Category: Articles

Coming Soon – IdeaExchange

IdeaExchange

This site will not only allow the community to drive future features that they would like to see in Notes/Domino/Samtime/Quickr etc. but will also be for Lotus ISV’s as well. I have discussed this concept with a half dozen or so Lotus ISV’s in they welcome the approach that we are striving to deliver.

Bruce Elgort

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Gantt Charts in Notes Views – The Sequel

Several gurus of the Lotus Notes community ( like Chris Blatnick, Nathan Freeman, Theo Heselmans, Vitor Pereira, and to round it out Kevin Pettitt ) are working on Gantt Charts in Notes Views these days. Nathan Freeman also provided a sample database.

I’ve downloaded the sample and gave it a try. The first thing I found out is that it is not possible to display more than one month in a view because the “zeroDate” – value for the columns is calculated by stripping the last part of the view title and convert it into a DateTime value. The sideeffect of this method is that documents from a different month are displayed in the view but no chart is displayed for these documents.
OK, you can avoid this by setting the view selction formula properly. The second thing is that Nathan uses

zeroDate :=@TextToTime(@Right(@ViewTitle; "-"));

in each of the 62 view columns to calculate the date basis. Maybe a bit ressource performance consuming, isn’t it ?

So I decided to make a few modifications to address these issues. I created a new field in the task form ( “zeroDate”, Date/Time, calculated )

Gantt Charts in Notes Views
and assigned the following formula to the field:

@TextToTime("[01/"+ @Text(@Month(startDate)) +"/"+ @Text(@Year(startDate)) + "]" )

When you create a new task, the zeroDate field is now set to the first day of the month according to the start date’s month.

You can now delete the unnecessary code from the column formulas and reduce it to

col := 0;
colDate := @Adjust(zeroDate; 0; 0; col; 0; 0; 0);
@If(@Date(startDate) = @Date(coldate); duration; " ")

After adding two categorized columns ( one contains @Year(StartDate) and the other one @Month(StartDate) ) the view displays the charts for each month in a seperate category.

Gantt Charts in Notes Views
The view can have any name of your choice.


!!HELP!! and ExtND

Today I built in the ExtND framework into the !!HELP!! database. Without digging to deep into the framework, I was able to create a simple web interface for the helpdesk. Unfortunately, the framework does not support categorized views at the moment.

But this doesn’t matter. It is an Alpha release. But it already produces nice looking grid views with navigation and stuff. and works as expected in Firefox and IE.

!!HELP!! - ExtND

The next release of !!HELP!! will include the ExtND framework along with a handful of views and forms to enable end-users to watch the progress of their service calls on the web.

I would like to thank all who contributed to the !!HELP!! project. If you, as an end-user, would like to write a testimonial, you can do so here


The Day Before ILUG2007

Just returned from the lobby of the Alexander Hotel in Dublin, Ireland. Loads of geeks already there from mostly the U.S.A and Canada. Attached you find a photo taken while Kitty, Eileen and a Scotsman named Bill preparing some secret stuff for tomorrows event.

Final Preparations


It’s time for ILUG2007

Bags are packed, ready to go. In about 24 hours I’ll start my trip to Dublin, Ireland. I’ll arrive on wednesday moring at 11 am and will stay at the Dublin City Hotel , Dame Street. Looking forward to seeing you all at the conference. In advance, thanks to all organizers for making this event possible.

ILUG2007


Was passiert wenn …

ein Richter beschlieÃ?t, daÃ? zukünftig keine Mais mehr gelöscht werden dürfen, beschreibt Chris Byrne in seinem Blog

Jetzt erkläre mir bitte einmal in diesem Zusammenhang, welchen Sinn es macht, eine wegen GröÃ?enbeschränkung nicht zustellbare Mail incl. aller Anhänge an den Absender zurückzuschicken.


Which color is suitable for which purpose?

color in motionColors reflect a certain personality. They also have several meanings, most of which are closely connected to each other.
For example, blue stands for sky, heaven and water. It reflects freedom and peace, but it can also mean cold, protective, authoritative or technical.
Red is the color of blood, it reflects courage, romance, but it also means hot, dynamic, vital, commanding or alert. All these symbolic connotations are perfectly visualized by Claudia Cortes in her Color in Motion, a real treat for the eye