XPages Blast - Ideas, Tips and More.
This session will take you on a roller-coaster ride through the "best of the best" ideas and time-saving techniques for creating world-class XPages applications.
Thirty all new top tips - this is going to be fast-paced and packed with loads of information you will refer to time and time again! Everything from introductory tips on getting started with XPages, to complex tips - such as making use of Java. Also, the support app showing all of the tips and tricks.
5. Teamstudio Unplugged
• Your Mobile Domino Server – take your Notes apps
with you!
• End users access Notes applications from mobile
devices whether online or offline
• Leverages existing skills and technology – Xpages –
Replication model you already know
• IBM'Collabora:on'Solu:ons'Award'Winner'2013' '
'
6. Teamstudio Continuity
• Mobile BCM application for smartphones and tablets
– iOS,Android and BB
• Offline access to all your BCM and
Disaster Recovery data
• Store plans, contacts, call trees, and more
• Client available for download from app stores
7. Teamstudio
• Visit us at IamLUG - May 6 & 7
• Next webinar – jQuery and XPages apps, Mark Roden –
April 23
15. #xpages
Matt White
2
–Consultant with London Developer Co-op
–Lead Developer with Elguji Software
–Owner of XPages101.net
–In the last year has;
– Got married
– Become a father
– Bought a new house
– Oh... and developed some XPages apps!
16. –Owner of TC Soft Consulting
–IBM Champion
–Prince2 Practitioner (Project Management)
–ITIL certified
–Manager of;
– People
– Projects
– My family ;o)
#xpages
Tim Clark
3
17. –IBM Lotus® Domino® Server 8.5.3
– If we use other versions for a tip we’ll highlight it
–IBM Lotus® Notes® 8.5.3
–IBM Notes® 9.0
–IBM Lotus® Domino Designer® 8.5.3
–IBM Domino Designer® 9.0
–We will use this logo to highlight any slide that has
IBM Domino Designer® 9.0 items
#xpages
Products we’re using
4
19. –Working Sets
– Great for grouping together similar applications
–Perspectives
– Switch between XPages, Domino Designer and Debug
–Turn on Line Numbers in code editor
– Right click in the gutter and select “Show Line Numbers”
#xpages
Designer Tweaks
6
21. #xpages
Disable Build Automatically
8
–It is enabled by default
–When you save a design element the application is
recompiled
–This is bad if
– you’re working in a team
– you’re working on remote servers
–Turn it off and get used to using Ctrl-B
22. –Bonus Tip: if you close other applications the build
process is quicker
– Can only be done in Package Explorer in 8.5.3, in 9.0 it can be done
from Applications pane
#xpages
Disable Build Automatically
9
23. #xpages
Source Control
10
– Acts as a great backup tool for you
– Even if you don’t have a team Repository, set up a local one
– We use Github, allows for better team development
– Set up Source Control for the application and choose a disk
location
– Then set up the Github project
– Link the two by creating a new Git project in the same disk
location
– Video of how to set it all up at
http://bit.ly/xpb_github
– We use a client to control the Committing, rollbacks etc, but
command line works equally well
– https://github.com/tcsoft/xpb2013
24. #xpages
Designer Memory Settings
11
– 8.5.3 Designer client can be a little crashy, but we can fix that!
– Open the file at:
<Notes program dir>/framework/rcp/deploy/
jvm.properties
– Default settings in 8.5.3 are:
vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx256m
vmarg.Xms=-Xms48m
vmarg.Xmca=-Xmca8k
– Also still like this is Domino Designer 9.0 (beta)
25. #xpages
Designer Memory Settings
12
–New settings should be:
vmarg.Xmx=-Xmx1024m
vmarg.Xms=-Xms512m
vmarg.Xmca=-Xmca512k
–Took my machine from crashing nearly every day at 3pm to
almost never crashing
–Technote:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?
uid=swg21617708
28. #xpages
Think Mobile
15
–Mobile Controls in the Extension Library
–But even if not going that far then it’s always
worth setting meta tags and field types
–Meta tags configure the page for optimal
viewing in iOS
–Set them by adding a metadata resource to
your XPage:
29. #xpages
Think Mobile
16
–By default consider these...
–viewport: width = device-width, initial-scale = 2.3,
user-scalable = yes
• scales the page to fit on the page
–apple-mobile-web-app-capable: yes
• allows you to add to the iOS workspace and run without
the Safari controls
–apple-mobile-web-app-status-bar-style: black
• changes the header bar colour
30. #xpages
Think Mobile
17
–There is no overhead at all to setting the “type”
property of fields so that when you are using a
mobile device the user gets the correct keyboard
–In All Properties for a field set type, most important
being:
• date (displays a native picker, but beware date formats)
• email
• number
• url
31. #xpages
Use jQuery
18
–If you want to use the most popular JavaScript
framework on the Internet add jQuery to your
application
–Extra overhead but on a fast network not a huge
problem
–Check out http://xomino.com for great tips
–Gives access to huge number of resources in your
applications
–Code is often easier to write (ymmv!)
32. –Check out the companion application for this
session.
–The extension library application layout has lots of
options and can be made to suit your application.
#xpages
Use the extension library
application layout
19
33. #xpages
Use Bootstrap
20
–OneUI is one way to go for the look and feel of
your app
–Bootstrap is an alternative
• Open source, released by Twitter
• Easy to use
• Integrates with jQuery
• Has useful built in widgets
37. –For simple things like including CSS files on all
XPages
–For more advanced things as well...
–Add a CSS class to all controls of a particular
type:
#xpages
Using Themes
24
38. –Using the Theme ID we can create our own sub
types of field:
–Or we can add custom classes to the <body>
#xpages
Using Themes
25
39. #xpages
Using Attributes
26
–Pretty much every control has a property called
“attrs”
–You can add as many attributes as you like to a
control
–Often used in conjunction with the tagName
property
• To make a panel into an anchor for example
40. –Ones we use a lot are:
• href
• onclick (and other events)
• data-toggle (and other jQuery tags)
–Will result in this being generated:
<a id="id1:_id2:mylink" onclick="doSomething()">
My Link
</a>
#xpages
Using Attributes
27
41. #xpages
Document Locking
28
–Scoped Variables are great for in memory tasks
–Such as knowing who has documents in edit mode
–So when a page is loaded we can call some code
to decide whether to allow the user to edit it
–We can use applicationScope variables to store a
Java Hashmap of who has locked individual
documents
42. #xpages
Document Locking
29
function processDocumentLocking(){
if (context.getUrlParameter("documentId") != "" &&
context.getUrlParameter("action").toLowerCase() == "editdocument"){
if (!applicationScope.containsKey("documentlocks")){
applicationScope.documentlocks = new java.util.Hashtable();
}
var hash:java.util.Hashtable = applicationScope.documentlocks;
if (hash.containsKey(context.getUrlParameter("documentId"))){
var lock = hash.get(context.getUrlParameter("documentId"));
if (lock.person != @UserName()){
viewScope.locked = lock;
}
}else{
var lock = new DocumentLock();
lock.unid = context.getUrlParameter("documentId");
lock.person = @UserName();
lock.time = new java.util.Date();
hash.put(lock.unid, lock);
applicationScope.documentlocks = hash;
}
...
43. #xpages
Document Locking
30
...
}else if (context.getUrlParameter("documentId") != "" &&
context.getUrlParameter("action").toLowerCase() == "opendocument"){
if (!applicationScope.containsKey("documentlocks")){
applicationScope.documentlocks = new java.util.Hashtable();
}
var hash:java.util.Hashtable = applicationScope.documentlocks;
if (hash.containsKey(context.getUrlParameter("documentId"))){
var lock = hash.get(context.getUrlParameter("documentId"));
if (lock.person == @UserName()){
unlockDocument( context.getUrlParameter("documentId") );
}else{
viewScope.locked = lock;
}
}
}
}
44. #xpages
Document Locking
31
function unlockDocument(unid){
if (applicationScope.containsKey("documentlocks")){
var hash:java.util.Hashtable = applicationScope.documentlocks;
if (hash.containsKey(unid)){
var lock = hash.get(unid);
if (lock.person == @UserName()){
hash.remove(unid);
applicationScope.documentlocks = hash;
}
}
}
}
var DocumentLock = function(){
this.unid;
this.person;
this.time;
}
46. #xpages
Expression Language
33
– You’re probably already using it even if you don’t
realise it with Simple Data Binding
– It’s just a simple shorthand to access properties quickly
– You just need to use the Advanced - Expression
Language binding
48. #xpages
Managed Beans
35
–Not as scary as you might think
–Made up of two things
• Java Class that does something
• XML Config to set up the “managed” bit
–The idea is that the server looks after creation of
the objects for you
–So say we want to create an HTML Email...
50. #xpages
Managed Beans
37
–Then we set up the XML Configuration
–In the faces-config.xml file found in Package
Explorer
•WebContentWEB-INFfaces-config.xml
–We need to define the name of the bean, the Java
class being used and the Scope it will operate with
52. #xpages
FacesMessage
39
–Often we want to be able to send messages to
the browser window
–Just add add an “Error Messages” control to
your XPage and use this code:
–In this example the code runs when a button is
clicked and shows the current time
53. #xpages
Custom Validators
40
–For complex or common validation we can
centralise the logic into Java classes using
Custom Validators
–First we create the Java class:
56. #xpages
Apache Commons
43
–Taking the Custom Validator, what if we want “real”
validation
–Lots of common tasks have already been covered
by Apache Commons:
http://commons.apache.org/validator/
–Import the commons-validator.jar file into
WebContentWEB-INFLib
–Then right click and “Add to Build Path”
59. #xpages
Log File Viewer
46
–A project on OpenNTF by Jakob Majkilde
http://bit.ly/xpb_logfileviewer
–Makes watching log files (especially on remote
servers) much easier
61. #xpages
Debug Toolbar
48
–A project on OpenNTF by Mark Leusink
http://bit.ly/xpb_debugtoolbar
–Very useful for following debug messages,
timing code and more
62. #xpages
Java Debugging
49
–Built into Domino Designer since 8.5.3
–Easy to set up
–Add lines to notes.ini on the dev server:
JavaEnableDebug=1
JavaDebugOptions=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,addre
ss=8000
–Restart the server
65. #xpages
SSJS Debugging
52
–Server Side JavaScript debugging is almost
exactly the same in Domino 9.0
–The notes.ini lines to add are:
JavaEnableDebug=1
JavascriptEnableDebug=1
JavaDebugOptions=transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=n,addre
ss=8000
–There was a whole session on this @ Connect13:
AD202 Debug Server Side Javascript, Java, and
XPages Apps Using the SSJS Debugger
M Blout & D O'Connor
68. #xpages
Pasting source code from
extension library
55
– ‘The prefix "xe" for element "xe:navigator" is not bound.’
– This happens when you paste in some source code from
one custom control to another for a control that is from the
extension library.
– The View tag is where you can solve this issue.
<xp:view xmlns:xp="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/
core">
<xp:view xmlns:xp="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/
core"
xmlns:xe="http://www.ibm.com/xsp/coreex">
– Does not happen if you drag and drop from the extension
library palette.