Recent 

Developing for Research  

By Paul Withers | 7/25/24 1:30 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

It’s been nearly five years since I joined HCL Labs, progressing currently to Associate Director - Research. In that time I’ve been involved in: setting up HCL’s Open Source Project Office researching the state of rich text editing on the web (as I covered in a session at Collabsphere in 2020) leading the modernisation of language, extensions and tooling of LotusScript as VoltScript integrating VoltScript into Volt MX Foundry as a first-class language adapter web components and a variety of other projects This has covered some degree of coding in a variety of languages and frameworks. But there are significant differences between traditional product-focused development and development for research. And it’s useful to highlight those differences, because it takes a certain mind-set and skill-set.

HCL Nomad server 1.0.12 IF1 shipped with same file name than 1.0.12  

By Daniel Nashed | 7/22/24 6:13 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Nomad 1.0.12 has been replaced with a 1.0.2 IF1 version. MHS has only the new version. The old version can't be downloaded any more. But they left the file names the same. So you can't distinct the files by name once you downloaded them. So you have to delete the old file and re-download it. The same file name with a different content (resulting in a different hash and size), breaks automation. For example it broke the Domino container build automation.

Mindoo - Demo application for Domino JNA Views to play with  

By Karsten Lehmann | 7/18/24 11:42 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Serdar Basegmez

Today I attended the "Developer Variety Hour" webinar of OpenNTF and did a demo of the new Virtual View API of Domino JNA. I built a small web application that combines a Sunburst diagram (taken from the D3 website, enhanced by a training session with Anthropics Claude AI chat :-) ) with a categorized view, built on top of a Bootstrap 5 table.

Mindoo - Domino JNA Virtual Views: The Next Step in Domino Data Retrieval  

By Karsten Lehmann | 7/14/24 7:09 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Serdar Basegmez

In the previous two articles, "The pain of reading data as a Domino developer - and solutions" and "Overview of Domino Data Retrieval: Exploring NSF Search, DQL, Domino Views, and the QueryResultsProcessor", we explored the challenges and solutions for efficiently accessing and processing data in Domino.

Mindoo - Overview of Domino Data Retrieval: Exploring NSF search, DQL, Domino Views and the QueryResultsProcessor  

By Karsten Lehmann | 7/14/24 7:08 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Serdar Basegmez

As you read in the previous article "The pain of reading data as a Domino developer - and solutions", looking up data on Domino is not as easy as it seems - especially compared to other platforms like SQL. Let's explore the available options.

HCL Leap: running a LotusScript agent  

By Fabio Di Paola | 7/9/24 11:44 AM | Development - Leap / Volt | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

HCL Domino Leap is undoubtedly a tool with interesting potential that expands the capabilities of Notes and Domino but why not supplement it with additional functionality using for example some LotusScript code ? I made this consideration while developing an application where it would have been much better to have an agent manipulating a document for me to achieve the desired result. Checking the documentation I saw that indeed among the service options there is the option to run an agent inside the database and so I tried it.

Running Domino Windows container image on Windows 2022  

By Daniel Nashed | 7/8/24 1:43 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Two years ago I have been looking into Domino in a Windows container already. The main purpose was to understand the technology and if this makes sense to be used in general. IMHO container technology is mainly helpful on Linux. Containers on Linux use core OS level functionality, which is part of the Linux kernel. Only Linux makes sense for production use for me. But a Windows container can be a great test environment for automation testing and other test use cases. I revisited my container build on Windows this weekend and first updated it to Domino 14 and also updated all involved tooling like 7Zip. In addition I looked into how I could leverage a Windows container image for testing.

New Nomad Server features -- ACME HTTP-01 challenge support & HTTP redirects via port 9080  

By Daniel Nashed | 7/8/24 1:42 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

There are two new features in the latest Nomad Server versions, introduced to Nomad Server without big notice. I just got the question from a partner why Nomad Server now binds port 9080 in addition to port 9443 and the internal communication port (only loop back). The port might be used by other applications like the IBM Spectrum Protect (TDP) -- which was the problem in this customer case. It turns out the TDP Java based restore GUI and does not work in combination without changing or disabling the port.

An Admin Present You Didn't Know You Needed  

By Keith Brooks | 7/4/24 7:41 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

About 2 weeks ago, I gave an impromptu webinar for Openntf.org as a last-minute fill-in. Openntf, for those that don't know, is the Notes/Domino+ community, where devs, admins, business people, HCL, and others share code and ideas, templates, and projects for the benefit of the greater worldwide community. I wanted to inform people that monitoring Tasks in the Administrator client has some changes. Why is this important? Because unless you are a 1 server company, you have a lot of information to remember, such as: How do you know if DBMT ran? How do you know which server Certmgr runs on? Which web server do you run the Domino REST API on? Which server handles your Backups and Restores, presuming you leverage the v14 options? Is NOMAD running? Is your DirSync working? Are you sure the awesome OnTime Group calendar is running? Have you enabled Aautoupdate yet? One look and you know. Intriguing questions, right?

End of Life for CentOS 7 AND CentOS 8 Stream  

By Martijn de Jong | 7/2/24 6:54 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

CentOS 7 was released on the 7th of July 2014. For many years, it has been the operating system for millions of servers. Last Sunday (30th of June) was the day when, after almost 10 years, CentOS 7 became end-of-life. This means that no (security) updates for CentOS 7 will be released any more, and that servers running CentOS 7 are at risk. I personally know of quite a few servers that are still running on CentOS 7. Even though the EOL date of CentOS 7 has been known for a very long time, many companies waited till the very last moment to phase out these systems and then missed their target. This is a bad situation to be in. I expect that it won’t be long before vulnerabilities in these systems become public, which then can no longer be patched. Migrating these systems to a new operating system should be top priority for these companies!

How deep do you authenticate?   

By Stephan Wissel | 6/24/24 8:26 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

How deep do you authenticate? - Accessing applications usually entails some kind of identity. Some part(s) of your application provide identity (called IdP), while other's consume it (paraphrased from Captain Obvious). Identity could be provided from a record or document in your or another database, an LDAP directory, an OICD or a 3d party like your eMail provider or social account, or with some hoops and loops Webauthn (a.k.a passkey). The question is: how deep does it go ?

Apple push notification certificates expire on 4th of July 2024  

By Christoph Stoettner | 6/24/24 8:23 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Push notifications certificates in HCL Connections 8 CR5 and CR6 need an update before 4th of July Last week I checked some HCL Connections 8 CRx downloads in Flexnet and recognized these packages available since 2024-06-13: APNS (Apple Push Notification Service) certificates renewal for 2025. Sounds normal, these updates need to be installed each year. First, I checked for the knowledge base document mentioned in the file name . It’s not published until now. So I downloaded the package and extracted the content. The included certificates are valid from 2024-04-25 to 2025-05-25, so they start and end in the middle of the year.

Installing Huddo Boards on WebSphere-only Connections   

By Martijn de Jong | 6/24/24 8:21 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Let me clarify what this article is about. Huddo (also known as ISW) is selling 2 versions of their Boards product: Kudos Boards – The Java application that can be installed on WebSphere. Active development has stopped a few years ago Huddo Boards – The product consisting of several containers, which can be installed on Kubernetes or a container engine like Docker. A version with limited functionality is part of the HCL Connections component pack and known as Activities Plus. This product is actively being developed and also available for other platforms. Although the Connections Component pack was introduced in version 6 already, many companies refrained from installing it due to the serious amount of extra infrastructure needed to run these components, which includes a Kubernetes cluster. We call these the WebSphere-only Connections installations, as they only include the WebSphere stack part of Connections. So what if you would like to use the full power of Huddo Boards without having to install a Kubernetes cluster? That’s what this article is about.

Multiple emails control for Xpages  

By Patrick Kwinten | 6/20/24 3:29 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

For a project I received a request to enable to enter multiple emails in a field. These emails are not all registered in the Names & Address Book (NAB) but they come from a 'concurrent' email system e.g. helpdesk@domain.com or groupXYZ@domain.com so a standard names picker was no option. I feared already a support nightmare without any entry validation, because the field was going to be used to send notifications. Here is the list of requirements: Easy to write email. Display of default value(s) or default list options (provided by the application). Support to enter multiple emails. Easy to remove email(s). Validation of the provided emails.

Mindoo - The pain of reading data as a Domino developer - and solutions  

By Karsten Lehmann | 6/20/24 3:04 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Serdar Basegmez

On my endless path of reinventing the wheel regarding Domino APIs, my latest adventure has once again led me to find efficient and powerful ways to query Domino data. For many years, this topic has been a pain point for me. Back in the IBM Design Partner program, I wrote many entries in the discussions database, asking IBM core development for better and faster ways to read Domino data.

Issues Starting MongoDB Version 5 and Above  

By Milan Matejic | 6/14/24 10:29 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

If you are using a Hypervisor on a Windows OS, you might encounter some issues with deploying MongoDB version 5 and above, as MongoDB 5.0+ requires a CPU with AVX support. CPUs with AVX Support have been around for a long time and this shouldn’t be a problem. However, on my PC, I am running Windows 11 OS with VirtualBox as a Hypervisor, and I am also using WSL for Ubuntu on the same machine, which requires some features of Hyper-V to be activated. As it turns out, Hyper-V has some unusual (at least for me) effects on the VMs running on VirtualBox.

A good reference for Semaphore timeouts  

By Cormac McCarthy | 6/10/24 1:33 PM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Recently while troubleshooting an issue on a customer site, I can across this Knowledge based article around what the HEX codes when Semaphore messages are thrown in the Domino console. It’s been updated recently and contains information you may need to troubleshoot semaphore issues with a Domino server. I like this type of transparency that helps you review these types of issues independently. Bookmark for your own reference!

NoSQL schema design  

By Stephan Wissel | 6/10/24 1:31 PM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

NoSQL schema design - A question that pops up frequently in developer discussions is 'how to structure your data in a NoSQL way?'. To shed a light on this, we have a look at the approach invented 50 years ago and still an all time favorite.

XPages JEE 3.0  

By Jesse Gallagher | 6/10/24 1:29 PM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Today, I uploaded the release version of 3.0.0 of the XPages Jakarta EE Support project. It's been proving stable in my use since the last beta, and so I think this is as good a time as any to release it properly.

Classic Domino and HTML 5  

By Jesper Kiær | 5/28/24 8:21 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Sometimes a simple web application based on classic Domino is in place. However Domino has not been updated in this area for many years. If you create a form and use it on the web it will create a very old HTML document type. <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> In 2024 you probably want to use HTML 5 and some of the newer features in it. Fortunately you can change it to HTML 5.

XPages JEE 3.0 Beta 4  

By Jesse Gallagher | 5/23/24 10:43 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Earlier today, I uploaded beta 4 of XPages JEE 3.0 to GitHub. I've been taking a slow approach to this release due to its "breaking changes" nature, but I think it's just about ready for release. Domino 14 Like previous betas, this release requires Domino 14 (and Notes 14 for development), since it moves to a baseline of Jakarta EE 10, which in turn requires Java 11. Doing this let me get rid of some extra shim code that was needed to support both Domino 14 and previous versions, and also let me move to some newer language constructs. If you're interested in the sorts of things that the new versions of Java brought, check out the OpenNTF webinar from April, where I talked about just that.

Quick Tip: Did you know? DDE uses .gitignore  

By Oliver Busse | 5/23/24 10:42 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

ne thing I recently found out is that Domino Designer respects the .gitignore of your on-disk-project (ODP). In general it’s obviously helpful that this file is respected in your local repositories and with your favourite git client. I wasn’t aware though that Domino Designer also uses this file to decide whether or not to import a resource from the ODP into the NSF.

Building applications in a build container  

By Daniel Nashed | 5/13/24 4:32 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Specially when developing for different target versions of an OS or an application a build container can be very helpful. But build containers are also really helpful in larger teams when everyone should use the exact same build environment. The Domino container project supports adding the Notes/Domino C-API SDK to the container image. In case of Domino libnotes.so is required. Therefore compiling requires at least an installed Domino server with the same or newer version than the SDK version. I built a Domino 14.0 FP1 image including C-API 14.0 and tagged it hclcom/domino:build. For this blog post I am using the simple test program in the container projects automation test directory --> https://github.com/HCL-TECH-SOFTWARE/domino-container/tree/main/testing The directory is defined as a volume inside the container /build.

Development Containers - the fine print  

By Stephan Wissel | 5/13/24 4:30 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Development Containers are supposed to liberate your development environment from a specific local installation, like container technology liberated your runtimes (a.k.a YAMLed them into Docker or Kubernetes). Development != Runtime Containerization for development has some overlap and quite some difference to containerization for production:

Domino Container Project: software.txt link & new start script version  

By Daniel Nashed | 5/9/24 3:22 AM | Infrastructure - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

The container project contains a software.txt file with all the web-kits used to build images. For some technical reasons the file was located in two places. 1. The build.sh script uses software.txt for checking web-kits before the image build starts. 2. The actually image build process uses software.txt to verify the downloaded web-kits before installing them. software.txt and current_version.txt can also be added to a custom software directory (SOFTWARE_DIR) or remote download location (DOWNLOAD_FROM).

After upgrading Sametime to V12.0.2 you cannot send messages to offline users  

By Remco Angioni | 5/9/24 3:20 AM | Infrastructure - Sametime | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

After upgrading to Sametime V12.0.2, we cannot send chats to offline users anymore using client or mobile app. After opening a case, HCL told us that there should be a policy for that. But this policy doesn't exists in ../sametime-config/policy/policies.user.xml.

Engage 2024 – Some random reflections  

By Roberto Boccadoro | 5/3/24 6:43 PM | Business - Events / People | Added by Oliver Busse

This time it was the Handelsbeurs, the old stock exchange. Is a Gothic building, really extraordinary. I did not take pictures, but my good friend Hogne Bo Pettersen did and on the Engage website you will find a link to his great job and pictures taken by others. He told me “it doesn’t happen every day that you can take a picture of a speaker with the background from Game of Thrones”. This should give you an idea of the location we were.

My thoughts on Engage 2024  

By Martijn de Jong | 5/3/24 6:42 PM | Business - Events / People | Added by Oliver Busse

Last week was the HCL user group event Engage in Antwerp, Belgium. It’s one of my favourite events. It’s meticulously organized by Theo Heselmans, who this year organized Engage and its predecessor, BLUG, for the 15th time. As he announced last year in Amsterdam, it was also the last time that he would organize this event, and it’s therefore logical that this fact played an important role during the event.

Be careful with search-admin role in HCL Connections   

By Christoph Stoettner | 5/3/24 5:37 AM | Infrastructure - Connections | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

I showed, in several slides and sessions, how you can use the search-admin role in the search application of HCL Connections for troubleshooting and reviewing some key configurations. In several environments, my user or other administrative users have this role, just to access the link to /search/serverStatus for example. Be aware, when you assign the search-admin role in the search application to a user, the advanced search will not return any result.

Adventures in AI  

By Paul Withers | 5/2/24 9:23 AM | Development - Notes / Domino | Added by Roberto Boccadoro

Those who were at Engage will have seen some of the experimentation I’ve been doing with AI in the context of VoltScript. In the OGS Jason demoed how I used it to provide code for a loop, correcting it with information about APIs specific to VoltScript. Before my VoltScript session, I showed two videos demonstrating how I’ve used AI to add value to the VoltScript coding experience, firstly by checking unit tests for code coverage and then by checking code complexity of functions in VoltScript Collections.