MindPlan Blog News and facts about Visual Teamwork http://blog.mindplan.biz/mindplan/blog.nsf/ en-us Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:25:50 +0200 MindPlan 3.21 released! Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:25:50 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/11.04.2010232924KLET5Q.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/11.04.2010232924KLET5Q.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/11.04.2010232924KLET5Q.htm MindPlan 3.21 build 201004031431. It contains stability fixes and two new features.

The first new feature is already described in an earlier blog posting. It's a customizable welcome tab.

The second new feature is an enhancement to the access control system of MindPlan:There is a new option in the "Access rights" tab of root nodes.

Image:MindPlan 3.21 released!

The option "Resources automatically have edit rights on their activities" is only visible, when the database version that you use is 3.2.1 or higher. We did this because we had to modify the design of the database to add a new author field to the nodes, which is used in activity nodes to give edit rights to the activity resource.
This new option makes working with the access control system a lot easier. Until now, you had to manually give edit rights to a worker to let him document his activity progress in the MindPlan node. If the option is activated, this step is not required anymore, access rights are granted automatically.

Please note that activity resources are allowed to change all the activity properties, as long as the activity status is "In design". After it has left this phase, e.g. to "In Implementation", the user can only edit the lower part of the activity properties.

Image:MindPlan 3.21 released!

Hint: The access control system does only work properly if the users have author access in the database's ACL. If a user has editor rights or more, he is allowed to edit all MindPlan data and the access control system is deactivated.


]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/11.04.2010232924KLET5Q.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/11.04.2010232924KLET5Q.htm?opendocument&comments MindPlan is sexy Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:30:52 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/18.03.2010163228KLEL7V.htm Features Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/18.03.2010163228KLEL7V.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/18.03.2010163228KLEL7V.htm
One requirement is already my favorite one: customizable welcome tab images.

The customer did not really like the default MindPlan welcome screen. Maybe the smart MindPlan user was a bit too relaxed:

Image:MindPlan is sexy

The requirement was to have the welcome tab images configurable.

Well, and of course we tested our new feature...

Image:MindPlan is sexy

So, after more than five years of MindPlan development, the product has actually become sexy. :-)

How you can customize your welcome screen
Well, first of all, you need to have a MindPlan 3.2 build version that is equal or greater than 201003172155. That means the download that is officially available today will not work. Now that's a good reason to update when it is available. :-)

After upgrading to the new 3.2 build, you can define a few Notes.ini variables to set your own tab layout.
Here is the format:

$wMPCustomHomeTab_ < nr > =
     < ORIENTATION > , < STRETCHING > , < Z-INDEX > , < IMAGEURL >

For < ORIENTATION > you have the choice between CENTER, EAST, NORTH, NORTHEAST, NORTHWEST, SOUTH, SOUTHEAST, SOUTHWEST, WEST and TILE.

< STRETCHING > tells MindPlan how the image should be scaled: NO_STRETCH, STRETCH, STRETCH_KEEP_RATIO, STRETCH_X and STRETCH_Y.

The < Z-INDEX > is the paint order, which is starting with 0 and the < IMAGEURL > can either be a relative URL (e.g. to use our internal standard images) or an absolute one, both file:// and http:// protocol do work.
< nr > is an index starting with 1.

So here is an example that just displays the standard tab images:

$wMPCustomHomeTab_1=
     NORTHWEST,STRETCH,0,images/systemimages/home/Skyline_33pcnt.png
$wMPCustomHomeTab_2=
     NORTHEAST,NO_STRETCH,3,images/systemimages/home/Logo_60pcnt.png
$wMPCustomHomeTab_3=
     SOUTHEAST,NO_STRETCH,1,images/systemimages/home/Typ_40pcnt.png
$wMPCustomHomeTab_4=
     SOUTHWEST,NO_STRETCH,2,images/systemimages/home/freeyourmind_60pcnt.png

The concept is more powerful/geeky than you might think, because we also added @formula support:

$wMPCustomHomeTab_3=
     formula://_rnd:=@Round(@Random*1);"SOUTHEAST,NO_STRETCH,1,"+
     @If(_rnd=0; "file:///c:/angelina.png";
     "images/systemimages/home/Typ_40pcnt.png")

A calculated image line is ignored if the formula just returns "-".

So by using formulas, you can even calculate the images dynamically and have a surprise each time you start MindPlan. :-)

It's a bit difficult to test the tab image definitions right now. The easiest way to recreate the welcome tab is to go into "File/Preferences", deselect the "show welcome-tab" option, hit "Apply" and then select it again.
]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/18.03.2010163228KLEL7V.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/18.03.2010163228KLEL7V.htm?opendocument&comments Mac version of MindPlan 3.2 officially released and supported Sat, 6 Mar 2010 19:06:22 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.03.2010190659KLEP93.htm Mac Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.03.2010190659KLEP93.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.03.2010190659KLEP93.htm
Please note that you need at least a Lotus Notes 8.5 client, Leopard operating system and preinstalled MindPlan databases to use this version.

You can use the installation database that is available in the Windows section to install the required databases. Just select the sample databases, online help and design templates from the list of installation components (and deselect the MindPlan windows application).

Image:Mac version of MindPlan 3.2 officially released and supported
]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/06.03.2010190659KLEP93.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.03.2010190659KLEP93.htm?opendocument&comments MindPlan 3.2 released! Fri, 5 Mar 2010 17:10:29 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/05.03.2010171101KLELYM.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/05.03.2010171101KLELYM.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/05.03.2010171101KLELYM.htm
The Mac standalone version and the MindPlan version that does not require an installed Lotus Notes client (technical name "MindPlan DOLS") will follow in the next 7-10 days. ]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/05.03.2010171101KLELYM.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/05.03.2010171101KLELYM.htm?opendocument&comments I can smell a MindPlan 3.2 release :-) Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:25:18 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/26.02.2010102513KLED3D.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/26.02.2010102513KLED3D.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/26.02.2010102513KLED3D.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/26.02.2010102513KLED3D.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/26.02.2010102513KLED3D.htm?opendocument&comments Critical Path analysis in MindPlan 3.2 Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:06:00 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/26.02.2010100555KLECPB.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/26.02.2010100555KLECPB.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/26.02.2010100555KLECPB.htm critical path method (CPM) analysis in the Gantt view!

We have added a new toolbar, right below the Map/Gantt tabs, for this purpose that you can use to activate Map and Gantt specific features. There can you find the button to activate the CPM visualization.
In our sample project, it looks pretty colorful ;-).

Image:Critical Path analysis in MindPlan 3.2

In red, the critical path is highlighted. Those are activities that are critical for the final deadline of the project (as final deadline we take the latest milestone or activity). The green and yellow bars indicate the earliest and latest possible date for an activity, based on their predecessor/successor position in the project to not extend the final deadline.

That sample MindPlan is actually more complex than it might look like. It's more obvious when you take a look at the map view :-)

Image:Critical Path analysis in MindPlan 3.2


This feature is brought to you by "Mr. Critical Path" Tammo Riedinger. :-) ]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/26.02.2010100555KLECPB.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/26.02.2010100555KLECPB.htm?opendocument&comments New kid in town: MindPlan version for users *without* Lotus Notes coming in January 2010! Fri, 6 Nov 2009 15:53:22 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.11.2009160406KLEKGE.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.11.2009160406KLEKGE.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.11.2009160406KLEKGE.htm elsewhere on the web, something was going on in MindPlan land this summer.

Yesterday, at the Notesusertage conference in Karlsruhe, Germany, we officially announced the upcoming release of a brand new MindPlan version.

In the past years, there were two questions that customers kept asking us over and over again:

1. My company is not using Lotus Notes. Do you have a version that runs without a Lotus Notes client?

2. How can we include external project co-workers in our MindPlan team that don't have Lotus Notes?

Today we're proud to announce that a new MindPlan version will be the answer to both questions.

The DOLS edition
Our internal technical name for this development project was "DOLS version".
For those who are not familiar with the word "DOLS": it's the short form for "Domino Off-Line Services", a technology that was originally built by IBM to take Lotus Notes web applications offline and provide replication features comparable to a normal Lotus Notes client.

Well, with a little bit of magic, this is not the only use case for DOLS any more. DOLS now is the perfect runtime environment for the MindPlan application.

So, MindPlan is still NSF-based, which means that we continue to store data in secure and reliable Lotus Notes databases, but as a user of this "MindPlan DOLS edition", you don't see anything of it! It's a complete background technology.

Easy setup
This new MindPlan edition will ship as a standard Windows installer package (MSI file), that does not require the existence of an installed Lotus Notes client.
Three easy steps are required to work with this edition:
  • install it
  • start it
  • enter your name
Then you're done and MindPlan is ready to use.

It also does not interfere with an installed normal MindPlan application or Lotus Notes client. All the data is kept in separate directories.

Real team work
Although you don't see the Lotus Notes user interface, we still provide nearly the full range of features of the normal MindPlan edition:
  • full support for data replication with Notes/Domino to work in a team with others
  • the replication can be initiated directly from within the MindPlan application
  • work online on a Domino server or offline in a local replica
  • You can offer hosting of MindPlan databases for your customers
  • as an alternative to team work with others, MindPlan can also be used in a single user scenario
    (in this case, MindPlan automatically generates the necessary Lotus Notes ID file and databases for local use)
One caveat - richtext is read-only
For this very first release of the MindPlan DOLS edition, we had to limit one feature, which is caused by the lack of a graphical Lotus Notes user interface:
We can only offer the richtext of a MindPlan node in read-only mode, because we do not have a proper editor in Java that produces round-trippable Notes richtext (to be able to heavily exchange Richtext contents between DOLS and Standard users without data loss).
But you have full support for file attachments and you can of course use the title/description of a MindPlan node to enter your text.

In a future MindPlan version, we will provide our own graphical text editor that can be used as an alternative to Notes richtext and that stores its data in parallel to the Richtext in the node (e.g. in HTML or RTF format).

Interested in a beta version?
The first MindPlan partners received an alpha code drop of this new MindPlan edition in August 2009. We have already reached the beta stage by now. So if you don't want to wait until January 2010 (hmm... I think there is an IBM conference in January; might be a coincidence ;-) ), just send us an email at

support @ mindplan.de

with a subject like "I want that MindPlan DOLS version now!" to participate in the beta program. :-)
Please also add some information about your system (this is Windows only, so tell us about the Windows version you use and the basic hardware setup).

P.S.: The normal MindPlan 3.2 editions and the first officially available MindPlan Mac version will also be released at the end of January 2010.

P.P.S: Well, now it's finally clear why we added the richtext preview panel and the replication support. :-)





]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/06.11.2009160406KLEKGE.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.11.2009160406KLEKGE.htm?opendocument&comments New beta build available: MindPlan 3.1 for the Mac (Standalone Edition) with Snow Leopard fixes Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:30:46 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/29.10.2009144051KLEHUS.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/29.10.2009144051KLEHUS.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/29.10.2009144051KLEHUS.htm You can now find an updated beta version of MindPlan 3.1 in the Mac section of the MindPlan beta forum.

We are heavily working on version 3.2, but we release this new Mac build of MindPlan 3.1 because of the increasing customer demand for the Snow Leopard fixes.

Please keep in mind that Snow Leopard is not yet a supported platform for Lotus Notes 8.5/8.5.1 itself and there are indeed some visual and functional issues in the Notes client (like missing icons on the legacy C-Client part of Notes).

MindPlan 3.2 is not really far away. Yesterday, an updated internal test build went to our test team.

More on this in a later posting. ]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/29.10.2009144051KLEHUS.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/29.10.2009144051KLEHUS.htm?opendocument&comments MindPlan Mac beta in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard): Issues under investigation Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:37:16 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/31.08.2009003716KLEUJC.htm Mac Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/31.08.2009003716KLEUJC.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/31.08.2009003716KLEUJC.htm In short, Snow Leopard is not currently supported by the MindPlan 3.1 Standalone beta for the Mac, because there are a few issues that we need to fix first.

The issues that we have discovered so far:
Issues in JFileChooser:
The "Open MindPlan" dialog is not working due to changes in the internal structure of the Java Virtual Machine. We were using JVM version 1.5 so far, but Snow Leopard forces applications to use 1.6. It does not contain 1.5 at all, just links from "1.5" directories to the "1.6" directories. Our code referenced classes from 1.5 that have changed in 1.6, which is breaking the dialog functionality.

NullPointerException in license manager dialog:
The license manager throws an exception when you click on a license row entry with the left mouse button.

Issues with Application window in Expose:
Sometimes the application window is not displayed in the OS X Expose view. Instead, there is a hidden window "mindmap.notes.MindplanControlFrame". This window is only used in the Windows OS (the Mac version uses the same code) and did not show up in Mac OS X Leopard.

Current status:
There may be other issues. Tests have just begun yesterday right after the OS upgrade.
The first two issues are already fixed, the Expose issue is being worked on. It looks like it will not take long until the beta version is working properly again.

I will publish a new MindPlan 3.1 Mac beta build in the MindPlan forum as soon as it is available. I will also start an internal discussion to officially release and support the standalone Mac version. That´s really overdue, but we were working on a different code stream in the last months. More on this in a later posting in the MindPlan blog.

Regarding the MindPlan Composite Application version for the Mac:
IBM development has notified us that issues that we had with the MindPlan CA version in Notes 8.5 (keyboard shortcuts not working) have been addressed in the latest Design Partner Code Drop of Lotus Notes 8.5.1.
We still need to verify this.
Those issues were a showstopper for a MindPlan CA release on Notes 8.5, so hopefully we can release the CA version as soon as 8.5.1 is out. ]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/31.08.2009003716KLEUJC.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/31.08.2009003716KLEUJC.htm?opendocument&comments From the MindPlan labs: Support for data replication in the MindPlan application Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:09:09 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/25.06.2009130909KLEF4A.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/25.06.2009130909KLEF4A.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/25.06.2009130909KLEF4A.htm There is a new "Replicate and refresh" function in the "Extras" menu:

Image:From the MindPlan labs: Support for data replication in the MindPlan application

When you click on that new menu entry, you will see a server selection dialog. The dialog contains all the servers that you used in previous replications (it gets them from the database's replication history). The last replication server is preselected:

Image:From the MindPlan labs: Support for data replication in the MindPlan application

We then replicate the database with the selected Domino server. The replication can be aborted and you can see a replication progress bar.
Support for abortion and the progress bar is something that you cannot achieve using the normal Notes Java API. But with a little help from the C API, it works like a charm. :-)

]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/25.06.2009130909KLEF4A.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/25.06.2009130909KLEF4A.htm?opendocument&comments From the MindPlan labs: Support for node richtext in the MindPlan application Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:29:39 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/25.06.2009122930KLEEBH.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/25.06.2009122930KLEEBH.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/25.06.2009122930KLEEBH.htm Our latest MindPlan developer build contains a function to retrieve the formatted richtext of MindPlan nodes, including picture and table support. My developer colleague "Mr. C and JNI" Tammo Riedinger made that possible by leveraging functions from the Lotus Notes C API. They convert the Notes richtext to HTML (like the Domino webserver does) that we can display in the application:

Image:From the MindPlan labs: Support for node richtext in the MindPlan application

We're still searching for the right place for such a panel. An alternative location might be a new property dialog tab.

Please note, that this is a read-only panel. It's still necessary to switch to Lotus Notes to edit the richtext.
]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/25.06.2009122930KLEEBH.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/25.06.2009122930KLEEBH.htm?opendocument&comments New analysis feature in next MindPlan version: AND/OR support in filter Thu, 7 May 2009 13:46:15 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/07.05.2009134627KLEFTF.htm MindPlan Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/07.05.2009134627KLEFTF.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/07.05.2009134627KLEFTF.htm The most relevant thing is support for AND/OR in the filter selection of an analysis view:

Image:New analysis feature in next MindPlan version: AND/OR support in filter

In previous versions, all the filters in the list were automatically concatenated with an AND operation.
Now you have the choice between AND, OR, NOT AND and NOT OR. To build all possible expressions, the filter list is a tree from now on. If you only add one filter to the list, you won't see the difference. But after adding another filter, both appear indented below an AND node.
(For hardcore users: AND/OR can also be nested, there's no limit in depth)

There are also four new filters in the current developer build:
  • resource (company)
  • resource (department)
  • resource (role)
  • resource (group)

With them, you can filter out activities for parts of your organizational structure (defined in the MindPlan configuration database).

On the categorization page, the list of categories has become quiet large and confusing over the years. Many customers asked for some kind of sorting in the list.
So this is how the new list looks like:

Image:New analysis feature in next MindPlan version: AND/OR support in filter

In addition to those dialog changes, we also added a refresh functionality to the analysis views. They now check for new data when you press F9, like it's done for normal maps. No need to close/reopen them any more.
]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/07.05.2009134627KLEFTF.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/07.05.2009134627KLEFTF.htm?opendocument&comments Slow MindPlan execution on Windows XP SP1 Fri, 6 Mar 2009 19:25:25 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.03.2009192525KLEPLY.htm Tips / How To’s Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.03.2009192525KLEPLY.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.03.2009192525KLEPLY.htm
We had an interesting support call today. It was about a slowly running MindPlan application. *Very* slow startup time and map handling.
The cause was an old Windows XP installation (SP1 instead of SP2 oder SP3). Upgrading to a more recent SP solved it...

...and it also reduced the risk that your PC might get hacked :-)

In this case, the machine was a virtual machine inside VMWare on Mac OS X, but maybe it's a general issue. ]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/06.03.2009192525KLEPLY.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/06.03.2009192525KLEPLY.htm?opendocument&comments Slides of our Lotusphere presentation with sample code Mon, 9 Feb 2009 15:27:46 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/09.02.2009152746KLEJYF.htm Lotusphere2009 Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/09.02.2009152746KLEJYF.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/09.02.2009152746KLEJYF.htm Here you can download the presentation itself (our part of the presentation), a document with links to further information as well as the Eclipse (3.4) workspace with the sample sources.

The samples show different levels of integration of a legacy Swing application into the Lotus Notes 8 Standard client.
Image:Slides of our Lotusphere presentation with sample code
Standalone legacy Swing application: Multiple views with menubar and toolbar


Image:Slides of our Lotusphere presentation with sample code
Basic integration:
One tab containing the complete legacy application with Swing menubar and toolbar


Image:Slides of our Lotusphere presentation with sample code
Advanced integration:
One tab containing the content pane of the legacy application.
Menubars and toolbars dynamic contributions to the Lotus Notes Standard client UI

]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/09.02.2009152746KLEJYF.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/09.02.2009152746KLEJYF.htm?opendocument&comments How to automatically download all the Lotusphere slides Sat, 24 Jan 2009 18:54:10 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/24.01.2009185410KLENZE.htm Lotusphere Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/24.01.2009185410KLENZE.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/24.01.2009185410KLENZE.htm
Image:How to automatically download all the Lotusphere slides

Here are instructions, how you can also do that.
]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/24.01.2009185410KLENZE.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/24.01.2009185410KLENZE.htm?opendocument&comments Our Lotusphere session Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:10:46 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/20.01.2009151139KLEJMR.htm Lotusphere Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/20.01.2009151139KLEJMR.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/20.01.2009151139KLEJMR.htm
AD303: Leveraging 3rd Party Components in IBM Lotus Notes Composite Applications


The demos and list of web resources will be here in the blog in about a week. We still need to do some polishing and documentation.

Just watch this blog by subscribing to the RSS feed.
]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/20.01.2009151139KLEJMR.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/20.01.2009151139KLEJMR.htm?opendocument&comments Update for the Composite Application issues in 8.5 Thu, 15 Jan 2009 00:33:37 +0200 last blog posting, with NotesUIWorkspace.IsInCompositeApp and NotesUIWorkspace.GetComponentViewPreference seem to be fixed. You just have to define the property "com.ibm.notes.enable.preferences = true" at page level in the Composite Application. Then Lotusscript "knows" that it's running inside a CA component. It was more a documentation issue, because it's not mentioned in the Designer's online help. However, it's here in the wiki: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/compappwiki.nsf/revisions/AA7A9FFD70CA64F985257456005401D8?OpenDocument The wiki is the new online help ;-) Maybe a MindPlan wiki would be good as well... ... ]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/15.01.2009003337KLEVMK.htm Lotus Notes 8.5 Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/15.01.2009003337KLEVMK.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/15.01.2009003337KLEVMK.htm last blog posting, with

NotesUIWorkspace.IsInCompositeApp
and
NotesUIWorkspace.GetComponentViewPreference(...)

seem to be fixed. You just have to define the property

"com.ibm.notes.enable.preferences = true"

at page level in the Composite Application. Then Lotusscript "knows" that it's running inside a CA component.

It was more a documentation issue, because it's not mentioned in the Designer's online help.
However, it's here in the wiki:
http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/compappwiki.nsf/revisions/AA7A9FFD70CA64F985257456005401D8?OpenDocument

The wiki is the new online help ;-)

Maybe a MindPlan wiki would be good as well... ]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/15.01.2009003337KLEVMK.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/15.01.2009003337KLEVMK.htm?opendocument&comments Status of MindPlan on Notes 8.5 Wed, 7 Jan 2009 10:48:16 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/07.01.2009104816KLEDHR.htm Announcements Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/07.01.2009104816KLEDHR.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/07.01.2009104816KLEDHR.htm
We're currently doing some tests with MindPlan on the official release of the Notes 8.5 client that was released yesterday. We did not have that Notes build version for testing before, only a code drop from the end of October and some additional patches. So I cannot say much at the moment about any issues.
The standalone versions of MindPlan on Windows and Mac should work normally, they often don't have problems with Notes client specifics, because they only need a few Java API methods for the data storage that are quite stable.
Regarding the MindPlan Composite Application plugin, here are some already known issues:

Eclipse selection implementation changed
The code in our toolbar icon to open a MindPlan from one of the MindPlan Notes views is not compatible with Notes 8.5, because there was a change in the underlying Expeditor platform. So I expect this toolbar action not to work.
This issue is already fixed (the "Eclipse selection" plugin of the Composite Application Library at www.openntf.org has the same issue, IBM is notified about it).
A workaround for this is to use the view actions "Actions/Open in MindPlan..." or open the MindPlan with "File/Open/Open MindPlan..." in the application.

NotesUIWorkspace.GetComponentViewPreference(String) is broken in 8.5 GA
This is quite annoying, because that method is a standard Lotusscript method to get static Composite Application preferences in an NSF component and in the 8.5 GA version it does not return ANY result, it only throws an error.
I think we used it in the "DocumentViewer" sample Composite Applications to hide the action bars of the Notes form. Many CAs should be broken because of this bug, so I hope IBM will release a hotfix for this issue soon (I found it two days after christmas and reported it, but it was too late to change the GA build).
I'm also seeing some other problems with the "Editable DocumentViewer" sample MindPlan Composite Application, but had no time so far to figure out what is causing this. Looks like editing a node document in the "DocumentViewer" component does not get reported to the MindPlan application. The funny thing is that is it working when I start the Notes client from the Eclipse development system.

Mac MindPlan Composite Application status
The drag and drop issues that we had during the last months has been fixed by Apple with Mac OS X 10.5.6. So drap and drop does not get interrupted any more. We had one more prio 1 issue (keyboard shortcuts not working) and talked with IBM about it. It was an Expeditor issue and not easy to fix. Don't know yet if this has been addressed, because they were afraid of the impact of the bugfix code on other parts of the product. I still need to update my Mac Eclipse development environment to the new Notes platform version.

The MindPlan standalone version on the Mac however should still be stable and the first beta to be released as official Mac version.
]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/07.01.2009104816KLEDHR.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/07.01.2009104816KLEDHR.htm?opendocument&comments Date and time of the Lotusphere session AD303 Wed, 31 Dec 2008 13:42:24 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/31.12.2008134224KLEGWK.htm Lotusphere Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/31.12.2008134224KLEGWK.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/31.12.2008134224KLEGWK.htm
AD303: Leveraging 3rd Party Components in IBM Lotus Notes Composite Applications

Session track Track Two: Application Development
Session id AD303
Session date 01/20/2009
Session time 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Session location SW Mockingbird
Session name Leveraging 3rd Party Components in IBM Lotus Notes Composite Applications
Session abstract The concept of composite applications is ideal for the integration of different applications and services. A number of different application types are supported -- right out of the box - and can easily be integrated. But what about things like 3270 terminals, Microsoft Office, native or .NET applications? Can those be integrated into Lotus Notes as well? Find out what you get out of the box and learn more about the concepts for integrating your legacy and 3rd party applications. If you do have different types of applications that you need to integrate, then this a " do not miss" session!
Speakers Michael Zink
Karsten Lehmann


]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/31.12.2008134224KLEGWK.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/31.12.2008134224KLEGWK.htm?opendocument&comments Breaking Lotusphere 2009 News: Our submitted session topic in session AD303! Fri, 5 Dec 2008 15:17:06 +0200 http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/05.12.2008151706KLEJRR.htm Lotusphere2009 Karsten Lehmann http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/05.12.2008151706KLEJRR.htm?opendocument&comments http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/05.12.2008151706KLEJRR.htm
They were really surprised to hear, that, because our original session submission (see this posting) had not been considered by the Lotusphere track managers, we MindPlan developers had not planned to attend Lotusphere 2009 (only the sales crew and our US Partner Thresher Enterprise Systems).

We had a few phone conferences since then, explained our ideas for the session more in detail and gave them a short MindPlan demo.

They told us that our topic would be an ideal complement to an already scheduled session of Michael Zink, IBM Austria:

AD303: Leveraging 3rd Party Components in IBM Lotus Notes Composite Applications

Michael's session is an overview about the different possibilities of integrating 3rd party components into Lotus Notes (like the AWT/SWT bridge, embedding ActiveX, browser containers in Notes 8.5 etc.) and their inter-component communication using Composite Application technology.

So here is the news:
I will spend the second half of the session and explain in detail what is necessary to integrate a Java/Swing application like MindPlan into Lotus Notes R8.

As Java developers, we will not only have some nice looking slides, but we will show

"the real thing" ;-)

Which means that there will be some code snippets in the slides and in addition, we will provide much more samples and references to Eclipse/Expeditor documentation as a web delivery after the presentation to make sure that not everyone has to reinvent the wheel over and over again in his own integration projects.

So make sure you don't miss session AD303!
I'm really looking forward to be a part of Lotusphere 2009!

]]> http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dxcomments/05.12.2008151706KLEJRR.htm http://blog.mindplan.com/mindplan/blog.nsf/dx/05.12.2008151706KLEJRR.htm?opendocument&comments