Jack Ratcliff

Who´s using Ext.nd?

Jack Ratcliff — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:21:27 -0500

Rich and I are about to release the next beta of Ext.nd which includes support for categorized views and several bug fixes (see the demo app on OpenNTF to see the categorized views in action). I know we have been a bit slow in releasing this release and for the most part, it was ready to be released in June. We have each been extremely busy this summer with work and family issues. We hope you understand and forgive us. But now, the wait is almost over. We'll be releasing the next beta very soon (planned for this week). But I'm curious, how many of you are using Ext.nd and find it useful for your Domino Web development? What kind of enhancements would you like to see? Rich and I have already started the next beta with some new features that I think are simply amazing but tell us, what would you like to see us do? Would you like more work done on the JavaScript API to access the Domino objects? Or do you want us to give you more control of building your own custom UIs instead of using the locked in UI of the DominoUI class? Or would more example apps help? So, let us know if you're using Ext.nd and what you like/dislike and want to see added to the framework. If you're not using Ext.nd let us know that as well so that everyone who stumbles to this blog post can hear of the other options available to Domino Web developers. We know that IBM has worked hard on including support for dojo in 8.x and then there is dojomino that Lance has headed up. Is there any other Domino focused frameworks in the works?...

Why isn´t there a NotesDatabase.WebFilePath property?

Jack Ratcliff — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:49:35 -0500

Maybe it exists in Domino version 8. Anyone know? If it did exist then it would sure make my life a little easier. We ran into an issue recently where NotesDatabase.FilePath returned the full filesystem path for an application we were accessing from a browser using the "Preview In Web Browser" action. If we accessed the application from a Domino server we got back the path relative to the data directory (which is what we want). However, if we accessed the application by using the "Preview In Web Browser" action, we then got back the complete filesystem path (e.g. c:\notes\data\somepath\db.nsf). Ironically, Tommy Valand blogged on this same issue just last week. Unfortunately, we can't use his solution since we aren't processing any documents when we need to get the web file path of a database. Luckily for us in our need for accessing the FilePath method is that we already know the relative path. So, for now, we'll just not use the FilePath property and hope to one day see a WebFilePath property....

Search within a category on the web

Jack Ratcliff — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 10:56:00 -0500

Have you ever had the need to search within a category in a Domino web view? By default (at least I can't find any other option), you can't do this with a ?SearchView command. In Ext.nd, we don't use ?SearchView since it doesn't return the data formatted as XML like ?ReadViewEntries does. Therefore, we have our own agent that we call that will do a search and return xml data so we can load it in a nice looking Ext grid. Well, now this search agent will also search WITHIN a category you have your view restricted to. This really comes in handy for our PickList dialog. You can try it out here if you want. Just click the "show picklist using a category" button, and then at the bottom of the dialog, type in your search words and click "search". The search will then be executed but only within the category you are currently viewing. Once we release the next beta of Ext.nd you can try it out in your own apps....

Ext.nd meets categorized views

jratcliff — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 15:00:00 -0500

The next beta release of Ext.nd will include support for categorized views. However, don't get all excited and expect them to work just like categorized views in the Notes client. That is our ultimate goal but for this implementation there will be some limts. These limits are the same limits you see in a view rendered the default way from Domino. First, you can only expand one category at a time. Also, since we currently only support "paging" through views, there will be times that when you expand a category and then go to the next page, you won't be able to see what category was expanded. Hopefully, our next improvement on categorized views will take care of these shortcomings but for now, I'm really pleased with how this turned out. Oh, and if you can't wait for the next release (we still have a few more bugs to fix) and want to see this in action now, just head on over to our demo hosted on OpenNTF. On the outline in the left pane just expand on "View Demos" and then expand "Categorized Views" and from there you'll see many different categorized views setup that we have been testing against....

Ext.nd is OpenNTF´s "Project of the Month"

jratcliff — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 09:21:42 -0500

Thank you OpenNTF for honoring Ext.nd as "Project of the Month". Rich and I have been working hard on the next beta. One of the highlights for me is the drag n drop support we have added to allow documents to be dragged from views/folders into folders displayed in outlines. This feature is going to help me finish up a mail demo app I'm building using Ext.nd. So stay tuned and either Rich or I will let you know when the this next beta is available to download. Also, don't forget to visit the Ext.nd forum on Ext's site. Things are getting very active there and if you are into web development using Ext or Ext.nd, then this is the place to be....

Ext.nd Beta 1 available

jratcliff — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 22:58:36 -0500

Actually, it was available last Tuesday, I'm just finally getting around to blog about it. In any case, you can get the download from here. This beta release is the same release that Rich Waters and I demo'd at Lotusphere this past January. So please try it out and let us know what you like and don't like so we can continue to make it better....

Updated Slides for BP207

jratcliff — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:39:04 -0500

Here are the updated slides for the presentation Rich Waters and I did titled: From IBM Lotus Notes Client Application to Ajax-Powered Rich Internet Application in Less than 10 Lines of Code!. I think we had the session with the longest title! Also, stay tuned for more info on Beta 1 of Ext.nd. We're finally moving out of Alpha and into Beta since we feel that we now have enough features in place for developers to take their Notes apps to the web....

Single Category Views in Ext.nd

Jack Ratcliff — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 01:32:13 -0400

I know it's been a while since I posted anything. If you are wondering what's going on with Ext.nd, rest assured that we are busy working toward Alpha 2. In the meantime, here's a little taste of what Alpha 2 will include: Single Category View support, see this demo to see it in action. Enjoy!...

Ext.nd Alpha 1

jratcliff — Sat, 26 May 2007 22:30:05 -0400

Well, we've finally got Ext.nd Alpha 1 posted to the Ext web site. You can go get the code here.

Enjoy!

...

Coming soon...Ext.nd!

Jack Ratcliff — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 23:49:44 -0400

DWT is being merged into a new project called Ext.nd. To find out more and who will be working on the project, jump on over to the Taking Notes website and listen to Episode 59

Thank you Julian and Bruce for a great show!

...