Well the annual run up to Lotusphere begins. This year things seem to be a bit slow off the ground, but one URL has become public which allows you to submit abstracts if you want to speak. I’ve put mine in, but apparently we won’t hear either way until November. So fingers crossed until then.
mattwhite
Composite Application Issues
Well after the fuss over at Rob’s blog about Composite Apps in Notes 8, coincidentally I had to look at them for the first time this weekend. Unfortunately it’s not been a good experience so far.
Firstly it took three reinstalls of the Notes 8 Beta 3 software to actually be able to use the Composite App editor or the Property Broker Editor. Fair enough to some degree as it’s beta software and my system is hardly standard (an aging build of XP running in Parallels). But still massively annoying. The symptoms were that I’d click Edit Application or “Open” against a Properties WSDL file and then… nothing, no errors, no editors. I have no explanation for why it started working on the third resintall attempt except that I was getting progressively more aggressive in my uninstalling each time, there must have been some setting that wasn’t being cleared out.
So then once I was able to get the editors running I’ve found them to be hugely unstable. To the point where after every click I am saving because when they crash, they go in a big way and take out the whole Notes client, Designer client as well as the editor which is open. Again I can forgive this, and am just hoping it’s a combination of my machine and beta software.
What I am unable to forgive, so far at least, is the fact that I just can’t get a single composite app to work. I took the usual approach of using an existing template as a starting point, the Personal Address Book in this case. As soon as I try and add a property, nothing happens. But again there are no errors to give any hint of a problem. I must be doing something wrong but with no information it’s impossible to tell what. So the next step is to try one of the sample apps linked to by the Composite Apps Blog. I am not trying anything clever here, just following the steps listed but I just can’t get anything to work at all. The apps themselves work fine but as soon as a change is made to them they stop working altogether.
Now I know I’m not the sharpest knife if the cutlery drawer but I do know Notes and Domino pretty well and I also know how to follow instructions. I hope that there is something wrong with my machine, as if there isn’t then this new Composite App lark is just not going to fly.
Deconstruction
The office I’m currently working in is very close to this bizarre building demolition. Interesting to read about it, and especially good when you see the Project Manager’s name.
DIIOP to Domino from JBoss
OK, so it’s Domino peculiarity of the week time.
I have a servlet running on JBoss which needs to access a Domino database on Server B/MyDomain. So I create a session using NotesFactory.createSession(“serverb.mydomain”, “my username”, “my password”). The session establishes fine but when I use session.getCurrenctServer() it returns “Server A/MyDomain”. It effectively means that I am unable to access any databases on Server B.
This became an urgent problem, but we’re only in test at the moment so my short term solution was to quickly build a new server in its own Domino domain. It appears from our current set up that, using CORBA / DIIOP, you are unable to access any server than the one which was originally configured for the IIOP site within a single Domino domain. Can anyone confirm this, because I’m struggling here.
Ta Da!
I’m constantly looking for the ideal Task List manager. I don’t know about you but if I don’t write things down they simply never get done, it’s silly really that I can remember all sorts of obscure trivia but can’t keep track of the things I have to do for work. Anyway I must have tried seven or eight different products and although they are all good they don’t do exactly what I want, so I don’t use them all the time, so I still wind up forgetting something. Anyway I am currently trialling a very simple web app from 37 Signals called Ta Da list. Simple is good, but as usual there are a couple of things I’d like to happen differently. I’ll probably end up writing my own app at this rate but I’m interested, what, if anything do you use?
Log4J logging to the console
I’m conscious that technical posts have been notable by their absence here recently, but it’s just the nature of what I’m doing right now. Anyway I’m not sure this counts but it’s caused me to waste half an hour searching for it.
Log4J is an excellent Java logging solution (if you’re not using then I highly recommend it). The only problem I’ve had is that when writing test classes I get an error “log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger”, so, how to get the logging output to be sent to the console in MyEclipse? It’s a very simple problem but is something I always forget. Well, all you need to do is add one line at the start of the main method:
BasicConfigurator.configure();
So your test class will look like this:
import org.apache.log4j.BasicConfigurator;
import org.apache.log4j.Logger;public class MyClass{
static Logger logger = Logger.getLogger(MyClass.class);
public static void main(String[] args) {
BasicConfigurator.configure();
logger.debug(“This will appear in your console now”);
}
}
Next week I’ll be teaching you how to suck eggs!
Announcing UKLUG 2007
If you’re involved in Notes or Domino or any other Lotus products and you’re based in the UK then run, don’t walk over to the just announced UK Lotus User Group meeting on 29th September this year. Although the agenda is yet to be finalised you can be sure that there will be some great speakers and a good mixture of people from all over the country with whom you can share your experiences and pick up tips and tricks.
Registration is open now, and my guess is that it would be wise to get in quick. And, of course the best thing is that attendance costs you nothing, it’s free, gratis, nada.