general (based on my THE VIEW articles on the subject) and the other one will be a general, technical, introduction to composite applications in general.

Stuff from the Lotus Traveler Info Center

I have reading a little on Lotus Notes Traveler and have found some tidbits I need to remember such as links, port numbers etc. Please excuse the use of the <blink> tag below but the fact that self-signed certificates doesn’t work is, IMO, *very* important to notice. You should also notice the requirement that the server have Manager access to mail files.

  • From “Installing the server”: The Domino server that is hosting the Lotus Notes Traveler server must have Manager access to all user mail files. This task can be accomplished by making the Domino server part of the LocalDomainServers group.
  • It’s possible to auto-configure clients using a “bootstrap” file (Configuring the server/Creating the bootstrap file)
  • New Traveler notes.ini settings
  • Default port number is 8642 for autosync (TCP port number and host addresses that device clients can use to register with the Lotus Notes Traveler AUTOSYNC server.)
  • Default port number is 50125 for IPC (Inter process socket connection between Lotus Notes Traveler Server and its HTTP server servlet. Add this notes.ini setting to override the default port number and optionally the host address.)
  • Troubleshooting:
    • To see if running: look for traveler.exe in the Microsoft Windows® Task Manager
    • Verifying directory access: tell traveler show >user<
    • Stats: Traveler.*
  • Known limitations:
    • Rich Text is not supported
    • Encryption is not supported
    • “Retrieve Full Email” is not available for Drafts
    • Self-signed certificates do not work with Lotus Notes Traveler clients.
  • Domino 8.0.1 release notes