Rancher Desktop, A New Dev Tool  

By Paul Withers | 2/7/22 2:23 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Docker has been a significant development tool for me for some time. The ease of spinning up a clean, standalone development environment for applications is a great benefit. The ability to switch seamlessly between different versions is a big benefit when testing. But when Docker announced new licensing terms last year, it shook up the dekstop development landscape. Rancher, who have a long history of expertise with Kubernetes, stepped into the desktop game by announcing Rancher Desktop. I was aware of the open source project last year, but when Daniel Nashed pointed out to me that 1.0 had recently been released, I decided it was time to give it a try.

Docker, Java and Processes  

By Paul Withers | 12/13/21 2:08 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Docker, Java and Processes Whether it’s Docker or Kubernetes (or some flavour thereof), running microaservices in containers is a powerful option. It can make it easy to deploy development or test systems, ensuring consistency across your devlopment team. But when you move from consuming to building, particularly when you’re building less out-of-the-box containers, there are some deeper elements that you need to be aware of.

REST API Gateways  

By Paul Withers | 6/14/21 1:07 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Andi Kress

Three years ago I presented at IBM Think I presented a session called Domino and JavaScript Development Masterclass with John Jardin. In that session I talked about the various REST options for Domino and used the term “API gateway”. Particularly at this time it makes sense to expand more on what was in the slides.

DQL: What Is It Good For?  

By Paul Withers | 1/22/20 12:55 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

DQL has been at the forefront of my radar since Domino V10 over a year ago. If I remember correctly, documentation wasn’t immediately available in Domino Designer’s Help, but was soon published online. It’s been at the heart of sessions and advances ever since.

HCL Nomad, Number Fields and Decimals  

By Paul Withers | 11/18/19 5:39 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

Recently a custom highlighted an issue with entering decimals on Number fields in HCL Nomad. After some troubleshooting I was able to pinpoint the specific settings that resulted in the problem. With a Number field, on the second tab "Control", you can set the number format with decimal places and additional display formatting.

Pastures New, New Challenges  

By Paul Withers | 10/29/19 2:22 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

After 14 and a half years at Intec, I’m moving on to pastures new. I’ve learned a lot and developed in ways that were never envisaged by anyone when I started at Intec. I’m very fortunate to have had a company that backed me, and I think we’ve both benefited greatly. But I’ve always sought to embrace opportunities and accept responsibilities throughout my career. And now is no different.

Node-RED 1.0 Released  

By Paul Withers | 10/1/19 11:45 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

Yesterday Node-RED 1.0 was released. For those of us who have been using Node-RED for some time, this doesn't mean any change in the stability of the product. But it's a significant milestone. What's also impressive is the scale of increase in adoption, as highlighted in this tweet.

Understanding Pub Sub  

By Paul Withers | 9/24/19 12:49 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

One of the big amendments in Domino V11 is pub sub. It brings a lot of potential, but only with the proper understanding of how to leverage it. It's a concept many Domino developers may be unfamiliar with, but one that has a lot of parallels in web development.

OSGi Plugin Troubleshooting  

By Paul Withers | 9/22/19 4:40 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

Earlier this week I had a discussion with Graham Acres about an error with ODA. Firstly, there are two scenarios around plugin errors, and it's important to know the difference: Errors in the "Problems" view in Domino Designer and Errors on the server console at run-time.

What Domino Makes Trivial Number Three: Web Sockets  

By Paul Withers | 8/29/19 1:08 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

Richard Moy added an interesting comment to my last blog post, wishing that HCL would add Web Sockets support to the core. It's a popular requirement, and one that people have tried to work around. John Jardin added a web sockets server to our React application for our JavaScript session at IBM Think 2018.

What Domino Makes Trivial Number Two: Synchronous / Asynchronous Processing  

By Paul Withers | 8/27/19 7:24 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

Another topic that becomes key when moving beyond Domino is synchronous and asynchronous processing. But it's probably something most Domino developers haven't come across. LotusScript and standard Domino Java are single-threaded.

What Domino Makes Trivial Number One: State Management  

By Paul Withers | 8/23/19 8:54 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

Don Mottolo makes a good point in his comment on my recent blog post, that there are aspects of other web frameworks that make it a non-trivial task. This is also really why some people talking about Domino are talking about “mid coders” and “pro coders”. And it’s also why the terms don’t really exist outside the yellow bubble.

LotusScript and The “Static” Keyword  

By Paul Withers | 7/9/19 12:00 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

Moving from language to language, I'm constantly re-evaluating how coding improvements can be made to make the applications I work with more pleasurable and the code I write smarter. Unless a language has a narrow focus or limited power, there are likely to be aspects you've not dug into.

Domino App Dev Pack: Understanding Scopes  

By Paul Withers | 5/28/19 8:35 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

One of the aspects of the app dev pack yet to fully coalesce is the concept of scopes. But I think it will be key to the future, as an app dev and admin tool. It’s certainly something that will not be familiar to those who have never stepped beyond Domino.

Modernising Domino Applications: Technical Dive  

By Paul Withers | 5/20/19 8:19 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

Last week I did a session on modernising Domino and XPages applications. Filling an hour seemed daunting when the session was accepted. So I went to the Oxford English Dictionary definition of modernisation: The process of adapting something to modern needs or habits

Engage 2019 Summary  

By Paul Withers | 5/19/19 6:31 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

Historically Engage has been shortly after a major conference in US, so it’s been an opportunity to catch up on sessions missed there. This year it followed the Factory Tour by a few months. Unfortunately for me, most of the key products sessions conflicted with sessions I was delivering or preparation.

Docker and Data  

By Paul Withers | 3/30/19 3:13 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

One of the frustrations I have with trying new technologies is when the documentation covers a specific operating system, especially when it combines another technology that requires a certain level of understanding. I had that recently with a new product where the Docker commands for creating a container were given, with no explanation about them.

Take the Quiz  

By Paul Withers | 3/18/19 4:40 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

The hugely successful release of Domino 10 and the impending investment from HCL has got everyone excited about the future. But how well do you know the past? Take our fun Notes/Domino quiz and discover if you are a Collaboration Contender, a Domino Defender or a Notes Ninja!

Preventing “Build Automatically” Via Policy  

By Paul Withers | 3/13/19 9:06 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

As one of the first steps in XPages training I cover making configuration and settings changes to Domino Designer to optimise your experience. One of those is switching off Build Automatically. Unless your day-to-day ID only has Editor or below access to applications, sooner or later having Build Automatically enabled will cause problems.

Why Low Code Resonates  

By Paul Withers | 3/4/19 12:05 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

In the late 1990s there was a temp who had left university not long before, with an MA in Ancient Greek Literature and a PhD to write up. He was applying for academic positions but uncertain where his long-term future applied. He started at a company which used Lotus Notes for a CRM planning events and working as office support for remote staff who worked on local replicas.

HCL Factory Tour Episode 2  

By Paul Withers | 3/1/19 4:17 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

This week I’ve spent a hugely beneficial amount of time at the HCL Factory Tour Episode 2. As with the previous factory tour, the ability to get quality time with key individuals from HCL and IBM, as well as not only hear but feed back on progress is invaluable. Before going I’d also intended to use the conference to crystalise my focuses for Engage. And obviously it was a great opportunity to have influential discussions regarding OpenNTF and open source, discussions that would normally have happened at IBM Think.

OpenNTF Snippets - Investigating The Design  

By Paul Withers | 2/11/19 7:06 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

As you’ve hopefully seen, we’ve relaunched XSnippets as OpenNTF Snippets. There are quite a few changes, some decisions made that are less than traditional, but driven by some key factors. Indeed some may seem bad practice and are certainly not what may be made for other applications. But the driving force is a deep understanding of the application and its administrators.

Domino 10.0.1 on Docker Setup Video  

By Paul Withers | 1/15/19 2:21 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

I’ve created the first in a set of videos about setting up Domino on Docker for development from Notes Client, XPages and Node.js / Node-RED

Domino V10.0.1 Community Editions  

By Paul Withers | 12/14/18 4:28 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

It’s publicly official now. Barry Rosen has confirmed that Domino 10.0.1 will be released next week with the Domino Server Community Edition and the Notes Client Community Edition. The Notes / Domino / Administrator client has been free for some time, but there was no public download of V10 available.

The DQL Approach  

By Paul Withers | 11/23/18 9:41 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

Earlier today I posted this tweet. It followed another update from John Curtis teasing more enhancements coming to DQL. If you’ve been following closely presentations and announcements about DQL, there are a few things that have been said and seem clear to me, things that give insight into the approach with DQL that are interesting and demonstrate the team is thinking beyond history, beyond Domino, and building for the future. Let me elaborate.

Understanding Notes Client JVM Heap  

By Paul Withers | 11/21/18 12:47 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

In base Eclipse it’s also possible to set these, in the eclipse.ini and display the current heap size in the preferences, on the General tab. That setting for displaying the current heap size has also been available in Domino Designer’s preferences for some time. You can’t see the setting in the Notes Client, only in Domino Designer. It’s again on the General tab.

The Changing Domino Environment Architecture - Intec Systems  

By Paul Withers | 11/12/18 3:33 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

This article has been prompted by my previous one on Domino application development. One of the major differences between Domino application development in the past and the approaches for Node.js-related development in the future is architecture. But part of that could also be an inhibitor for existing customers, because of the incubated world of Domino.

Whither XPages?  

By Paul Withers | 11/8/18 8:55 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

Some years ago I wrote a blog post called “Whither the Notes Client”. At the time (2012) XPages was flourishing, the Notes browser plugin (subsequently ICAA) was being launched, Symphony was being stopped and the IBM-specific enhancements routed back to Apache OpenOffice and iNotes was being integrated into what is now Connections Cloud.

What's New in Domino V10: LotusScript Profiling Extended  

By Paul Withers | 10/3/18 1:11 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Oliver Busse

When I got my hands on the Domino V10 beta, I started applying new methods to ODA and cross-referencing with LotusScript to work out what the parameters are. The Java methods typically have parameter names arg0, arg1 etc. But LotusScript gives more usable parameter names, which can often help identify what needs to be passed.

Replication / Save Conflict of Itself  

By Paul Withers | 9/19/18 8:17 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by John Oldenburger

For a while now I’ve been niggled by a quirk that I couldn’t understand the cause of. In one application, which uses a lot of local replicas and has been in use for many years, I occasionally had calls about documents that had “disappeared”. In each occasion I tracked them down as conflicts.