Development – Page 13

JoyDrop: Give • Get • Share

This evening Apple approved the JoyDrop app that I developed for the Children’s Cancer Association.

“JoyDrop offers a place to share spontaneous moments of joy.Your “drops” of joy, collected with others, can create a sea of joy. At the Children’s Cancer Association we like to call it the Joy Effect.We invite you to share your found joy, moment by moment, drop by drop by using the JoyDrop app.Please share often.”

The app allows you to share your words of joy and post them to Facebook if you want. Not only can JoyDrops be seen in the app, they can also be added and viewed on the Children’s Cancer Association Facebook “JoyDrop” Fan Page app:

For you geeks out there the iOS app was built with Appcelerator and stores data in an IBM Domino database. There are no more than 400 lines of code for the Appcelerator portion of the app. The app utilizes an XPages “XAgent” to post data and a Domino Access Services view to send JSON data back to the app to display JoyDrops. It literally took only minutes to develop the app interfaces in XPages. The Facebook app was built with XPages and the Facebook Graph API. It’s pretty cool how easy it is to utilize the Graph API within XPages.

The next version of the app will incorporate photo sharing from the iPhone and some other goodies. After that I will work on getting an Android version of the app developed.

A big thanks to my friends Matt White, Jeremy Hodge, Serdar Basegmez, Julian Robichaux, Niklas Heidloff, Mark Hughes, Per Henrik Lausten and Thomas Gumz for their support.
Stay tuned for a NotesIn9 video on how this app was put together.

Podcast: The Evolution of XPages

Russ Maher of QDiligence (@russelmaher) and Paul Calhoun (@ptcalhoun) of NetNotes Solutions talk to us about the evolution of IBM’s XPages rapid application development platform. Russ and Paul are also the instructors of The View’s popular XPages Bootcamp which is taking place in Las Vegas and Chicago this Fall. We would like to thank The View and their XPages Bootcamp for sponsoring this show.

We talk about:

History of the XPages Bootcamp and how they kept the course material in-line with the XPages point releases
Upcoming changes in Domino 8.5.4 (Niklas Heidloff’s blog post)
The new Java jar design element in 8.5.4
Server-side JavaScript Debugger in 8.5.4
What OSGi plugins are
OSGi and the Extension Library and how it has evolved
How XPages in Domino 8.5.4 has evolved since 8.5.0
How OneUI has grown over the years
Dojo and how it has evolved within the context of XPages
XPages in the Notes Client (XPINC) and how it has evolved
and much more..

The show runs 44:50.

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:

Luis Benitez – IBM Product Manager (@lbenitez)
Adam Brown – ISW Director (@adambrownaus)
Niklas Heidloff – IBM (@nheidloff)

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 >

Podcast: Learning XPages with Mark Myers and Matt White

Based on his recent blog entry about learning XPages, we brought Mark Myers on the show to discuss his approach to wrapping your head around XPages, especially coming at it as a person with a strong Java background. Matt White was also on the podcast to offer the perspective of someone who has been helping people learn XPages for several years now. We discussed things like:

NOT thinking of XPages as “another Notes design element”
Coming to XPages from the Java developer perspective
The amount of learning resources and help available now versus a few years ago
Using Java and server-side JavaScript (SSJS)
Some of the struggles that newbies might face
And more…

Mark and Matt are both members of the London Developer Co-op, and they have graciously renewed the TakingNotes discount code for XPages101 online training courses. If you go to the XPages101.net website and sign up using the discount code “taking notes”, you will receive a 33% discount off the list price of your subscription.

Listen now >

IBM Notes/Domino mobile solutions podcast roundup

Over the last couple of months Taking Notes (@takingnotespod) has interviewed three companies who provide software, tools and services that can help you mobilize your Notes and Domino applications:

We4IT’s docLinkr (Episode 159)
YouAtNotes Domino To Go (Episode 158)
Teamstudio’s Unplugged (Episode 151)

We also recently had some other mobile related shows that you may find interesting:

jQuery in XPages with Marky Roden (Episode 157)
Mobile App Strategies with Graham Acres (Episode 152)

Podcast: Develop native mobile apps for Notes/Domino with Domino To Go

Walfred Marzahn from YouAtNotes spent 20 minutes talking to us about their “Domino To Go” product. Domino To Go allows you to create native mobile apps that can access your Notes/Domino databases. We covered:

Who is YouAtNotes and what do they do?
Which mobile platforms are supported
How easy it is to create apps with Appcelerator’s Titanium and Domino To Go
Which development languages you need to know
The pricing tiers for Domino To Go Cost?
Are there any limits to the number of databases you can access from a single app?
What about offline access?
and more…

Be sure to check out the Domino To Go FAQ.

This show runs 21:33.

Listen now >

From my inbox: Domino based URL shortener

Today I received an email from a customer who was looking for a Domino based URL shortener and I was wondering if any of you could help them with some guidance:

Hi Bruce,

Are you aware of any Domino based URL shorteners that do the following:

Core Requirements

Shortens URLs

Customise a short URL

Does not require authentication

Provides metrics on click throughs (like on bit.ly where you add a “+” to the URL to get metrics)

Share button / bookmarklet that shortens the URL and creates a web page with the link

Has an API (JSON would do) for other services to send long URLs and retrieve short URLs, call for metrics on short URLs etc.

Desirable

Reserve custom URLs – e.g., “Bank CEO” etc..

Gathers IP addresses to determine location of users

Determines browser type

Determines OS type

Admin interface to manage the above.

I have seen http://xpag.es – this seems close but doesn’t do the metrics, custom URLs, API etc.. We currently have something on a dev server but it is based on OS software and we have a strict policy on using such tools. We would like a quick win – something we can put onto our Domino servers to provide an analogous service. Please let me know – I am hoping you may have something available (LinkJam does too much and doesn’t seem to shorten the URL), or you may know of something from your network.

Please let me know if you know of such an application or would be willing to offer your services to code one up.

Podcast: jQuery in XPages with Mark Roden

Today we talked to Mark Roden about using jQuery in XPages. Topics included:

Why use a JavaScript toolkit?
Why use jQuery instead of (or along with) Dojo?
Any considerations about using jQuery and Dojo on the same page?
What are some good jQuery plugins to look at?
What about jQuery for mobile web apps?
How about documentation?
Mark’s website is xomino.com and his Twitter handle is @markyroden. Other links mentioned in the show were docs.jquery.com, stackoverflow, and Matt White’s XPages101 (lesson 27).

This episode runs 37:23.

Listen now >

Podcast: Interview with the authors of the XPages Extension Library book

On this show we sat down with all of the authors of the new “XPages Extension Library” book which is now available for purchase. This 537 page book was written by Paul Hannan (@pdhannan), Declan Sciolla-Lynch (@qtzar), Jeremy Hodge(@jeremyhodge), Paul Withers (@paulswithers) and Tim Tripcony (@timtripcony).

The book is also available as an eBook, on Kindle and as an iBook.

On the podcast we discussed:

How the book came to be
What tools they used to produce the book
The OpenNTF Extension Library Project and the associated Upgrade Pack 1 documentation on the IBM Wiki
An introduction to the XPages Extension Library and what it exactly is
How the book is goes beyond being “the documentation”
Who else was involved with the creation of the book content
Paul, Declan, Jeremy, Paul and Tim talk about the chapters they co-authored and some of their favorite XPages Extension Library controls
Tim’s WatrCoolr project on OpenNTF
Russ Maher and his unique way of reading this great new book
The XSP Starter Kit Project on OpenNTF by Nathan T. Freeman
XPages architect Phil Riand and Tim’s upcoming interview with Taking Notes (Exclusive!)
and much more….

You can also follow Julian (@jrobichaux), Bruce (@belgort) and The Taking Notes Podcast (@takingnotespod) on Twitter.

The show runs 40:10. Oh and before we forget! Be sure and listen to Episode 154 of Taking Notes to hear Paul Calhoun and Russ Maher talk about all things XPages. Thanks for subscribing.

Listen now >