ESCAPE VELOCITY :: Something I bet you didn't know

This is my All view in mail and my Notes Log combined into one

I love the IBM Composite Applications team. They do stuff like this on a little corner blog with the tiniest little audience, where they release a free tool that... wait for it.... JOINS NOTES VIEWS IN A RICH-CLIENT TREE VIEWER!!

Yeah, okay, the results aren't that spectacular to look at. But they do have full @function support in the column references. And it's using components from the CA Component Library which you can find on OpenNTF.org.

The article really drives me crazy though, since it's pretty clearly not written in a way to help a Notes developer, even though most Notes developers would give up their first born for this particular functionality. It's obviously written for Eclipse developers. So, for the sake of your Notes developers who build apps for the 100+ million Notes users out there, here's a few tips...

If you follow the instruction on the Component Library, you should be able to create a brand new Composite Application from the blank template. Then go to Actions - Edit Application. Then expand your Component Palette on the right hand side, then right-click, and "Add Locally installed Component." The ones you're looking for are "Notes Tree" and "Document Viewer". Then you can drag each one on to the middle space.

Then right click on the Notes Tree component on the LEFT side and select "Wiring." You want to drag & drop from the left to the right side like so...

Then right click on the Notes Tree component on the LEFT side and select "Edit Component Properties." You'll see an "Advanced" button, which should bring you to the following...

You'll notice that you need the Notes:// URLs for the various source views. And then you can use @formulas for the actual content.

This is a simple tool. It's not very smart. It doesn't seem to want to allow you to edit it once you build it. And you have to manually right-click and "REFRESH" once you're back in the regular Notes client.

But still, this is a silent revolution in Notes app development. And while I'm really glad that IBM built this tool that does something important and new and vital, I cannot believe that they aren't shouting it from the rooftops to appeal to EXISTING NOTES DEVELOPERS who have been hamstrung by the limitations of views for the last, oh, 15 years or so.

PS: It was a bit of a temptation to just sit on this until Lotusphere, and then show it in our Interface Matters presentation, as if it was some new discovery. But I just couldn't bring myself to not tell people, since it's just a matter of bad marketing on IBM's part, really.

Comments

1 - Blah,
Ive been doing this for months...
Show me something I dont know sheesh..
Emoticon

Posted by jimmy bracco At 05:14:41 PM On 12/26/2007 | - Website - |

2 - It does make you wonder why they don't have some dedicated Notes developer/editor/writer whose entire purpose is to take the snazzy eclipse or CA stuff and put it into Notes-speak on the blog. Somebody to say, "hey, wait a minute, that's a freakin' JOIN in a Notes view, we have to put that in 48 point, bold, red, flashing text!" And, just as importantly, to sometimes say, "um, yeah, so what? Been doing that since R4..."

Posted by Rob McDonagh At 08:25:52 PM On 12/26/2007 | - Website - |

3 - @3 - Maybe they don't because I keep doing that for them. Emoticon