Lotus Quickr: Cross-place Searching

We had some problems configuring cross-place searching with Lotus Quickr (Services for Domino). In our environment the Quickr server and the Domain Catalog server were on the same machine. According to the documentation there are some paramaters which should not be set on the Domain Catalog server. But if you ommit these parameters the cross-place search is not working. You do not get the option “search all places” within the extended search dialog of Quickr.

So to make cross-place searching work you have to include all of the parameters below into the QPCONFIG.XML file, especially the Domino server name and hostname parameter, even on the Domain catalog server:

<search_places enabled=”true” anonymous=”true”> 
   <domain_catalog_server ssl=”false”> 
      <port>80</port> 
      <domino_server_name>qkdcs/acme</domino_server_name> 
      <path_prefix></path_prefix> 
      <hostname>qkdcs.acme.com</hostname> 
   </domain_catalog_server> 
</search_places> 

Lotus Quickr: Enforce CSS definitions

When you are creating new themes for Lotus Quickr (Services for Domino) you normally re-define some of the original CSS style definitions in the file STYLESHEET.CSS.

Sometimes you need to re-define definitions which are not already present in the CSS file of the original theme but seem to be stored somewheer else within Quickr. If you copy these definitions to your STYLESHEET.CSS and change it, it might not be used as the internal definition have a higher priority. This is not true for all of the definitions but it happens sometimes (and I am not sure what are the exact rules).

Nevertheless, if you want to make sure that your definition has priority over the built-in ones you need to add the parameter “!important” to it.

E.g.

a.h-folderBanner-text:hover, a.h-folderBannerSelected-text:hover {
text-decoration: underline !important;
}

Lotus Notes: Immediate Replication

I recently have learned something new regarding Lotus Notes and replication: If you are using a local mail file then a replication can be triggered by the server if new mail is arriving on the server.

To achieve this you have to set “Local, then server” as the option for mail addressing in your location document. In addition you need to have an open connection to the home/mail server, so this might not work if you did not connect to your server for a longer time and the session has already timed out.

This already works since Notes 6.0 (although it was broken in 6.5.3).

Quickr: How to include images in custom themes

When creating custom themes with Quickr Services for Domino I thought that you have to save images into the server’s file system if you want to reference them within your themes files. I just learned that this is not the case.

You can automatically upload them to the Quickr place. To do this, just place your images in the same folder as your HTML/CSS files and reference them without any path name, e.g.

<img src=”demo.gif” /> 

. If you then upload the HTML file, Quickr automatically finds the necessary images and uploads them to the Quickr place. You can also place all images in a subfolder called e.g. “images”. But then you have to include the folder e.g.

<img src=”images/demo.gif” /> 

This is nothing new for anyone familiar with Quickplace (I am not …). I found this information (and other valuable infos, too) in the old redbook “Customizing Quickplace“. Most of the things described in this redbook are still valid for Quickr so maybe it is worth a look.

b2evolution: Links in Kommentaren erlauben

b2evolution erlaubt es standardmäßig nicht, klickbare Links in Kommentaren zu schreiben (vermutlich um Spammer abzuschrecken).

Um dies trotzdem möglich zu machen, muss man eine Datei mit dem Namen “_overrides_TEST.php” im Verzeichnis “conf/” erzeugen, die den folgenden Inhalt hat:

<?php 
$comment_allowed_tags .= ‘<a>’; 
$comments_allowed_tags  = array( ‘a’ => C_E_a_content );  
?> 

Notes 8 and RSS feeds with authentication

There is an integraded RSS feed reader within the Lotus Notes 8 client. As there were several people asking how to use this feed reader with feeds which require authentication here is a description of how to set this up:

[More:]

Assume you want to access the following authenticated feed:

“http://www.urspringer.de/index.rdf”

First, you need to create an account for the server. Go to “File -> Preferences -> Accounts” and click “New”.

As “Account name” you can choose whatever you want. I am normally using the server name which in this case would be “www.urspringer.de”.

In “Description” you can provide some more information if you like.

As “Type” you choose “HTTP / HTTPS”.

In the “Server” field you put in the server part of the URL including the “HTTP://”. In our example this would be “http://www.urspringer.de”.

Then choose “Use direct log in or single sign-on” and put your user name and password for authenticating into th efields “Name” and “Password”.

Notes 8 Account Settings

Check “Allow other account to use this login information” if you do have more than one server which requires you to enter the same user name and password (as we do e.g. have within IBM as we can use one account for most of our Intranet servers). In this cas you can put in the credentials into one account and in all other accounts you select “Use name and pasword of an existing account” and choose the account where you entered the credentials.

So you only have to change user name and password in one account instead doing this for every single one if the credentials change later.

After you have created an account entry for the server you then can use the feed URL within the Notes feed reader and you will get authenticated automatically.

Kaffeegenuss

Wir haben ja lange überlegt ob wir oder ob wir nicht … Nun haben wir doch entschieden uns eine “richtige” Kaffeemaschine anzuschaffen.

Nachdem wir uns eigentlich das Kaffeetrinken zuhause fast abgewöhnt hatten, weil er uns nicht mehr so recht geschmeckt hat, haben wir uns heute eine “Solis Palazzo Rapid Steam” gegönnt. Ist zwar kein ganz billiger Spaß, aber die ersten Tests waren heute schon sehr vielversprechend.

Gekauft haben wir übrigens bei der Firma Völker in Hösbach. Sie war doch auch nicht viel teurer als irgendwo im Versandhandel. Dafür werden die Maschinen dort noch selber repariert. An dieser Stelle vielen Dank an Simone & Erich für die Empfehlung. :)

Wir werden vermutlich jetzt also doch wieder zum regelmäßigen Kaffeetrinker. Nun müssen wir mal die verschiedenen Kaffeesorten nacheinander ausprobieren. Wer Lust hat, kann uns hier ja mal seine Lieblingssorten bekanntgeben …

More Lotus Online Tutorials Available

In adition to the Lotus Notes 8 online tutorial there are two more tutorials available. One is for users migrating from Microsoft Outlook 2003 to Lotus Notes 8 and the other one is a tutorial regarding the productivity tools included within Lotus Notes 8.

BTW: The “official” starter page for these tutorial links is the “Lotus Notes and Domino 8 technical content” page on Developer Works.

[Thanks to Steve Cogan]

Where is the difference?

Where is the big difference between the look & feel of the Lotus Notes 8 client and the Mac Mail application?

vowe thinks the Mac Mail interface is much better … I cannot understand that as for me both clients look almost the same ….

Compare this picture

Lotus Notes 8 Client Interface

with the Mac Mail picture vowe has published and then decide by yourself.

[More:]

You can easily switch off many of the icons if you do not like them and then get the following picture:

Notes-Clinet wih Icons switched off