Design – TexasSwede

Busy, busy – But wait: There is help!

For the last year and a half I have been very busy with different projects, and this blog had to be put on the back burner. And no, despite a number of blog posts about Microsoft Flight Simulator, I have actually not had much time to play it, less than 10 hours since it was released last August. But this leads me to today's topic: tools that can help you save time. As a Notes/Domino developer, administrator or power user, you often need to go deeper into the Domino database. This could be tasks like finding and resolving replication contacts, look closer at the fields (including hidden fields) in a document, or quickly locate all documents of a particular type, or matching a particular criteria that you don't already have a view for. As an administrator you maybe would like to keep several Domino consoles visible side by side, so you can watch what is happening on all your servers at the same time. As a developer, what if you could copy the design of a view or an action bar to numerous other views to make all views look consistent, without having to edit and update every single view manually? Things like that makes your life easier and makes you more efficient, but you don't have that in the native product. One set of tools that stands in a class by itself is EZ Suite from Ytria. The EZ Suite tools are extremely powerful, and there is no way I will be able to cover all of them in one blog post. I will focus on some of the functions that have been useful to me, and even with that limitation I have to split this up in multiple blog posts. The first tool from Ytria I ever tried was scanEZ. We had some issues with a database at my old work (I don't remember the details anymore), so we purchased a time limited version of scanEZ. I think it was valid for a week, enough for us to salvage the documents in the database. My boss thought the tool could be useful in the future, so he immediately purchased a full license of it for himself. Eventually he purchased a license of EZ Suite for me, and I made frequent use of the tools, both while doing development and server administration, as well as when I had to troubleshoot database issues or replication conflicts. You can purchase the full suite , or one of several bundles of tools geared to different types of users (developers, administrators or developer with some administration needs). Each tool can also be purchased individually. The latest version is EZ Suite 20. This version contains a number of new functions and enhancements. Since I haven't used the tool in the last couple of years, after my license expired, I have not been keeping up with all the new features, but as always Ytria is supporting the latest version of Notes and Domino.Disclaimer: Ytria generously…

2 Comments

March 23, 2021

Frameworks / UI/UX / Web Development

Semantic UI – An alternative to Bootstrap?

Bootstrap is currently undisputedly the most popular CSS library. I have been using Bootstrap since 2012, starting with version 2.3. The current version is 4.5, with version 5 is under development and expected at the end of this year. So why is Bootstrap so popular? There are several reasons, but perhaps the most important one is that it is very easy to get started and create attractive webpages, most components you need are available out-of-the-box, and there are number of different themes to change the visual look of the sites. But perhaps the biggest reason for the popularity is its popularity. There are countless code snippets, samples and plugins available, as well as tutorial and a huge community you can tap into for help. There are currently over 98,000 questions on Stack Overflow for all versions of Bootstrap, and over 21,000 for the latest version. But Bootstrap is of course not unchallenged. There are a number of other CSS frameworks available today, some more complete than others. One interesting framework I recently found is Semantic UI. It uses simple phrases, called behaviors, to trigger functions. Below is an example with a select box where the code is selecting two values from the list. $('select.dropdown') .dropdown('set selected', ['meteor', 'ember']) ; <select class="ui fluid dropdown" multiple="multiple" name="skills"> <option value="">Skills</option> <option value="angular">Angular</option> <option value="css">CSS</option> <option value="ember">Ember</option> <option value="html">HTML</option> <option value="javascript">Javascript</option> <option value="meteor">Meteor</option> <option value="node">NodeJS</option> </select> The resulting website looks very similar to one created in Bootstrap, if you use the default theme. One difference you might notice quickly is that the grid system is using 16 as the base, not 12 as Bootstrap does. Semantic UI also contains several component you will not find natively in Bootstrap. On of them is dividers, which are available in horizontal and vertical variants. The list component can very easily be configured in a multitude of different ways. To create the horizontal list, the markup looks like this: <div class="ui horizontal list"> <div class="item"> <img class="ui avatar image" src="/images/avatar/small/tom.jpg"> <div class="content"> <div class="header">Tom</div> Top Contributor </div> </div> <div class="item"> <img class="ui avatar image" src="/images/avatar/small/christian.jpg"> <div class="content"> <div class="header">Christian Rocha</div> Admin </div> </div> <div class="item"> <img class="ui avatar image" src="/images/avatar/small/matt.jpg"> <div class="content"> <div class="header">Matt</div> Top Rated User </div> </div> </div> Take a look at Semantic UI, maybe it will come in handy for your next web project!

1 Comment

August 30, 2020

Design / Hobbies / Life

LEGO meets IKEA

This evening I stumbled upon a Kickstarter from a Swedish company called Cribble. It was posted in a Facebook group for furniture carpentry, and as soon as I saw it I thought that this is a very cool product. The easiest way I can describe it is LEGO meet IKEA. Here is how it is described on Kickstarter: Cribble is a kit of building pieces to create your own mini house. A blank canvas for your craftyness. Plan and build the foundation, wallpaper the walls, place the floors and put together some furniture according to plan, or your very own way. This is an inclusive project and it’s meant to integrate with other toys, crafts and stuff you find around the house. The two founders, Josefin and Anna, realized that most toys for girls miss the construction and engineering aspects that toys aimed at boys usually have. So they set out to create a modular construction set to allow children to build a house, using the similar construction techniques as in real life. So we think that if we increase the opportunity for girls to delve into building and technology they won't just have a much more fun playtime but also even out one of the biggest mediators for the wage gap between men and women. Cribble is dipping into the traditional girl play area and giving opportunity for all genders to play around with technology, room and space without overwhelming them with signals that this are meant for boys. Now they are looking for help to get this product going. Take a look at the video and read more on Kickstarter. I think this is an amazing toy! And I think it is priced very nicely, when you think about what you get.

0 Comments

April 28, 2018

#IBMChampion / Bootstrap / Design / HTML/CSS / IBM/Lotus / Javascript / jQuery / Notes/Domino / Personal / Programming / Technology / Web Development

IBM Notes, Domino and the future

As some may already know I was recently laid off after 14 years as a Notes and Domino developer at my workplace. I suspected for a while that some staff reduction would be coming soon, but I was a bit surprised that I was included since I am the only Notes developer in the company. I had for a while considered to do consulting and freelance development. My wife as well as several friends have been encouraging me for years. So this was just the push I needed. I am starting my own company, Demand Better Solutions, where I will focus on Notes and Domino Development, application modernization and migration as well as building brand new web applications and websites. I realize that me being laid off is just a business decision. It is not personal. Several of the business critical applications at my former employer are developed using IBM Notes, but the executives have for years been talking about moving away from the platform. Of course they don't realize the huge amount of work needed to do this, but never the less this was/is their ultimate goal. The reason is that they feel (based on what they hear from other executives) that Notes is old technology. The fact that IBM has been slow in modernizing the interface, and that many of the templates still look like back in 1999 when version 5.0 was released does not help this perception. Last fall all our email at my old job was moved to Outlook, and ever since I have heard users complaining about missing Notes and certain functionality they were used to. A lot of integration between Notes applications and Notes mail were also lost, and I had to re-create it in different ways. You often hear stories about people complaining about the Notes client, but most of our users wanted nothing but to get it back... My old employer also uses Visual FoxPro, a product where the last version was released in 2004. It has officially been discontinued by Microsoft, but we use it for several important applications. So I don't think that even a product being discontinued is driving a huge number of migrations. It is the perception of how modern the product is that matters. And that perception is almost 100% the way the product looks. To a user the interface is the product. Create a modern looking application and nobody will question (or care) what tool was used to build it. The last 3-4 years I have been learning new web technologies, like jQuery, Bootstrap, Ajax, JSON. I have been able to use much of that at work, as well as in several side projects. I also started learning C# and .net. After the layoff I sat down and started looking at (among others) php and mySQL as well as researched frameworks like AngularJS. As a developer I have to keep up with new technologies, or I will be left behind. But it is hard when you work full-time, have side work and then have…

2 Comments

September 18, 2016

Design / Graphics / HTML/CSS / UI/UX / Web Development

7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI

I found this two-part article about web design very interesting and want to share it. I am very similar to the author, I have also learned what looks good by looking at sites. In the end, I learned the aesthetics of apps the same way I’ve learned any creative endeavor: cold, hard analysis. And shameless copying of what works. I’ve worked 10 hours on a UI project and billed for 1. The other 9 were the wild flailing of learning. Desperately searching Google and Pinterest and Dribbble for something to copy from. These “rules” are the lessons from those hours. So word to the nerds: if I’m any good at designing UI now, it’s because I’ve analyzed stuff — not because I came out the chute with an intuitive understanding of beauty and balance. Part 1: https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-part-1-559d4e805cda Part 2: https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-part-2-430de537ba96

0 Comments

February 13, 2015

End of content

No more pages to load