Frequently asked questions

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This section includes frequently-asked questions and information on trouble shooting specific problems. Note that the  forums are also a great resource for troubleshooting specific problems.

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How do I get closest to the Look and Feel of Notes 8?

Q. I want to understand the user interface tradeoffs between developing NSF components and Eclipse components.  My primary objective is to create a user interface that is consistent with the Notes 8 user interface. 

A. Neither interface will give you the exact Look and Feel of, say, the Notes 8 Mail application and components. A lot of custom work went into making them look the way they are, and it would just have taken too much code to make it exact. The Lead Manager sample is a good example how close you can get. It was one of the driving UI design goals for that sample.
The Lead Manager contains a mix of Eclipse and NSF components. I'm not sure I would say that one or the other has been any better at getting close to the Notes 8 look and feel. For the most part, people should go for their skill set. If you are better at designing Notes components, then you are going to have the knowledge to tweak their look and feel. If you have better Eclipse skills, you should go for that.

 How to integrate Sametime into a Composite Application?

Q. I've been told that it is easy to have an application Sametime-able. But I want to see technically how to do that integration. I'd like to have more technical information on the way to integrate Sametime in a composite application.

A. It depends on how exactly you want to integrate Sametime into a composite application.

• If you are building components:
  • If you have a Notes component, you can mark any field as a "livename" and it will show sametime availability

• • If you have an Eclipse component, the Sametime SDK walks you through how to create Livenames in your Eclipse component

• If you are assembling applications:
  • There is a Sametime Business Card in the Composite Application Component Library on OpenNTF

• • There is a Buddy List  in the Composite Application Component Library on OpenNTF

How do I install and remove features manually?

Q. Sametime lets you install and remove your own features. Is there a way to do this in Notes?

A. Yes. This is called "self management". It's turned off by default, but you can turn it on yourself.

• *# Look for this file: <notesdir>/framework/rcp/plugin_customization.ini
  1. Edit it and add this line to the bottom: "com.ibm.notes.branding/enable.update.ui=true"
  2. Restart notes
  3. Now you will see a File->Application->Application Management and Install menus.

How do I find out what Properties or Actions there are on a component?

Q. I have a component that is not well documented. How do I tell what properties and actions they have and how to use them?

A. The simplest way to see what is available is to open up the Composite Application Editor (CAE). Place the component in question into a blank application twice. If you pick one of the components from the navigator on the left and right-click to select Wiring, you will see all of the properties available for that component in the focused component. The unfocused component will show all the actions.
Be aware that properties and actions are defined at a database level (for a NSF component). So each component that comes from the same database will show the same properties and actions. Not all of them will be active for all components.
If you do not have documentation, you have to work out what is active or not by experimentation. One of our recommended approaches to component development involves creating unit tests. This pairs your component with a special "test component" that can broadcast and consume all types of values. This is also a great method to explore a component to see what it can do.
A library of general purpose components are posted to the Composite Application Component Library on OpenNTF. In there is the "Standard Types Tester" component. One option would be to drop this into your test application, wire up the different mail properties to matching actions, and see what happens when you do things.

How do I get the name of an action in the handler?

Q. I have a view (extending ViewPart) with two actions that can be wired to. In the runWithEvent method in the Action class I need to check which action is called so i can call the corresponding method on the View class.

A. The Event class passed to runWithEvent can be cast to a PropertyChangeEvent class. This class has a getActionDefinition() API that returns an Action class. There is a getActionName() API on that class.

    public void runWithEvent(Event event) {
        if (event instanceof PropertyChangeEvent) {
            PropertyChangeEvent pEvent = (PropertyChangeEvent) event;
            com.ibm.rcp.propertybroker.property.Action action = pEvent
                    .getActionDefinition(); // (1)
            String name = action.getName();
            // ...
        }
    }

How do I see system.out?

Q. When I call System.out.println() from a component, where does the output display?

A. If you add a -console parameter to the command line startup you will get a DOS box like window where you can see your system.out prints. Here is an example for Windows:

"C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\framework\rcp\rcplauncher.exe" -console -config notes

The Linux equivalent looks as follows:

/opt/ibm/lotus/notes/framework/rcp/rcplauncher -console -config notes

Resources

Need support?
This wiki is designed to provide valuable information to help you, but it does not replace other technical support services. Refer the following resources for more information.

• IBM Support
• IBM Forums
• Lotus Labs
• ISSL Consulting Services
• Field Support Services
• IBM Software