Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Embedded Web Page

I finally had time to play with Nathan Freeman's embedded frameset technique that he posted on his blog awhile back. He has on his web site his Sesame Street demo that he created. It is a really cool idea that he came up with. So I thought I could expand on this technique and demonstrate how you could use this technique to embed a web page within a Lotus Notes document.

I thought a good demo would be embedding Google Map onto a Lotus Notes document. This would be great to have in something like a contact management system. Rather than having it pop up in a new Lotus Notes window, you could have the Google Map appear inside the document. Using the technique that Alan Lepofsky mentioned on his blog, google mapping technique, you can combine the two techniques to create an embed Google Map.



Since Google Map does not look too good in a small embedded window, I created it as a pop up window within the document using layers.

I have included the code for this in the sample database. link Here is how it works.

In the form “URLaddress,” I created a series of fields that represents the contact information for a person. There is also a hotspot that will be used to display Google Map for that contact.

Just as with the Sesame Street demo we created a frameset that has a hidden frame named “launcher.” We create a form named “secondform” that autoframes in the hidden frame, “launcher.” In the form “URLaddress” we create a layer that has an embedded editor that displays the form “secondform.” This will force the frameset to appear within the embedded editor in the form. The layer serves as a pop up window and its appearance is determined by the value in the field “closeField”.



When you click on the hotspot on the form “URLaddress” it will calculate the Google URL for the contact location. This information is then stored in a notes.ini parameter “URLFIELD.” The field “closeField” which determine if the pop up layer is shown is set to “1” and the document is refreshed. When the document is refreshed, the embedded frameset appears.

The main frame of the frameset displays an URL that is either a blank Lotus Notes page, “blankpage” or the Google Map URL that was stored in the notes.ini parameter “URLFIELD”.



Unfortunately, one issue that has come up is that if the Web page has an input field in it, the focus will remain there until you close off the Web page. The backspace and cursor keys will not work otherwise. Therefore, in the X close button in the pop up layer, the code clears the notes.ini parameter when you close the pop up layer so that when you refresh the page the web page is closed.

There is a number of different things that you could do with this technique including creating composite applications. So try it and thank Nathan Freeman for his embedded frameset technique. Next time, composite applications even on Notes 5 clients.

Monday, November 19, 2007

Transformers Musical Score

Now that the new Transformers movie has come out on DVD for a few weeks, my son has watched the movie at least a couple of dozen times. The movie is not bad. But after watching it with him, I got hook on the musical score. It is great mix of fast pace scores and haunting music. The first Transformers soundtrack was bad that came out just after the movie was released. It was just a brunch of songs most of which were not even in the movie. The new soundtrack that came out last month is fantastic. The composer is Steve Jablonsky who done as number of movie most of which I have never seen.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

We Are Back

It has been a few years since our training company, ReCor Corporation, has exhibited at Lotusphere. There was not much demand for Lotus Notes training for the past few years since the Notes interface didn't really change much. But we are back for Lotusphere 2008. With the new Notes 8 interface, it was logical for us to exhibit our new Domino-based Notes training solutions. We will be exhibiting our LearningDocs for Lotus Notes 8 and Domino Web Access 8 training courses. We made major additions to the products. We improved our Java-based Enrave tools to simulate the Notes 8 environment. We will be at booth 533 either under our ReCor or Taishan Works company name. Either way stop by our booth. We will also be demonstrating our SOA-based Integrated Business Framework technology. Since we were turned down for Lotusphere, we will be presenting our SOA methodologies in the GRANITE Lotus User Group in 2008 instead.

Having a booth at Lotusphere has its advantages but also has its disadvantages. Unfortunately, being at the booth will give me less time going to sessions.

See everyone at Lotusphere.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Turn down again: Lotusphere Abstract

Hi Everyone,

It has been a long time since I blog. I have been too busy working on a number of customer projects. Sadly, I have learned over the weekend that we have been turned down again on our Lotusphere abstract submission, "SOA, Not Just for the Web." I thought it was been a great session given the direction that Notes and Domino is moving towards. Just like the Chicago Cubs, there is always next year.

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