Notes and Domino v12 is here!

HCL Software is launching the new version of the collaboration platform HCL Domino on June 7, together with the latest version of the meeting platform Sametime. If you already are a customer with entitlement to the products, you can already download them from FlexNet today.

Some of the new features in Domino v12:

  • Support for storing DAOS files in Amazon S3, to offload your own servers
  • Active directory password sync
  • Two-factor authentication and additional enhancements to internet security
  • New mobile capabilities
  • New icons and view list styling options
  • Hide fields or view columns on devices with lower resolution
  • Bootstrap 4 for XPages
  • Support for formula language in DQL queries
  • Aggregate document collections (e.g. from a search) across Domino databases
  • Button in Administrator client to find all groups a user belongs to
  • Enhancements to mail-in databases

And much more. Find out at the launch!

It is not only the Domino server and the Notes client that is being launched. The latest version of HCL’s no-code/low-code development tool Domino Volt is also available, as is a new version of the AppDev Pack that allows node.js developers to work directly with data stored in the Domino NoSQL-database. But wait, there is more!

A very exciting product HCL will present at the launch is Nomad Web, a client for Domino built for the browser with no downloads or plugins required. The client is written in Web Assembly, so it runs native in modern browsers. It can execute formulas and Lotusscript code, everything you can do in the regular client can be done (with a few exceptions like XPages). There has even been new classes added to Lotusscript to access hardware common in mobile devices and laptops, e.g. the camera and GPS. Nomad for iOS and Android has already been released, but with this zero footprint web client it is incredibly easy to deploy existing Domino application without having to convert them to true web applications. They will simply work as-is. This is truly an impressive engineering feat by HCL.

If you haven’t done it yet, sign up for the launch of the new Domino and Sametime on June 7.

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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 provided me with a license for the latest version, but I was previously a paying customer, and I have recommended their products for many years.

Let’s start with the first tool from Ytria I was ever exposed to, scanEZ. This tool makes it possible to explore a Domino database in depth, not only the documents but design elements, settings and even deletion stubs (the remains of deleted documents used to delete the document in replicas). Fields can be added, deleted and their content can be changed. You can even change the data type of a field, as well as many other attributes.

In scanEZ you can also look at and modify profile documents and replication conflicts, which often comes in very handy. But there is also a dedicated Conflict Solver tool within scanEZ. It will analyze the database, which can take a little bit of time, but then you can compare the conflict document with the parent and see which fields differs. This may even help you figuring out how the conflict was created, and how you can prevent that in the future.

This only scratched the surface of what scanEZ is capable of. I have not even mentioned the different ways to view and analyze data. You can for example dynamically categorize the documents through drag-and-drop, and even present the data in charts, thanks to the extensive capabilities of scanEZ.

The next tool I want to mention is consoleEZ. The easiest way to describe it is the Domino server console on steroids. You can view multiple consoles simultaneously, and also see a list of the tasks running on them. Your console commands are saved, and you can view them later if you like. It has many features you wish were in Domino Administrator out of the box, and even more features you did not even know you wanted.

You don’t have to be a hard-core administrator to appreciate consoleEZ. It was first released about six years ago, so it is one of the latest additions to EZ Suite. It quickly became one of my favorite tools.

I do quite a bit of modernization of Notes and Domino applications. Often this involves web enabling them, including creating a modern UI using HTML, CSS, and often a framework like Bootstrap. But there are still many Notes databases that works well, and instead of rewriting a lot of the existing logic for the web, a refresh of the Notes client UI is sufficient. This often involves adding a nicer background to the action bars, as well as changes to the views. Just a few small changes can make a huge difference, and make an old application look fresh again.

But even after you come up with a nice, more modern looking design, you have to duplicate it across all the action bars and views in your application. This is where actionBarEZ and viewEZ comes in. Those two tools makes it a breeze to apply a design to many action bars or views or copy the design from one view/action bar and apply it to any view or action bar you want.

Using actionBarEZ you select a number of view, pages or form, and change the properties across all the elements just like you would have done in Domino Designer, but there you can only make the changes on one view, form or page at a time. But the function I found the most useful function is that you can design a nice action bar in one view, then select that design and with the click of one button apply it to any views, forms or pages you like. This has saved me countless hours of work. The functionality of viewEZ is pretty much identical.

Stay tuned for the next part to be published in the next few days.

2 Comments

HCL Volt – A real life use case

The first update to HCL Volt is now available for download. In version 1.0.1 there are a number of improvements, so if you already have Volt installed, get this update from Flexnet. But this post is not about the technical details of Volt. No, it is an example of how I used the product the other day to quickly put together a small application to help with a very specific task.

Last month my wife and I went on a trip to Estes Park in Colorado, where we enjoyed sleeping with open windows, enjoying the fresh cool mountain air. We started talking about getting an RV, to allow us to leave the Texas heat during the summer. My wife started doing some research on different camping trailers, but soon there was too many models, weights, dimensions and features to keep track of easily. I started to create a spreadsheet in Excel to keep track of everything, but a few minutes later I realized I had a much better tool available: HCL Volt.

I started my browser and went to the Volt Application Manager, where I created a new application by importing the Excel spreadsheet I had started on.

Within a few seconds I had the beginning of my application. I added some additional fields, for example to upload images of the floorplans and to store links to the manufacturers webpages with more information.

It took me about 10 minutes to put the whole thing together. I sent my wife the links, and she logged in and started entering data, as she was researching. A little bit later she asked if it would be possible to add some more checkboxes to the list of features I had created. I gave her the access to modify the application, showed her where she needed to go, and she fixed it herself without me having to show her anything. That’s how intuitive Volt is!

We now have a simple but functional tool to record details about any camping trailer we find, and where we can later go back and review the different alternatives.

There is even a built-in summary page where we can see statistics of the different trailers. This is created automatically from the data entered, no code needed. As a matter of fact, I have not written one single line of code in this application.

This is just one example of how you can create a useful application in a few minutes. But don’t take my word for it. Try it yourself for free, no download required!

If you want to get this very affordable add-on product to HCL Domino, contact your HCL Business Partner.

3 Comments

Keep up with COVID-19 though Domino!

Are you are suddenly sitting at home with nothing to do, due to the corona virus COVID-19? You can’t go to the gym. You can’t go to your favorite computer store to browse all the latest hardware and plan for your next water-cooled build. You can’t go out to eat.

But what you can do is to try out some of the new functionality in HCL Notes and Domino. Today I started a little project where I try to incorporate a number of the latest and coolest functions in a simple but useful application. I hope to be able to create several blog posts about this project over the next few days.

I came up with the idea for this app when someone sent me a link to a web page where information about COVID-19 is aggregated from all US states. I thought it was a neat page, but then I noticed that they have a public API where the numbers are served up. Now things started to become much more interesting! This is what the JSON data looks like:

[
  {
    "state": "AK",
    "positive": 6,
    "negative": 400,
    "pending": null,
    "death": null,
    "total": 406,
    "lastUpdateEt": "3/18 16:30",
    "checkTimeEt": "3/19 15:12"
  },{
    "state": "AL",
    "positive": 68,
    "negative": 28,
    "pending": null,
    "death": 0,
    "total": 96,
    "lastUpdateEt": "3/19 10:45",
    "checkTimeEt": "3/19 15:15"
  },{
    "state": "AR",
    "positive": 46,
    "negative": 310,
    "pending": 113,
    "death": null,
    "total": 469,
    "lastUpdateEt": "3/19 11:23",
    "checkTimeEt": "3/19 15:16"
  },{
    "state": "AS",
    "positive": 0,
    "negative": null,
    "pending": null,
    "death": 0,
    "total": 0,
    "lastUpdateEt": "3/14 00:00",
    "checkTimeEt": "3/19 16:18"
  },{
    "state": "AZ",
    "positive": 44,
    "negative": 175,
    "pending": 130,
    "death": 0,
    "total": 349,
    "lastUpdateEt": "3/19 00:00",
    "checkTimeEt": "3/19 15:18"
  },{
    "state": "CA",
    "positive": 924,
    "negative": 8787,
    "pending": null,
    "death": 18,
    "total": 9711,
    "lastUpdateEt": "3/19 14:25",
    "checkTimeEt": "3/19 15:20"
  }
...

So what could I do with this data? Why not bring it into a Domino database to start with, and then retrieve the data on a schedule, say every hour?

We should then be able to chart the data for each state over time. In order to not store the same data over and over again, I want to check if the data has been modified since the last time the agent ran. I will just use the lastUpdateEt date and time stamp in combination with the state abbreviation to perform a lookup. If I get any result(s) back, the data was already stored.

So how do you read the JSON from the API? In the past I would have used my own HTTP Request class, but this is not needed anymore. This is thanks to the NotesHTTPRequest class, first introduced in Domino 10 and then improved in Domino 11. In Domino 11 the wizards at HCL in Chelmsford added classes to parse JSON. The NotesJSONNavigator is the base of the parser, then you use NotesJSONArray, NotesJSONObject and NotesJSONElement to traverse through a JSON payload. When you get the hang of it, this is much easier than it maybe sounds at first.

So let’s take a look at my code. This is a scheduled agent, running once an hour:

%REM
  Agent Retrieve Data
  Created Mar 19, 2020 by Karl-Henry Martinsson/DBS
%END REM

Option Public
Option Declare

Sub Initialize
  Dim session As New NotesSession
  Dim db As NotesDatabase
  Dim view As NotesView
  Dim http As NotesHTTPRequest
  Dim json As NotesJSONNavigator
  Dim element As NotesJSONElement
  Dim stateArray As NotesJSONArray
  Dim state As NotesJSONObject
  Dim response As Variant
  Dim url As String

  Set db = session.CurrentDatabase
  Set view = db.GetView("LookupExisting")
  Call view.Refresh()

  Set http = session.CreateHTTPRequest()
  url = "https://covidtracking.com/api/states"
  response = http.get(url)
  Set json = session.CreateJSONNavigator(response)
  Set element = json.GetFirstElement()
  Do Until element Is Nothing
    Set state = element.Value
    Call processState(state, db, view)
    Set element = json.GetNextElement()
  Loop
End Sub

Function processState(state As NotesJSONObject, db As NotesDatabase, view As NotesView)
  Dim doc As NotesDocument
  Dim col As NotesViewEntryCollection
  Dim values List As String 
  Dim element As NotesJSONElement
  Dim key As String
  Dim value As String
  Dim stateName As String
  Dim lastUpdate As String 

  Set doc = New NotesDocument(db)
  doc.Form = "StateData"
  Set element = state.GetFirstElement()
  Do Until element Is Nothing 
    key = element.Name
    value = element.Value
    If key="state" Then
      stateName = value
    End If
    If Right$(key,2)="Et" Then
      lastUpdate = Format$(CDat(value),"mm/dd/yyyy hh:nn AM/PM")
      Call doc.ReplaceItemValue("lastUpdated", lastUpdate)
    Else 
      Call doc.ReplaceItemValue(key, value)	
    End If
    Set element = state.GetNextElement()
  Loop
  Set col = view.GetAllEntriesByKey(stateName+"^"+lastUpdate)
  If col.count=0 Then
    Call doc.Save(True,False)
  End If
End Function

This is all the code you need. Yes, I am serious. You can now consume any data on the web, served up by any system with a REST API, straight into Domino, with just a few lines for code.

The NotesHTTPRequest is very straight forward, so there is not much to say about it. But the classes used to parse JSON may need some explanation.
You start with the NotesJSONNavigator. You then use the value property of the NotesJSONElement class to get a value, an array or an object. The array or object is put into a NotesJSONArray or NotesJSONObject object, and you can then traverse down into the JSON structure. This is very powerful and useful, we have all been asking IBM for this functionality for many years. Now HCL delivers!

I created a hidden view for the lookup to avoid the same data stored multiple times. It only contains one (sorted) column, which is used by the lookup:

That is pretty much it.

I also created a view to display the data:

Soon we will do something more fun with the data. I will just let the scheduled agent run for a while and build up my database first. Keep your eyes open for the next post about this project!

4 Comments

Call 32-bit COM Objects from 64-bit Domino

We all know that when you upgrade your Domino environment from 32-bit to 64-bit, any COM objects you use will not work anymore. You thn need to get and install a 64-bit version of the COM object.

But what if there is no 64-bit version? Do you have to stay on 32-bit Domino forever? Or rather, stay on Domino 9.x, since Domino 10 (and probably also the upcoming version 11) are 64-bit only.

Perhaps not. I found this article that describes how to use a 32-bit COM object in a 64-bit environment, like Domino 10. I have not had time to test it myself, but I will probably try it this weekend.

Read all the details at https://techtalk.gfi.com/32bit-object-64bit-environment/.

2 Comments

Run Notes applications on iPad!

IBM and HCL has released an amazing product, IBM Domino Apps for iPad. They have been showing early versions at IBM Think and other events for the last year, but now it is here, and you can download it in the Apple App Store!

I have seen earlier versions of the product, and I have to say that the developers at HCL did an excellent job. Your existing Notes applications can now run right out of the box with full fidelity and functionality, including formula language and Lotusscript, with no changes needed.

Even features like replication to a local database and working offline works. It is simply a full Notes application client for the iPad.

This is something that people have been asking IBM to develop for at least a decade. And finally we have it available.

There is a version for Android in the works as well, but no official release date has been set for it yet.

So what does this mean? It means that not only can you run your current applications on an iPad, you can develop new applications specifically for tablets. The applications can be styled to work better on tablets, for example larger fonts and buttons. HCL even added some tablet specific functions, like camera integration, to the core Notes functionality.

There are a couple of limitations in the first versions, most notable that there is no support for the mail template, and no support for Xpages in the Notes client.

If you are using Notes and have users with iPads, install IBM Domino Apps for iPad and be prepared to be amazed!

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We live in interesting times.

Yesterday it was announced that HCL Technologies will purchase the IP (intellectual property) of seven IBM-owned products, including Notes/Domino, Sametime and Connections, for a total of 1.8 billion dollar.

HCL and IBM already had a partnership on the product development side, with HCL doing the development and support with IBM still owning the products and handling sales and marketing. Now HCL is fully in charge of the product, and is not tied down by what IBM decides.

As soon as the HCL-IBM agreement was announced last year, HCL aggressively went on the offensive. They announced not one but two additional versions of Notes and Domino. Domino 10 was delivered just two months ago, and version 11 is promised in 2019.

HCL reached out to business partners and IBM Champions, as well as to the rest of the user community, to get feedback about what features were the most critical. Despite the quick release of Domino 10, a number of suggested features were included, as were several other impressive improvements.

Notable among these features is the new (and extremely fast) Domino Query Language as we as support for node.js through the domino-db module. On the administration side there were several improvements that will lower the TCO (total cost of ownership).

HCL has already announced several so called Jams in the near future to collect feedback on what the users want to see in the upcoming Domino 11.

So what does yesterday’s announcement mean for the future of Notes, Domino and Connections? I belive it will be extremely beneficial. HCL can take the products where they want them, adding functions requested by small and medium sized businesses instead of focusing on what a few very large customers wants, which is what IBM seemed to do.

By adding back low-code/no-code development into the core product, the citizen developers can again be engaged to create simple applications for their own or their department’s use. If they then need more advanced functions they can hand the application over to a traditional developer for further enhancements. This is what Notes looked like in the beginning, back in the early to mid 90’s. This is the strength of the platform, and what brought it its success.

The weakness of Notes and Domino has always been IBM:s (seemingly) lack of understanding of the product, and how it fits smaller and medium sized businesses. By going back to the original use of Domino, combined with HCL:s focus on on-premises (as opposed to IBM:s attempt to move everything to the cloud, despite what the customers want), I think HCL can bring a new life to Notes and Domino, and combine Collaborations into the mix. I can see an upcoming release of Collaboration where the data lives in a Domino database.

So for any Domino and Connections customers and business partners, I think the future looks bright. My belief is that HCL will bring new life and new functionality into the products.

1 Comment

Free Code – Wrapper for searches in NetSuite

About a year ago I wrote a SuiteScript 1.0 class as a wrapper around the search functionality in NetSuite. I have updated the code over time, and I want to share the latest version. Among the new features is support for formulas and search expressions. The class should be backwards compatible with the original version, but in addition you can also pass an object to most functions, instead of passing separate parameters. This makes it more flexible and allows me to add more functionality.

Enjoy!

 

/**
 * Encapsulate NetSuite search functionality in an easy-to-use object for SuiteScript 1.0.
 *  
 * Version    Date            Author           Remarks
 * 1.0        11 Nov 2016     kmartinsson      Initial version
 * 1.5        06 Jul 2017     kmartinsson      Added record type to constructor
 * 2.0        23 Aug 2017     kmartinsson      Added Search2 function, with support for objects and adding multiple columns/filters
 * 2.0.1      01 Sep 2017     kmartinsson      Bug-fixes
 * 2.0.2      01 Sep 2017     kmartinsson      Fixed issue with join not being null, added hasOwnProperty check 
 * 3.0        20 Nov 2017     kmartinsson      Removed v1.x code stream, renamed Search2 to Search
 * 3.0.1      06 Dec 2017     kmartinsson      Added JSDoc style comments, updated comments to new JSDoc style
 * 3.0.2      28 Feb 2018     kmartinsson      Fixed bug in sort key which prevented proper sorting. Added alternative keys.
 * 3.0.3      15 Jul 2018     kmartinsson      Added filter expression support
 * 3.0.4      01 Oct 2018     kmartinsson      Added method removeColumns() for use on (external) saved search
 * 
 */

/**
 * Search object
 * @constructor
 * @param {string} recordtype - Optional NetSuite recordtype (internalid)
 */
function Search(recordtype) {
    this.recordType = null;
    this.columns = [];
    this.filters = [];
    this.filterExpressions = [];
    // Set internal id of saved search to null
    this.internalId = null;
    this.noSavedColumns = false;
    // If record type/ID is supplied, set it now, otherwise default to null
    if (recordtype != null && recordtype != "") {
        this.recordType = recordtype;
    }

    // Helper function to verify the value is empty or null
    function isNullOrEmpty(val) {
        if (val == null || val == '' || val ==[] || val == {}) {
            return true;
        } else {
            return false;
        }
    }

    
    /**
     * Remove all columns included in the search
     * @param none
     * 
     */
    this.removeColumns = function() {
        this.noSavedColumns = true;
    }

    /**
     * Add a column to include in the search
     * @param {object}|{string} column - Object specifying a column to return or string containing columnId
     * @param {string} join - Joined record (internalid) (optional)
     * @param {boolean}|{string} sorting - Sorting (optional)
     *         Options: true = descending, false = ascending, empty/null = no sorting, "yes" (ascending), 
     *         "no", "ascending", "descending" (can be abbreviated "a" and "d" respectively).
     */
    this.addColumn = function(column, join, sorting) {
            var nsSearchColumn = null;
            var paramColName = null;
            var paramJoin = null;
            var paramSummary = null;
            var paramSorted = null;
            // Check if first argument is string or object
            if (typeof column == "string") {
                paramColName = column;
                // Check if second argument is null (for no join)
                if (isNullOrEmpty(join)) {
                    paramJoin = null;
                    // Check if arguent for sorting was provided
                    if (!isNullOrEmpty(sorting)) {
                        paramSorted = sorting;
                    }
                } else {
                    // Check if second argument is boolean, then it is not 'join' but 'sorting'
                    if (typeof join == "boolean") {
                        paramSorted = join;
                        paramJoin = null;
                    } else {
                        paramSorted = sorting;//sorted;
                        paramJoin = join;
                    }
                }
                // Now paramJoin and paramSorted are assigned properly
                if (typeof paramSorted == "boolean") {
                    if (paramSorted == true) {
                        paramSorted = "des";
                    } else {
                        paramSorted = "asc";
                    }
                } else if (typeof paramSorted == "string") {
                    // Get first character of string, in lower case
                    var tmp = paramSorted.slice(0, 1).toLowerCase();
                    // y = ascending sorting, n = no sorting, a = ascending, d = descending
                    if (tmp == 'y' || tmp == 'a') {
                        paramSorted = "asc";
                    } else if (tmp == 'd') {
                        paramSorted = "des";
                    } else {
                        paramSorted = null;
                    }
                }

            } else {
                if (column.hasOwnProperty("name") && column.name != null) {
                    paramColName = column.name;
                } else if (column.hasOwnProperty("columnName") && column.columnName != null) {
                    paramColName = column.columnName;
                } else if (column.hasOwnProperty("columnname") && column.columnname != null) {
                    paramColName = column.columnname;
                } else if (column.hasOwnProperty("column") && column.column != null) {
                    paramColName = column.column;
                } else {
                    throw nlapiCreateError('search.addColumn() - Required Argument Missing', 'The required argument <em>columnName</em> is missing. This argument is required.<br>Received: ' + JSON.stringify(column));
                }
                if (column.hasOwnProperty("join") && column.join != null) {
                    paramJoin = column.join;
                }
                if (column.hasOwnProperty("summary") && column.summary != null) {
                    paramSummary = column.summary;
                }
            }
            nsSearchColumn = new nlobjSearchColumn(paramColName, paramJoin, paramSummary);
            // Check if 'sorted' value exists in object
            if (column.hasOwnProperty("sorted") && column.sorted != null) {
                // Get first 3 characters as lower case
                paramSorted = column.sorted.toLowerCase().substring(0, 3);
            } else if (column.hasOwnProperty("sorting") && column.sorting != null) {
                // Get first 3 characters as lower case
                paramSorted = column.sorting.toLowerCase().substring(0, 3);
            } else if (column.hasOwnProperty("sort") && column.sort != null) {
                // Get first 3 characters as lower case
                paramSorted = column.sort.toLowerCase().substring(0, 3);
            }
            if (paramSorted!= null && paramSorted!="") {
                if (paramSorted == "asc") {
                    nsSearchColumn.setSort(false);
                } else if (paramSorted == "des") {
                    nsSearchColumn.setSort(true);
                } else {
                }
            }
            // Check if 'formula' value exists in object, then add to column object
            if (column.hasOwnProperty("formula") && column.formula != null) {
                nsSearchColumn.setFormula(column.formula);
            }
            // Check if 'functionId' value exists in object, then add to column object
            if (column.hasOwnProperty("functionId") && column.functionId1 != null) {
                nsSearchColumn.setFunction(column.functionId);
                // Push new nlobjSearchColumn into array
            }
            // Check if 'label' value exists in object, then add to column object
            if (column.hasOwnProperty("label") && column.label != null) {
                nsSearchColumn.setLabel(column.label);
            }
            this.columns.push(nsSearchColumn);
            return nsSearchColumn;
        } // end function addColumn


    /**
     * Add multiple columns to include in the search
     * @param {array} columns - array of column objects
     */
    this.addColumns = function(columns) {
            for (var i = 0; i < columns.length; i++) {
                this.addColumn(columns[i]);
            }
        } // end function addColumns

    /**
     * Add a search filter
     * @param {object}|{string} filter - filter object or string containing fieldId
     * @param {string} fieldJoinId - field to use for join (optional)
     * @param {string} operator - operator for filter (optional)
     * @param {string} value - value to filter for (optional)
     */
    this.addFilter = function(filter, fieldJoinId, operator, value) {
            if (typeof filter == "object") {
                var obj = filter;
                var fieldId = obj.field;
                var fieldJoinId = null;
                if (filter.hasOwnProperty("join")) {
                    fieldJoinId = obj.join;
                }
                var operator = obj.operator;
                var value = obj.value;
                // Create filter object
                var nsSearchFilter = new nlobjSearchFilter(fieldId, fieldJoinId, operator, value);
                // Check if 'formula' value exists in object, then add to filter object
                if (obj.hasOwnProperty("formula") && obj.formula != null) {
                    nsSearchFilter.setFormula(obj.formula);
                }
                // Check if 'functionId' value exists in object,then add to filter object
                if (obj.hasOwnProperty("functionId") && obj.functionId != null) {
                    nsSearchFilter.setFunction(obj.functionId);
                }
                this.filters.push(nsSearchFilter);
            } else {
                var fieldId = filter;
                this.filters.push(new nlobjSearchFilter(fieldId, fieldJoinId, operator, value));
            }
        } // end function addFilter


    /**
     * Add multiple search filters
     * @param {array}filters - array of filter objects
     */
    this.addFilters = function(filters) {
            for (var i = 0; i < filters.length; i++) {
                this.addFilter(filters[i]);
            }
        } // end function addFilters

    /**
     * Add filter expression
     * @param {array} expression - array structure describing search expression
     */
    this.addFilterExpression = function(expression) {
        this.filters.push(JSON.parse(expression));
    }

    /**
     * Set filter expression - Replaces any existing filters
     * @param {array} expression - array structure describing search expression
     */
    this.setFilter = function(filterArray) {
        this.filters = filterArray;
    }
    
    /**
     * Set the type of record to search for
     * @param {string} type - internalid of record type to search for
     */
    this.setRecordType = function(type) {
            this.recordType = type;
        } // end function setRecordType


    /**
     * Use an existing saved search as starting point for this search
     * @param {string} internalid - internalid of existing saved search
     */
    this.useSavedSearch = function(internalid) {
        if (!isNullOrEmpty(internalid)) {
            this.internalId = internalid;
            // If internal id of a saved search is provided, load that saved search
            this.savedsearch = nlapiLoadSearch(this.recordType, this.internalId);
        }
    } // end function useSavedSearch


    /**
     * Return search results as a nlobjSearchResult object
     * @param {string} recordtype - Optional NetSuite recordtype (internalid)
     */
    this.getResults = function(recordtype) {
            var results = [];
            if (recordtype != null && recordtype != "") {
                this.recordType = recordtype;
            }
            if (this.internalId != null) {
                // If internal id of a saved search is provided, load that saved search
                var savedsearch = nlapiLoadSearch(this.recordType, this.internalId);
                // Add new filters to saved search filters
                var newfilters = savedsearch.getFilters().concat(this.filters);
                // If existing columns in saved search should not be use, replace then
                var newcolumns = [];
                if (this.noSavedColumns) {
                    savedsearch.setColumns(this.columns);
                    newcolumns = this.columns;
                } else {
                    // Add new columns to saved search columns
                    newcolumns = savedsearch.getColumns().concat(this.columns);
                }
                // Perform the search
                var newsearch = nlapiCreateSearch(savedsearch.getSearchType(), newfilters, newcolumns);
                // 
            } else {
                // Otherwise build the search ad-hoc and set columns and filters
                var newsearch = nlapiCreateSearch(this.recordType, this.filters, this.columns);
            }
            var resultset = newsearch.runSearch();
            // Loop through the search result set 900 results at a time and build an array
            // of results. This way the search can return more than 1000 records.
            var searchid = 0;
            do {
                var resultslice = resultset.getResults(searchid, searchid + 900);
                for (var rs in resultslice) {
                    results.push(resultslice[rs]);
                    searchid++;
                }
            } while (resultslice != null && resultslice != undefined && resultslice.length >= 900);
            return results;

        } // end function getResults

} // end class search
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Thirty Years – What A Ride!

Thirty years. It can feel like an eternity, or like just yesterday. That is how long I have been working in the IT industry, as of 2 weeks ago.

When I graduated the Swedish equivalent of High School in the spring of 1988, I did not know what lay ahead. If anyone would have told me where I would be 30 years later, I am not sure I would have believed them.

Computers, and especially programming, was my big interest. I had spent every available hour in the computer room in school. I went there during breaks between classes (if only 15-20 minutes) as well as during lunch break (usually 1 hour long. I learned to eat really fast, to maximize my time in front of the computer… Then after school I often spent 4-5 hours learning to program, either from books, magazines, or from other students.

After I graduated, I was not really motivated to go to college. But I found an intensive one-year college level education in systems programming and computer science. It would be classes 8am to 5pm, 5 days a week. Today you would probably call it boot-camp…

Unfortunately the class did not make, it needed a couple more students. So in the beginning OS September 1988,after about 2 weeks of classes, we were told to come back in January. We were encouraged to find a job or internship in the mean time. So I started to call around to different companies I found in the yellow pages.

After a few days I got a hit, a company was looking for a first line support technician. I sent in my application (I did not even have a formal resume) and a copy of my high school grades. A week later (on a Friday) I had an interview, and the following Monday I started working there. This company was Microsoft.

Needless to say, I learned a lot at Microsoft. I return to the class during the spring semester, worked at Microsoft during the summer break and then again after I graduated at Christmas.

After a year in the Air Force for the (then) mandatory military service, I intended to go back to Microsoft, but I was offered a job as a programmer at another company, and I jumped at that option. From there it just continued, via 5 years as an IT journalist and then over 20 years working mainly with Lotus (later IBM) Notes and Domino.

There are times when it feels it was just like yesterday I was writing Pascal code for a computer running CP/M-86 as operating system. Or when my coworker and I, who lived in the same apartment building (but on different floors and in different ends of the building) decided to run RG58 coax cable between out apartments, so we could network our computers. Or when I went scuba diving in Egypt and brought an IBM ThinkPad 701C (the model with the expanding keyboard) and a digital camera with me, so I could write a diary to publish on my personal website. Yes, it was pretty much a blog, way back in 1995…

But when I look at how technology has changed, it feel like the middle ages.

Our network at school (yes, we actually has one!) had a hard disk the size of a small shoebox, and with a capacity of 30 MB, to be shared between students and teachers. Yes, it’s not a typo. 30 Megabyte! Today most hard drives have at least twice that amount of memory just for cache…

Compare that with my mobile phone, on which I am writing this post while riding a bus from Dallas to Houston. It has 2185 times that memory (64 GB) built in. I have an additional 200 GB in the form of a micro SD card. This amount of storage would have been unfathomable 30 years ago.

Today we have internet access everywhere. I can sit in my car, in a restaurant or on a bus in the middle of nowhere and still have access to all the knowledge (not to mention cat videos) in the world. In fractions of a second I can perform a search that would have been virtually impossible 30 years ago.

I can turn on and off the lights at home, no matter where in the world I am. I can check the temperature in the different rooms and change the AC settings, if needed. I get an automatic alert if there is smoke I the house, or water where it is not supposed to be. And I can check the status of my laundry remotely.

I can talk to the computer, phone and other devices and have them turn lights on or off, tell me what the weather will be later that day or the next few days, or play any music I ask it to play. This is just like in Star Trek or 2001, except it is for real.

I can buy anything I need from the comfort of my home, or from anywhere in the world, and get it delivered within a day or two, sometimes even the same day.

At the same time I do miss the days back when I started with computers. It was like a new frontier, an unknown area where you had no idea what could happen next.

I still remember the excitement when I managed to create something new and cool, and I got it to work after spending countless hours working on it and troubleshooting the code. It is rare that I feel that excitement today, in the same way. But it still happens. .

I am very fortunate to be able to work with what I love, and have been able to do it for this long. I am looking forward to the next 30 years with great excitement.

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#DominoForever – Release Day

Finally it is here, the new version of IBM Domino. After the world premiere yesterday in Frankfurt, the world-wide launch is taking place today.

The focus in this release is on application development and administration. Features like self-healing of databases and increase of the maximum database size to 256 GB are among the most popular with administrators, while developers have a number of exciting additions.

The two most talked about features are the new Domino Query Language and node.js integration with Domino. Domino Query Language has been written from the bottom up to be fast, and the demonstrations I have seen confirms this. It is fast, very fast! And it can handle searches that would not only take a long time to create in earlier versions of Domino, but would take forever to run. Now the result comes back in a second, or even less. This really blew my mind when I first saw it earlier this year. John Curtis, the engineer that pretty much single handed wrote this code, did an amazing job, fully on par with when Damien Katz rewrote the formula language in ND6 and increased the performance several times over.

The second big feature of Domino 10 is the integration with node.js through the domino-db connector. It will be delivered in a separate application development pack, which will enter beta this week. This is a slight disappointment, I had been hoping this functionality would be available at the launch. But I rather wait the time that is needed for IBM and HCL to make it a fully stable product, instead of rushing something unfinished to the market.

Another product announced today was Notes for iPad, which makes it possible to run existing Notes applications unmodified on an iPad. All the functions we know and love are supported, like replication, offline access to applications, Lotusscript, Formula language, and more.

To support mobile Notes applications, there are enhancements in Lotusscript, for example camera and GPS support. Lotusscript has also been extended with other new classes, for HTTP requests and JSON parsing directly in native Lotusscript. No need to call Java or system API:s anymore!

HCL has done an amazing job in a short time, and Domino is on its way to become a very powerful and extendable platform for modern web development. A company can now not only deploy their existing business applications on iPads, they can also hire young developers who have experience of node.js and modern frameworks/libraries like Angular and React, and have them develop new solutions that can access existing data in Domino databases. Why use Mongo DB for data storage, when you have the much more secure Domino server available?

Domino 10 is not the end point. Domino 11 will be out next year, and IBM/HCL have committed to a long future for Domino. Forget #domino2025, now it is #DominoForever!

If you were not able to attend any of the launch events, here is the live stream from Frankfurt :

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=310707186390803&id=111720058922703

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Domino 10 – Almost here!

[ujicountdown id=”Countdown to Domino V10 ” expire=”2018/10/09 03:15″ hide=”false” url=”” subscr=”Countdown to Domino V10″ recurring=”” rectype=”second” repeats=””]

In just a few days, on October 9, IBM and HCL will unveil the new version of IBM Notes and Domino at an event in Frankfurt, Germany. The next day, October 10 (or 10/10, if you so like), there will be events in cities around the world. You can attend in person or watch a live stream. Find out all the details at https://www.ibm.com/collaboration/ibm-domino.

 

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A New Badge

A few years ago IBM started using Open Badges from Acclaim to indicate accomplishments, and as an IBM Champion I was awarded several over the years. Yesterday I received another one, I am now an IBM Domino 10 Sales Advisor V1.

This is how IBM describes it:

This badge earner has shown a detailed understanding of IBM Domino 10 and the #domino2025 roadmap and has successfully demonstrated, through taking an online exam, how customers can benefit from the advances in Domino 10.   They will have achieved a passing score of 75% or higher in the online exam.

There are rumors that IBM is considering to move away from traditional certifications and replace them with badges. This may not be a bad idea, if done right it will be much more granular, and your skills will be better defined. I expect more certification tests and badges to become available as we get near the launch of IBM Domino V10 in less than a month and a half.

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Domino V10 – The Countdown Is On!

The release date for Notes and Domino V10 has been announced. On October 9, at 10:00 CET, there will be a live unveiling of the brand new version during IBM Think in Frankfurt, Germany.

There will be a number of other release events around the world in the days following. For a deep-dive inte the new features I would highly recommend attending ICON UK. This year this conference is taking place in Birmingham, UK on September 13 and 14.

Learn more at https://www.ibm.com/collaboration/ibm-domino.

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Six Days Left…

I have finished the slides for my presentation at CollabSphere in Ann Arbor next week. I just have a little more code to add to demo database, and perhaps throw in a bonus or two…

My session will be next Wednesday (July 24) at 9am in Grande III.  There are still a few seats available for CollabSphere 2018. The cost is only $100 for 3 days of presentations, workshops, and networking, This is great value for the money!
Don’t miss the latest from IBM and HCL on Notes and Domino 10, Nomad and probably a surprise or two.

 

 

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I’ve Seen Things You People Wouldn’t Believe…

This last week about 50 other specially invited people visited HCL America in Chelmsford, MA for a tour of their Collaboration Workflow Platforms (CWP) office. I was one of the lucky ones, and for two days we got to meet many of the engineers at HCL and see what they were working on around Notes and Domino. There are some parts that are under NDA, but I will talk about what I am allowed to mention.

We got to play with the latest build of Notes 10, compiled that same morning. It included some of the new Lotusscript classes we have heard about before, like the NotesHTTPRequest class and NoteJSONParser class. That functionality had just been added in right before our visit (it is not available in the private beta that was released a few weeks ago), but when I tested it (yes, we got to play with the code right there!) it worked perfectly.

This is a testament to the skills of the HCL developers. Most of them came over from IBM, and you probably know many by name. But there were also new-hires, and HCL is looking to fill many more positions in the US. The investments HCL is doing in this is impressive, and the whole atmosphere was extremely positive and filled with excitement.

We were split up into smaller groups and were treated to a number of very interactive presentations of the directions taken in different areas. The biggest focus was on application development, and with the addition of support for node.s to the platform and the new classes in Lotusscript, the engineers were visibly excited to be able to show off what they have accomplished.

The HCL developers have the right to be excited and proud. We were treated to two major announcements. The first one is a new extremely fast query language called DGQF (Domino General Query Facility). It is not an add-on, but part of the core code. It will be available in Notes/Domino 10, and can be called from everywhere, using Lotusscript, Java, Formula, and Javascript. Initially the searches can be made only in one database at a time, but in the future there will be support for multi-database searches.
At CollabSphere 2018 in just over a week, there will be presentations on DGQF. If you have’t registered yet, do it now. You don’t want to miss this!

The second announcement is under NDA for now, but I would expect for something exciting to be announced at CollabSphere, as well as at later conferences like ICON UK in September.

So stay updated by attending user group conferences during the fall, leading up to the release of Domino 10 at some day in some month, who may or may not contain a 10. I am very excited about the future of Notes and Domino!

 

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Come see me at CollabSphere 2018!


I will be presenting my session Elementary – Consume Watson Services using Node-RED and Domino 10 at CollabSphere 2018, taking place in Ann Arbor, MI inn just a little over a month (July 23-23). If you haven’t registered yet, hurry up! This amazing conference that Richard Moy have been arranging for 10 years now will be full of news and sessions about Domino 10. If you are a developer, you should be very excited. There are a large number of session focusing on everything from classic Lotusscript and the new improvements coming in Domino 10 to sessions about Node.js and how it is supported in Domino 10. There are even introductions to Node.js and Node-RED, and how you can use them in your Domino environment as well as making yourself more marketable.

In addition to all the technical sessons you also have networking and social events. Don’t miss out on this great and inexpensive ($75) conference!

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Will I see you at IBM Think?

It is just over a month until IBM kicks off Think 2018 in Las Vegas. This conference takes place March 19-21 and merges several conferences, including IBM Connect (formerly known as Lotusphere).

After attending 19 Lotusphere/Connect conferences in Orlando (as well as one in Nice and one in San Francisco), I am ready for something new and exciting. IBM Think brings in many different parts of the IBM portfolio into one big conference, where we can learn about new and exciting technologies that we may not been exposed to before. I am looking forward to learning more about AI, security, blockchain, IoT and much more.

But I am of course also excited to learn about the upcoming Notes and Domino 10. IBM and HCL has promised too show actual working code at Think, and will present a timeline not only for what features we will see in the end of the year in Domino 10, but also in upcoming versions.

I have a feeling we will finally see functions and features people have been requesting for many years. A large part of the IBM:ers who worked on Notes and Domino moved over to HCL late last year, and I suspect they have been very busy. Here is an excerpt of a session description:

For those of you who want to integrate Domino applications into modern web applications and cloud platforms like Salesforce, etc., we will show you how. Domino is embracing JavaScript, Node.js and open source to become a full-stack web development platform anyone you hire off the street today can be productive in.

If anyone is interested in attending IBM Think I have a special promo code that will give you a $100 discount. Contact me at texasswede@gmail.com (use the subject “IBM Think Promo Code”) and I will mail you a code. You can also contact any other IBM Champion for a code.

See you in Las Vegas in a month!

 

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Convert US state abbreviations in Javascript

I was working on a NetSuite project today, and I ran into a problem. I used DataTables to display sales orders. The data is retrieved through an Ajax call to a RESTlet on the server.

One of the columns to display is the state of the shipping address. The table had a number of columns, so I was happy that the state coming over during the early testing were the abbreviated state. But today I noticed that after real data had been entered into the system, the state was the full name. And I had no space left in the table for that.

So I did a quick search and found a snippet of code that converted between abbreviation and full name and vice versa. I made some minor modifications to the code, mainly to clean it up and also make the code easier to read. I introduced two constants to indicate which kind of conversion to use, and replaced the traditional loop through the array with a for…of iteration.

You can find the code here: https://github.com/TexasSwede/stateAbbreviations

And this is how you use it:

var stateName = convertRegion("TX",TO_NAME);                       // Returns 'Texas"
var stateAbbreviation = convertRegion("Florida",TO_ABBREVIATED):   // Returns "FL"

This code is of course not specific to NetSuite, it is plain Javascript. You can use it in a Domino web application or even in a Notes form. And naturally you can use it in pretty much any web application where you can use Javascript.

Enjoy!

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Domino 10 and Beyond – my thoughts

It has now been a little over a month since IBM announced the new direction of IBM Notes, Domino, Verse and Sametime. I have been thinking through what I think this means for the product and the ecosystem of third-party tools and business partners. Some people view the move of development from IBM to HCL Technologies as an abandonment of the product family. But that is not how I see it.

IBM has, despite their size, limited resources to dedicate to development of the Domino family of products. They have new products and services they are trying to bring to market, and by having HCL take over the development and add more resources, this is a win both for IBM and for Notes/Domino.

With more developers dedicated to the product, I expect to see more frequent updates and new features added quicker than we have been used to the last 5-6 years. The product management and future direction of the platform is still managed by IBM, but with more non-IBM resources at their hands I hope the product managers will be able to push harder for the addition of new technology and updates, bringing Domino back to a first class development platform.

Domino was an outstanding product, but for the last 6-8 years the innovation mostly stopped. New technologies were not added at the pace they were adapted by the rest of the world, and the support for new protocols like TLS 1.2 was lagging. IBM also but on Dojo as the framework for XPages, while the rest of the world mostly went to jQuery.

But if IBM allows HCL to update some aging parts and add new functions, requested by the community, I can see this being a great platform. And IBM says they will listen to the community and the users. Starting this month, IBM is bringing the Domino 2025 Jam to four cities in North America: Toronto on 12/8, Dublin (Ohio) on 12/13, Chicago on 12/14 and Dallas on 12/15. here will also be several events in Europe as well as a virtual Jam sometime in the future.

At the Domino 2025 Jam developers and users will be able to suggest what features they find important, what needs to be fixed, and where they want to see the product go in the future. I don’t think the Jam will have a huge impact on the upcoming Domino 10 release next year, but it may help IBM prioritize where to put their effort. Where I see the Domino 2025 Jam being helpful is in the longer timeframe, especially if it is repeated every 12 to 18 months to verify that the product direction is still what the market is looking for.

I also would like to see IBM addressing at least the most requested changes on IdeaJam.

Let me describe some of the functions and features I want to see in an upcoming version of IBM Domino.

Javascript Everywhere

For the last 20+ years we have mainly been using Lotusscript, both in the client and for agents on the server. It is a powerful language, but if you have been working with other more modern languages (Lotusscript is based on Visual Basic) there are many limitations and functions you are missing.

I would like to see Javascript made into a fully supported language everywhere. Both in the client and on the server. Add support for jQuery, to make it easy to address elements, and create a Javascript API to complement the Lotusscript functions.

In addition to making it easier to create and parse JSON (used in and by most web applications today), it would open up the product to new developers who may come from a more traditional web development background.

I would love to see Lotusscript get a modernization, but I doubt that will happen. In order to improve Lotusscript, a quite lot of changes are needed. Instead I think the future improvements should be on the Javascript API side.

External API

Any modern product needs a public API so other tools and applications can integrate with it. I would like to see support in Domino for LoopBack, like IBM is doing in LiveGrid. When you create a view, there would be a matching API created to create, read, update and delete documents, as well as list all records, perform searches, etc.

But there should also be additional more specialized API:s available, perhaps the most common functions should be exposed as API calls out of the box.

Integration with External Services

Notes and Domino also needs integration with external services, e.g IBM Watson, Mongo DB or Node-RED. Why not support for IFFTT? Expose the calendar as a Google Calendar feed. But also make it easy to connect external services to Notes and Domino. Make it easy to use Oauth 2.0 to login to a Domino-hosted service and vice versa.

New Domino Designer

Unlink Domino Designer from the Notes client. Create a Eclipse plug-in (and make sure it stays updated to work with new versions of Eclipse). This will help new developers to start working with Domino, using tools they are already familiar with. The goal should be that someone familiar with Javascript should be able to open Eclipse and start writing code for Domino, and the only thing they need to learn is the Domino Object Model.

Add ready-to-use web components/plugins, so the developer can easily add for example a name-lookup into Domino Directory or a date/time selector. Support CSS frameworks like Bootstrap, and make it easy to modify the look of the applications.

Notes Client

The Notes client makes it easy to quickly build applications. You get a lot of the core functionality of the applications “for free”, like views, forms, etc. But you are also limited in how the application looks. You can change the look of views somewhat by selecting background colors, fonts and a few other attributes. On forms you can select between two different looks for some of the fields, while other fields can not be modified at all. What I would like to see is a way to easily restyle everything by using CSS. Then you can make the forms and views look much more modern. Let the developer create “themes”, a set of CSS rules and perhaps images that can be applied to new applications in seconds. These themes could be published online, for other developers to use.

These are just some of the ideas I have for improvements to Domino. What are you ideas?

5 Comments

Who wants to live forever? IBM Notes and Domino!

We have heard people claiming for years that Notes and Domino is dead. Today IBM announced a move that hopefully should put those statements to a stop.

To Infinity And Beyond!IBM is partnering with HCL Technologies on the future development of IBM Notes and Domino, as well as SameTime, Verse, Traveler and the other associated products. The products will still belong to IBM, and they continue to manage the product strategy, marketing and licensing using the current offering management teams. The existing IBM development teams will be moving under HCL, where the actual development will happen.

From a customer standpoint nothing will change, except for an increase in investment and development. Support will still go through IBM, using the same PMS system as today. But it will allow IBM to get more developers and resources towards the development of new versions, using the finite budget they after all  have. It is a commitment to a sustained long-term roadmap and increased engineering ability.

The big news is that IBM is committing to releasing Notes and Domino 10 in 2018, and also announced that there is no end-of-live date for Domino. Not even an “at least until…” date like before. IBM are even discussing the next version after Domino 10.

What can we expect to see in Domino 10? Inhi Suh, General Manager for IBM Collaboration Solutions, said that application modernization is one of the big focus points. IBM will hold several “jams”, sessions where customers and business partners can give input on what they want to see in upcoming version. You can already register  for the first one, called Domino 2025.

Inhi says that not all functions will be in Domino 10, that is not even possible. But there is an increased commitment to the platform, and I expect that we will see many new and exiting features.

In addition, IBM will focus more on small and medium size businesses, not just large organizations. Domino is a great platform even for smaller organizations, so this is a welcome change in strategy.

So what do I think about this announcement? It is very exciting. Domino is a powerful and competent web application platform, and with some modernization, like support for HTTP2, support for Javascript everywhere (in the client as well as on the server), improvements to Lotusscript, and a modernization of the client user interface, the product could be truly amazing.

Anyone who knows their Notes and Domino history knows that the original product, Lotus Notes, was actually not developed by Lotus. It was Iris Associates who created it, under a contract with Lotus Software. many of the developers eventually went from Iris to Lotus, and then to IBM, as IBM took over Lotus. I truly hope that the amazing developers who have been working on the products for decades will be able to move over to HCL and their expertise will be utilized. In my mind that Is crucial for the future success of the products.

If you are a Domino user today, you should be very excited about this news! As more news are made available, I will post them here on my blog.

 

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