Monday, March 29, 2010

Creating the MWLUG 2010 Web Site Using UX Pages version 0.4

Last year I was working on a new thing that I called the UX Pages and DLEX Engine. It was based on the XML declaration language used by Adobe Flex. UX Pages is similar to the approach now used by XPages but has a number of advantages.

I did not have the time to devote to it last summer given all the work that had to be done for the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference plus my full-time job. So I never moved forward on developing the technology any further. However, this has changed.

This year, NEOLUG is handling a big portion of the effort for MWLUG 2010 so I have more time. In addition, I needed it for building a number of customers applications. Therefore, I have a major incentive to develop it further especially since we are developing more and more Web applications and moving away from developing Notes client based applications. Does this mean that I will not develop using XPages. Not at all. I would like to have developed the Web applications using XPages, but the applications that we are developing are not suitable with XPages at this time.

So for the past two months, I have been working on building the features of the UX Pages engine. I have been incorporating components of Dojo and JQuery into the engine. One feature that I have added the past week is the ability to version and archive the web application. This feature has already saved my butt this week.

The new MWLUG Conference 2010 site MWLUG 2010 is currently running v0.4 of the UX Pages Engine on Domino 6.5. I could easily have set up a Domino 8.51 server, but I did not want to spend the time and resources. Since it does not depend on XPages rendering, I can build the web pages using the UX Pages XML declarations and have the compiled version run on any version of Domino 6.5 or higher.

The previous version, v0.3, relied on Web agents to handle a great part of the work. The latest version, v0.4, eliminates agents to generate the web pages and runs faster. The next version v0.5 will fully incorporate Dojo and JQuery into its architecture.

One may ask why I am doing this. First, XPages does not give me all the control that I need. Second, I wanted the generated code to be cross platform so that I can easily convert the web application to work with other data sources besides Domino. Third, the process forces me to learn Dojo and JQuery. Also, I can use the latest versions of Dojo and JQuery if necessary instead of replying on the version that IBM has put into Domino. Fourth, I can still use the Notes Basic client to generate the Web application since the UX Pages tool runs as a Notes client application. The Domino Designer 8.51 is still too slow for me even with a fast Dual Core and 2 GBytes of memory. So stay tuned hopefully for some Camtasia video of UX Pages.

Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 Web Site Online

Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010 Web Site is now online. We are planning a number of events and activities for this year. We are trying to out do ourselves from last year. The conference will be held on August 19-20, 2010 at the Hilton Garden Inn - Cleveland, Ohio. The NEOLOUG team is working hard on planning this event. The web site is Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

It's Spring and there is 2 inches of snow coming down

Today is the first day of spring. However, it does not seem like it. It has been snowing since early this morning and it is in the 30's. It is the wet type which I hate the most. Yesterday was beautiful with the temperature in the 60s.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Happy Saint Patrick's Day Everyone

Happy Saint Patrick's Day. If I have time tonight, I will be watching "The Quiet Man" and drinking a few beers.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Why PNGs are not Support in Domino?

After all these years, can anybody explain to me why png files are not supported as an image resource in Domino. I know I can put them in as file resources, but why not as an image resource?

GRANITE XPages Workshop and MWLUG Conference 2010

As the President of GRANITE, I would like to thank PSC Group for hosting the XPages workshop that we had yesterday. Again and again, IBM Business Partners play a key role in growing the Lotus ecosystem. We would also like to thank Roy Rumaner and Michael McGarel for presenting. The next XPages workshop session Part 2 will be on April 12th follow the April 12th GRANITE meeting.

The first workshop was free for anyone. If you are not a GRANITE member the next workshop session is $15. However, if you become a member for $35.00 you get all workshops, food, and 5 technical meeting per year.

Remember, the XPages workshops are FREE FREE to all Lotus professionals currently looking for a new position.

If you did not attend the first workshop and would like to attend the next workshop, made sure to go Declan Lynch's site and learn the first 10 lessons. The second workshop will cover lessons 11 through 17.

We are looking at possibility doing a XPages Workshop at the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010. If that is something that you would like to have at the conference let us know.

Welcome the Detroit Lotus User Group to the MWLUG Conference 2010

The Detroit Lotus user group, Detroit Notes Professionals, is now part of the Midwest Lotus User Group Conference 2010. The MWLUG 2010 Committee is excited that another Lotus user group has joined us and be involved into this unique event. The MWLUG Conference 2010 now including nine different user groups throughout the Midwest including:

- Central Ohio Notes/Domino Users Group
- Detroit Notes Professionals
- GRANITE Lotus User Group
- Minnesota Lotus User Group (MNNOTES411)
- Northeast Ohio Lotus User Group
- Northeast Wisconsin Lotus User Group
- Southern Wisconsin Lotus User Group
- Western Michigan Lotus User Group
- Western PA Lotus User Group

If your Lotus user group is in the Midwest and would like to join us to be part of this event let us know. You can contact myself or Gregg Eldred. Planning for MWLUG Conference 2010 is almost complete and we are expecting a great event.

Monday, March 15, 2010

GRANITE XPAGES WORKSHOP TODAY

Reminder, today is the start of the free GRANITE Lotus User Group XPages workshop. The workshop is overbooked, so if you have not registered please do not show up. If you did register and will not attend, please let us know.

Friday, March 5, 2010

Domino Designer 8.51 and Script Libraries

Until recently I was using the Domino Designer 8.02 client because it is smaller and faster. However, the new eclipse-based client has one key feature that I have always wanted in the old client that was not available. Why it was not available I do not know. The Domino Designer 8.51 client automatically sorts the functions for a script library into alphabetic order. For years this has irritated me when searching for a function. I glad they finally have this built in. Unfortunately, I am still getting Java errors when I go to preview mode, but I guess I will have to live with it.

CollabSphere 2022 Presentation: COL103 Advanced Automation and Cloud Service Integration for your Notes/Nomad Applications

Our presentation for CollabSphere 2022. Learn how to quickly add workflow automation into Notes/Nomad applications using No-code tools that ...