Help Define the Future of Open Source for IBM Collaboration Solutions

It’s no secret that OpenNTF has helped shape the IBM Collaboration Solutions app dev ecosystem over the last thirteen years.  At IBM Connect you have an opportunity and in some way an obligation to attend the OpenNTF Birds-of-a-Feather session at IBM Connect. It will be an hour of well spent discussion, strategy and relationship building.

If you are developing apps for anything IBM Collaboration Solution (Notes/Domino/Connections/Kenexa/Portal/etc.) please carve out an hour from your schedule on Tuesday morning for this session:

BOF405 – OpenNTF – Grow with the Challenge

Tuesday | 07:00 – 08:00 | Swan Mockingbird 1 & 2

Let’s talk about the future of OpenNTF and Open Source for IBM Connections, IBM Sametime and IBM XWork Server. We would like to have an open discussion with you, how we can engage more developers in OpenSource Software and how the OpenNTF Ecosystem can profit from Open Source software as well.

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From the OpenNTF Way Back Machine

While cleaning up my Mac today I found this oldie but goodie from 2002:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

OpenNTF.org Releases OpenNTF Mail V1.0 for Lotus Notes 6

 Vancouver, WA – October 15, 2002 – OpenNTF.org has announced OpenNTF Mail Version 1.0 for Lotus Notes 6.  OpenNTF Mail is based on the standard Lotus Notes 6 mail template and adds many additional enhancements.  These enhancements include:

  • Quick Mail – A feature that allows the user to quickly compose a new memo to predefined recipients
  • Quick Forward – A feature that allows the user to predefine recipients, and using drag and drop, quickly forward a message
  • Reply and Forward indicators added to views
  • Follow-Up – Ability to flag messages for Follow-Up and, using drag and drop, place them in a
    Follow-Up folder
  • User Interface – Modified the Mail and To Do user interfaces to more closely resemble the Calendar color scheme
  • Productivity Actions
    • Added a Send/Receive action to the Mail outline
    • Added a Find Memo action to the Mail outline
    • Added the Outbox action to the Mail Outline
    • Added a Resend Memo action to the Sent view

Other features include an Advanced tab in the Tools | Show Delivery Information dialog to show additional message header information; a feature that lets the user stop the sending of a Return Receipt on a message; added a Message Size indicator within a Memo; modified views and folders to contain date and time; modified the size column to show kilobytes instead of bytes; and added a key icon indicator to the Inbox to let you know that a message is encrypted.

After meeting on the OpenNTF.org web site, a small group of OpenNTF.org developers or “cooks”, from Norway, The Netherlands, Australia, The United States, France, Chile and Canada, came together to collectively add features to the Notes 6 mail template.  The group used the OpenNTF Project Management Template (developed earlier this year) to manage feature requests, task management, bug tracking, documentation, discussions, news and other application development tasks.   Bruce Elgort, an “Iron Chef” for the OpenNTF Mail template, says “Working with a team of developers whom had never even met, many living in different time zones, is simply amazing!  We went from specification to a deliverable in two weeks.  Using email, Notes replication, Sametime Instant Messaging and Web Conferencing we had all the tools we needed to work as a global team.  Can you say collaborate?”   Vince Shuurman (Oirschot, The Netherlands) who is also an “Iron Chef” on the project says “We were able to work separately and replicate the portions of the template we were responsible for.  We simply refreshed our local mail templates and were then working with the latest build.  We also used the new Domino Designer 6 “design-element-locking” feature to control edits to design elements.”

The OpenNTF Mail Template V1.0 will be available on the organization’s web site at http://www.OpenNTF.org within 7-10 days.

About OpeNTF.org

OpenNTF.org was formed in December 2001 by Bruce Elgort and Nathan Freeman.  The mission of OpenNTF.org is to provide applications for Lotus Notes and Lotus Domino as open source which may be freely distributed, in order to increase the awareness of the power of Lotus Notes and Domino.

Contact:

Bruce Elgort
Co-Founder, OpenNTF.org
Bruce.Elgort@OpenNTF.org

Nathan Freeman
Co-Founder, OpenNTF.org
Nathan.T.Freeman@OpenNTF.org

Do you remember this?

Please join me in welcoming three new OpenNTF Directors

OpenNTF announced earlier this week that there were three new Directors elected to the OpenNTF Board. They are:

  • Paul Withers
  • Nathan Freeman
  • Mark Leusink

I have the privilege of knowing and working with Paul, Nathan and Mark on many occasions. I’m confident that their knowledge, experience, creativity and vision will continue to infuse momentum into OpenNTF. Please join me in welcoming them to OpenNTF.

Please also be sure and thank Ulrich Krause and Julian Woodward for their time serving as Directors on the Board. Both Julian and Ulrich are both amazing individuals who I personally admire immensely.

As I announced in July I will not be returning to OpenNTF as a Director/Chairman of OpenNTF.  I will however remain as an Honorary Director and help OpenNTF in anyway I possibly can.

 

Source Control for Notes, Domino and XPages

A few months back FoCul Ltd. launched a wiki to collect all things related to source control for IBM Notes, Domino and XPages application development:

Source Control has many many advantages for both developers and organisations but it is a complex subject. At FoCul we have been running a project to adopt Source Control on our XPage projects. There is not much documentation about Source Control with DDE and getting this far has been both a difficult and rewarding process.

We don’t have all of the answers and we are still very much learning how it all works. We wanted to share what we have learned and also create a forum where others could share their knowledge so that the ICS community could maybe develop some best practices in this important area.

— Sean Cull

FoCul Source Control Best Practices Wiki

FoCul Source Control Best Practices Wiki >

Poll: Webinars vs. recorded videos – which do you prefer?

In the world of IBM Collaboration Solutions there are frankly a lot of great webinars taking place. However, they all seem to frequently conflict and/or overlap. So I felt that I would create the following poll:

 

Replays of some app dev webinars you may have missed

Back in May OpenNTF launched it’s very own webinar series:

OpenNTF hosts one webinar per month on various IBM Collaboration Solutions app dev topics. This includes sessions about OpenNTF projects, but also other educational, not open source related topics. We’ve planned to cover the wider range of ICS technologies, especially XPages and IBM Connections.

The IBM Collaboration Solutions App Dev Community

 

Getting Started with XPages

 

OpenNTF Domino API


Replays of all the videos are available on the OpenNTF YouTube channel. You can also see a list of upcoming webinars on the “webinars” page of OpenNTF.

More changes on the horizon

Back in April I notified the OpenNTF Board that come this October I will be stepping down as Chairman of OpenNTF – The Open Source Community for IBM Collaboration Solutions. October is when my term as Chairman would normally end. You might have seen on the OpenNTF blog that nominations for eight board seats are now accepting nominations. Once the new board is elected a new Chairman will be elected. I will be working with the new Chairman to ensure a smooth transition.

I highly encourage all partners to get involved with OpenNTF in some way or another as it continues to be one of the pillars that supports the IBM Collaboration Solutions ecosystem.

OpenNTF has been a passion of mine since 2001 and after 12 years, it’s time for me to pursue some other things that I have wanted to do, but haven’t had the time.

Podcast: There’s Gold in Them XPages

We talked with XPages developers Jesse Gallagher (@Gidgerby) and Dr. Mark Roden (@markyroden) about:

  • How Jesse got started with Notes/Domino
  • How Jesse’s interest in Ruby on Rails spilled over into XPages
  • How a Notes/Domino programmer like Jesse has approached and been successful with XPages
  • How to approach XPages app development
  • What about Lotusscript?
  • How to write “clean” code
  • Using source code control
  • Moving from Lotusscript to MVC
  • Why Expression Language and Java are important
  • What XPages can offer that other platforms cannot or offer in a different way
  • The adaptability and flexibility of the XPages platform
  • and much more…

Listen now >

Podcast: Getting started with IBM Connections application development

In this episode of The Taking Notes Podcast (@takingnotespod) we talked about developing applications for IBM’s Connections social software platform. We were joined by three very special guests:

Topics covered during the show included:

  • Overview of the options available to developers (APIs, Widgets, Java)
  • How widgets and apps are deployed within Connections
  • Integrating apps with the Connections Profile
  • Surfacing apps and widgets within Communities
  • How IBM Connections Next will utilize OpenSocial and ActivityStrea.ms
  • How Kudos Badges was built and how it integrates and is managed within Connections
  • Why developers should use XPages to extend Connections
  • How you can work with iWidgets and XPages
  • How to access the Connections REST API’s from XPages
  • Where you can find and download sample XPages apps
  • What other extensibility features might be important for XPages developers
  • and much more…

Resources:
http://ibm.co/StartSocial – Landing for all things ICS development related including Notes/Domino “Next” and Connections “Next”
http://xpag.es/?ForConnections
http://openntf.org/p/xpages%20for%20connections

Listen now >