Running Notes

Notes in 9 Mobile Controls, FINALLY

Kathy Brown — Thu, 23 May 2013 14:10:58 +0000

Whew! I can finally get David Leedy to stop harassing me. He’s been bugging me for forever to contribute to Notes in 9. I finally did and then he had the audacity to be busy travelling for work, so this took a little bit to get published. (Just harassing you back, David!)

But here it is! My Notes in 9 episode on getting started with the extension library mobile controls in XPages.

NE LUG and Twitter Bootstrap

Kathy Brown — Fri, 17 May 2013 16:35:52 +0000

On Tuesday, I spoke at the NE LUG meeting. I gave a quick presentation to get started with Twitter Bootstrap (slides on slideshare), and then we continued with a lengthy discussion about using Bootstrap with XPages. There were a lot of great questions and everyone seemed enthusiastic about trying it out.

So here are the slides (which aren’t much, it was much more about showing what Bootstrap can do, including some live demo and about the discussion, but here you go anway : – ) ).

Twitter Bootstrap from Kathy Brown

Article: Simple Validation with XPages

Kathy Brown — Thu, 16 May 2013 14:19:50 +0000

In the “May” edition of the Dev Tips Newsletter, I wrote about simple validation with XPages:

Of course there is really simple validation for XPages, which includes checking the “Required field” option on an edit box and entering the error message to display to the user. However, some elements do not have this option, and what if you want the field to have validation other than whether or not it is required?

Do You Use Planet Lotus?

Kathy Brown — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:28:01 +0000

While speedsponsoring at IamLUG last week, we decided to ask attendees if they had heard of Planet Lotus, and if so, do they check it regularly.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few attendees that had never heard of Planet Lotus. There were also a few that had heard of it, but never visit the site. Now that wouldn’t surprise me as much as a conference like Connect, where a lot of people know about the conference via their IBM sales person, or IBM’s site. It DOES surprise me at a LUG, where I think (I have no actual knowledge on this, it is just a gut feeling) most attendees learn of LUGs via speakers and sponsors, who they probably follow on their blogs or Twitter or Planet Lotus.

So not that the people who read my blog are representative of who would be at a LUG, but… how many of you do NOT know what Planet Lotus is? Or if you do know, but never go there… please reply in the comments. Thanks.

And just to explain, Planet Lotus is a blog aggregator for (at current count) 329 blogs that cover Lotus (IBM)-related content. Sometimes some of us cover other stuff (like me), but that’s the basis for inclusion on the site. http://planetlotus.org/ What that means for you is loads and loads of free content. 329 blogs-worth of people putting out free tips, how-tos, etc.

Even More On Abstract Writing

Kathy Brown — Tue, 14 May 2013 13:23:22 +0000

The topic has popped up again, on more than one blog. Abstract writing.

Russ Maher’s take on it

Which was follow up to this post

And Wes’ post here

And possibly others I missed.

So I read Russ’ before and after abstracts. A few things that *I* think an abstract should have:

PROPER GRAMMAR – ’nuff said (see what I did there, that isn’t proper grammar)
A hook – It doesn’t have to be super cheesy (really it should NOT be super cheesy), but SOMETHING that is catchy or stands out – just saying “Developing with XPages” won’t get you much attention
A story – Not like a Pullitzer prize winning novel or anything, but tell some kind of story. Is this session for users who hate their admins? Or developers that are new to XPages? Don’t just list out the things that will be shown in the session, make it interesting.
A solution – Give the attendees something they can USE. In both the session and the abstract. If you’re just talking just to talk, no one will want to attend. If you are giving me a solution to my problem, I will be there in the front row.

IamLUG 2013

Kathy Brown — Mon, 13 May 2013 13:37:46 +0000

I have been lucky enough to attend all four IamLUGs and I have to say this was best one yet. The combination of attendees, speakers, sessions, sponsors, food, weather (so much better than August!) was just perfect.

The attendees – I really felt like every attendee was happy to be there. Everyone seemed eager to learn and meet new people. I took part in my first ever speed sponsoring as a sponsor on Monday night and everyone seemed genuinely interested in learning about the sponsors and what they have to offer.

The speakers – the speaker lineup was incredible, although the speakers have been great every year. Luis Richardson was the keynote speaker and he really brings new life to IBM keynotes. Really, his talk could be given anywhere and be well received.

The sponsors – the sponsors were fantastic, as always, and a huge thank you to them. The entire conference is paid for by sponsors. And I mentioned, this was my first time as a sponsor at speedsponsoring, and I had a great time!

My sessions – my sessions went well (minus a few hiccups in the first session due to a projector, which was replaced the next day). The slides and sample database will be posted here and on slideshare in a little bit.

Announcement – IamLUG has a new name! It will now be ICON US, in conjunction with ICON UK. The Lotus name was dropped by IBM. Lotusphere changed to IBM Connect. So changing the name of IamLUG makes perfect sense!

Flickr group – check out the IamLUG photo group to see all the pictures (and if you took some, please post them there!) This may be my favorite.

Overall, I had a blast, I learned a ton, and the best part was that I got to meet a lot of new people I hadn’t met before, and really that’s what these LUGs are all about.

Speaking at NE LUG – TUESDAY!

Kathy Brown — Fri, 10 May 2013 16:21:46 +0000

With IamLUG this week, next Tuesday has snuck up on me!

I will be speaking at the New England Lotus User Group meeting on Tuesday, May 14th at 6PM in the IBM Innovation Center, Waltham, MA.

I will be discussing Twitter Bootstrap, and this will hopefully be an interactive session. i.e. we will all speak, I won’t just be speaking AT you. : – )

For more details, go to http://nelotus.org.

Article – Typeahead and Tooltips with Twitter Bootstrap

Kathy Brown — Fri, 10 May 2013 13:51:59 +0000

I’ve written my third article on Twitter Bootstrap and XPages over at SocialBizUg.org, Typeahead and Tooltips with Twitter Bootstrap. Where I cover… well, typeahead and tooltips. : – )

Note that I’ve just heard that Bootstrap is dropping their typeahead for typeahead.js, but fear not, the information I show in the article is still useful for understanding the different methods of using Bootstrap components in XPages.

Getting Started with Twitter Bootstrap Part 1 is here.

And Getting Started with Twitter Bootstrap Part 2 is here.

Notes Dev Tips Newsletter is Out

Kathy Brown — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:57:18 +0000

Now that the articles are on SocialBizUg.org, they are out as soon as they are edited, so I don’t know if this is April or May. : – )

Tom and I cover website performance, seeing into the future, Twitter Bootstrap and XPages validation. As always, if you have any questions or tips to share, please let us know! And follow @NotesDevTips on Twitter!

http://bitly.com/bundles/runningnotes/6

Odd Problem with Mercurial and Bitbucket and Domino

Kathy Brown — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:21:32 +0000

I’ve been using source control for a while now. I’m a convert and a huge fan. I’ve been using Mercurial in Domino Designer 9 pushed up to Bitbucket. I’ve had several different projects, some alone and some with a team. I’ve gotten to the point where I prefer to use source control over not using it.

However.

I ran into an odd problem. I created a new NSF in Designer. I shared it up to bitbucket. I opened up a new VM and pulled down a clone of the repository (something I’ve done many times). Designer went through all the normal steps and then… nothing happened. The repository never appeared in Designer. Just for the heck of it, I pulled down another repository I had access to, same steps and POOF there it was in Designer. Tried another clone of another repository and … nothing.

I tried the same thing in another VM that I have been using for months with zero problems and same results. Two different VMs. One with Designer 8.5.3 UP1 and one with Designer 9. App A works perfectly on both. App B doesn’t work on either.

The folder for App B ends up in the workspace folder, just like App A. However, it never appears in Designer’s Navigator or Package Explorer. Refresh doesn’t work. Closing and re-opening Designer doesn’t work. Even creating a new NSF and trying to link it to the repository doesn’t work. App A appears in the list of choices, but App B does not. Spinning my chair clockwise didn’t help either. Nor did throwing salt over my shoulder.

On my original VM, I can still commit and push up the changes to Bitbucket for App B (well for App A, too, but that one’s working so that makes sense).

Anyone? Any thoughts? Anyone else seeing this? (For the record, I had a co-worker try and pull the clone, too and he had the same exact results).