01/28/2009

Domino 8.5 - A look to browser.cnf and sections

Tags: Domino Web
You are using somewhat "old-fashioned" web applications on your pre 8.5 Domino server and you've got plan's for upgrading? Well, in this case maybe you should read the whole story.

We had a challange to solve a strange behavior of the browser with a pre 8.5 application. A form contained a rich-text body field filled with text and sections. After opening this form in the Internet Explorer everything looked fine.

normal.jpg

On the first view. Because after a click in the section, the following happened:

JS_Error.jpg

At first we had a look to the page source and found that:

<div id="cSec1">
<a href="javascript:_dSectionExpand('1')" onclick="return _dSectionExpand('1');"><img src="/icons/expand.gif" border="0" alt="Show details for Section1"></a><a onclick="return _dSectionExpand('1');">Section1</a>
</div>
<div id="xSec1">
<a href="javascript:_dSectionCollapse('1')" onclick="return _dSectionCollapse('1');"><img src="/icons/collapse.gif" border="0" alt="Hide details for Section1"></a><a onclick="return _dSectionCollapse('1');">Section1</a><br>Content of Section1
</div>


The href="javascript:_dSectionExpand('1')" onclick="return _dSectionExpand('1');" looks unfamiliar. So we opened the same URL with a Firefox and the error didn't show up. The source code form Firefox:

<a name="_Section1"></a>
<a href="/tltest.nsf/f75b5d47d2ee36a4c125754c003be26b/7538f3c4bbbf13cec125754c004ff0ff?OpenDocument&ExpandSection=1#_Section1" target="_self"><img height="16" width="16" src="/icons/expand.gif" border="0" alt="Show details for Section1"></a>Section1


Looks different. No div-tag, no href="javascript...." and onclick in one link-tag. But why? And why the hell opened the section a new window? The window was opened because of a "Target Frame" value of "_blank" in the form properties. And this is needed because the application works with frames. Yes I know, frames are old and unsexy but sometimes you have to deal with "former" stuff. And before 8.5 everything worked really fine. So there must be another reason.
We found that reason in the browser.cnf file in the Domino data directory which contains a section about DHTML:
## DHTMLSections - String indicating whether / how sections should render using client-side DHTML 
##
## Possible Values (case sensitive):
##		None - client-side DHTML is not used
##    Legacy - client-side DHTML generated as originally implemented on notes 6.0.  This was an
##					IE specific implementation.
##    Standard - client-side DHTML using standards-based DHTML -- will work with IE 6 and 
##					Mozilla/5 based browsers.
##
## To get the same behavior as shipped in 6.0, replace the two MSIE rules with the one
## that is commented out. 
## To extend the use of DHTML sections to other browsers, un comment the rule for the other browser.
## Note that some paragraph spacing in the Standard option may be different from the
## other options and from the Notes client.
Property DHTMLSections String None
#  Rule    Legacy    MSIE [4-9]
   Rule    Legacy    MSIE [4-5]
   Rule 	  Standard  MSIE [6-9]
#  Rule    Standard  Mozilla/5
#  Rule    Standard  Opera/7
After we've found that, our solution was really easy. We un commented one rule and commented another one,
   Rule    Legacy    MSIE [4-9]
   Rule    Legacy    MSIE [4-5]
#  Rule 	  Standard  MSIE [6-9]
#  Rule    Standard  Mozilla/5
#  Rule    Standard  Opera/7
typed tell http restart into the server's console and everything worked as expected.

01/27/2009

8.5 Certified

Tags: Domino 8.5 Notes 8.5 Lotusphere2009

Despite some difficulties (we did not get the free certification vouchers initially), we took the time to get our certifications updated at Lotusphere. Hans-Peter and I took the "Using LotusScript in IBM Lotus Domino 8 Applications" to get back to advanced level and the brand new "IBM Lotus Notes Domino 8.5 Application Development Update" which was a bit of an adventure as there is no real certification prep guide or CertFX/SelfTest available yet and not all of us have worked with XPages extensively.

Apparently there is no "IBM Certified Advanced Application Developer - Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5" yet. I hope IBM will eventually introduce this certification title again. I recall it has taken some time in previous releases.

Update (02.02.2009)

Today I received my notification that I am an "IBM Certified Advanced Application Developer - Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5". So IBM has (rather quickly) determined the upgrade path here.

01/20/2009

DAOS: Transparent, transparent, transparent - and easy!

Tags: Domino DAOS Lotusphere
Here at Lotusphere are a many sessions about the new Domino Attachment and Object Service (DAOS). I didn't had that much time before Lotusphere to check it out but there were some sessions about it on my schedule.
And after hearing and reading something about it, I decided during a session to activate it on one of our small Domino servers. And because this feature is so powerful and at the same time so easy to implement, I also decided to share some informations about it.
At first the question when thinking about new features is, what they will do for you? Will they be worth the time you need to implement them? For DAOS you can test this with the new DAOS Estimator Tool you can download from IBM's website. This tool analyzes your data files and you can directly see what improvments DAOS will bring for you. In my case my total disk space savings are 18% and my Domino Data Directory shrinks 64%. That is huge, I think.

And the best is, that implementation isn't really complicated. IBM provides a Quick Start Guide in the Lotus Wiki.

And to come back to the headline, the good thing about DAOS is that it's cmpletley transparent. You just won't recognize while your daily work, if DAOS is activated or not.

So, have a look and give it a try!

01/19/2009

Lotusphere started in blue

Tags: Lotusphere
It's been written already a lot about the Lotusphere. We're here since friday, met already a lot of guys and had a great welcome reception yesterday on the beach.
But this morning the Opening Session started "the games" officialy. It was a great show with great news and also great special guests like Dan Akroyd and The Blue Man Group.

01/15/2009

This is my new ground-air transportation carplane

QuickImage Tags: Fun
Take a look at the PAL V as this seems to be a cool vehicle....
(thanks Frank Zapf)

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