Contextsensitive help for Notesplugin developer in Eclipse

When you develop plugins for the notes platform the target platform, does not contain any javadocs. So you do not get context sensitive help on java classes in Eclipse. This makes the development especially for beginners needlessly difficult and annoying.

Here is an example: You want to make a new SWT Text Field and get only a the Constructor signature with not very helpful parameter names. What the hell is arg1? So you have to open a browser go to the javadocs of SWT and search for the Text class and after reading the description go back to eclipse.

 

Wouldn't it be so much nicer if you can get useful parameter names and the javadoc direct in the syntax completion window like you get it when you develop plugins against the standard RCP target.

Follow this steps to teach the eclipse IDE that it shoukld search for the source in another place.

First go to your plugin in the package Explorer in your eclipse IDE. Open the  "Plugin Dependenices" and search for the plugin for which you want do add java source. In our example this is org.eclipse.swt.win32.win32.x86.versionNumber.

Download the Eclipse RCP source from the eclipse download archive page in the correct version. In our example the correct version is 3.6.2.

Unzip the "org.eclipse.swt.win32.win32.x86.source.version.jar" from the downloaded SDK to a new directory where you want to store all java source packages for Notes. Do not place this directory somewhere in the Notes program directory.

Right click the Notes plugin in package explorer and select "Properties" from the context menu. Paste the fully qualified path to the extracted source plugin in the Location path or select external File and browse to the source plugin file. Then finish the dialog with ok. Now your have context help for every SWT Class in your eclipse IDE.

You can repeat the above steps for other plugins in Notes which are eclipse based, for example jface, eclipse forms or the workbench. Be aware, that most other plugins are not version 3.6.2, but 3.4.2. So you have to download the 3.4.2 SDK from the download archive.

I think this is really a great step forward for every plugin developer for Notes.

Holiday reading: IBM Redbooks: Lotus Domino Development Best Practices

I do not know why i did not read this redbook one year ago, but i am very happy that i read this redbook in this year holidays. It is full of very usefull informations how things in Notes/Domino work and what are the best practices to write good Domino Applications. In my opinion the best part is the performance chapter. So do not miss this part of the redbook.

Lotus Domino Development Best Practices

Performance Considerations

IBM Notes Traveler Administration REST API

IBM has posted a detailed description of the new REST API of the Traveler 9.0.0.1 Server. With this new API third party software developers who provide mobile device management software can access and make changes to the traveler configuration.

For example over this API you can get device, or user lists. You can access the device policies, blacklist or wipe devices.

But this API is not restricted to third party developers. Every Traveler Admin can use this to integrate their own managment solutions with the new traveler server.

As this new API is based on the Standard REST API of Domino you should read my other Posts regarding the Domino REST API

The PDF with the documentation is available in the Traveler Wiki.

New concurrent access resolution clauses in V7R1

In V6R1 and V7R1 IBM has added new very powerful clauses to control concurrent access resolution to the SQL language of the IBM i.
So what was wrong with concurrent access till V7R1. When a job changes some rows under commitment control, no other job can access this row even when this job only want to read the data for a query. The job has to wait until the blocking job commits his transaction. The query job can fail if the job reaches the access timeout  before the blocking job has finished his transaction.
But now we have new possibilities to control the behavior in the query job.
New with V6R1 "SKIP LOCKED DATA"
When you add this clause to your select statement the query will ignore every row currently blocked by an uncommited transaction. In my opinion this option is not really an improvement, because with this clause you often get wrong results.
New with V7R1 "USE CURRENTLY COMMITED"
When you add this clause to your select statement the query will ignore uncommited changes, but will process the original values of the locked rows. So the result of the query, will be correct, and the query will not wait for record locks caused by open transactions.
For further informations and examples you can have a look at developer works

Verschlüsselungsoption die nachträgliches Entschlüsseln verhindern soll.

Nach den Enthüllungen von Ed Snowden wird klar, dass die Geheimdienste auch verschlüsselten Traffic im großen Stil aufzeichnen in der Hoffnung diesen später mit dem geheimen Schlüssel eines Diensteanbieters zu entschlüsseln. Gerüchteweise hat die NSA bereits bei Facebook und Co schon vorgefühlt, ob sie die geheimen Schlüssel bekommen können. Damit lässt sich im Nachhinein jede aufgezeichnete Kommunikation entschlüsseln. Wie das funktioniert und was man dagegen machen kann erklärt Heise Security in einem neuen Artikel http://www.heise.de/security/artikel/Zukunftssicher-Verschluesseln-mit-Perfect-Forward-Secrecy-1923800.html

Holiday reading: Analyze performance in DB2 on IBM i

It is very easy to write working SQL statements to access data stored in DB2 on your IBM i, but if your users want their data fast, you need a deep understanding how data retrieval on the i works and how to tune your SQL statements and indexes to get maximum performance. So my today holiday reading is the ultimative source of informations regarding SQL performance on the i. It is a little bit old, but still one of the most valuable reading.

OnDemand SQL Performance Analysis Simplified on DB2 for i5/OS

To get up to date you can read the DB2 section of the following two redbooks.

IBM i 6.1 Technical Overview
IBM i 7.1 Technical Overview with Technology Refresh Updates

Urlaubslektüre Kluftingers erster Fall Milchgeld

 

Nach der vielen Fachliteratur habe ich mir heute mal einen Roman auf mein Tablet geladen. In den letzten Jahren habe ich ja meistens schwedische (Henning Mankell) oder italienische (Donna Leon oder Andrea Camilleri) Kost im Liegestuhl genossen. Dieses mal habe ich mir gedacht ich könnte doch mal einen Krimi unserer deutschen Nachbarn ausprobieren. Als Einstieg in die deutsche Kriminalliteratur habe ich mir den ersten Fall von Kommisar Kluftinger Milchgeld von Volker Klüpfl und Michael Kobr ausgesucht. Ich habe den Roman zwar erst zur Haelfte fertig, aber bis jetzt bin ich sehr postiv überrascht. Auch wenn der Krimi sicher nicht ganz die Klasse eines Wallanders (dafür aber angenehm gewaltarm) oder den Humor eines Camilleri erreicht is es locker leichte Krimiliteratur wie gemacht für den Strandurlaub.

Also Emfehlung von mir.

Holiday reading: Domino Administration Redbooks

It is always a good idea to use vacation to refresh the knowledge about your good old Domino  infrastructure. So today my holiday reading  is:

Domino Administration Redbook

Domino Server performance troubleshooting

Lotus Traveler Deployment Guide