How to insert graphic into your Lotus Symphony presentation

John Head recorded this video showing an innovative approach to inserting graphics from a Lotus Notes image repository straight into your Lotus Symphony presentation.

How to use FCKEditor

To continue with my mini JavaScript-text-editor kick, I moved on to FCKEditor.

FCKEditor is another very popular JavaScript text editor.  (Since I first started playing with it, FCKEditor got reborn in its 3.0 version, now known as CKEditor.  Not sure why the ‘F’ was dropped. Perhaps, as the result of too many off-color jokes.)

Much like TinyMCE, CKEditor boasts to be a lightweight editor that works in any browser.  Its objective is to deliver desktop-like text editing functionality in a browser.  It is fully customizable and does a great job processing content pasted from Word.  The last part is a big selling point, allowing people to create content in Word first, using all the authoring and revision tools, and then paste the final version into the browser.

To add CKEditor to your Domino application is rather very simple.

1. First of all, go here and download the version of your choosing.
2. Extract the downloaded zip file and copy its contents to the html directory of your Domino server.  It might be something like d:\lotus\domino\data\domino\html.  The default directory name will be ckeditor.  You can rename it, if you like, just remember what it is as you will need to reference it in the initialization code of your form.
3. Next, build your form.  Create at least 1 RichText field.  Use the Property HTML tab to give it an ID.
4. Enclose the field inside of a DIV tag.  Using passthru HTML open the DIV tag before on the line before the field and close it on the line after.
5. Now, you’re ready to add CKEditor to your form.  In the HTML Head section of the form, add this 1 line of code:
   “<script type=\”text/javascript\” src=\”/fckeditor/fckeditor.js\”></script>”
   Make sure that the path to you editor matches your directory structure, in case you renamed it for whatever reason.
6. Add the function to load the editor, to the OnLoad event of your form.
   if ( document.URL.search(/OpenDocument/) == -1 )
   {
   var oFCKeditor = new FCKeditor( ‘MyTextarea’ ) ;
   oFCKeditor.BasePath = “/FCKeditor/” ;
   oFCKeditor.ReplaceTextarea() ;
   }

   Be sure to use the ID of the RichText field you want the editor to attach to on the declaration line.  In my case, my field was called MyTextarea.

7. Add a Save button somewhere and you’re all set.

Happy text editing.

 

How to use TinyMCE

One of the more frustrating thing about a web application is that you can never truly duplicate rich text formatting capabilities of a desktop client.  And when you’re web enabling a Lotus Notes application, the difference becomes even more obvious.  Luckily, there are various very light JavaScript text editors, which offer more functionality than the standard out-of-the-box Domino text editor.  One of those editors is a very popular TinyMCE.

TinyMCE is used by many different web content managers, including Django, Drupal, Joomla and this very site — WordPress.  And you can use it inside of your Domino applications.  (I know that some folks been doing this for years, but since I’ve never used a 3-rd party editor in my applications before, so this is new to me.)

The nice thing about TinyMCE is that it is a lightweight WISYWIG editor, which is platform independent.  It is easy to integrate into any application with only few lines of  code.  And it runs under pretty much any browser.

1. So, first of all, go here and download the latest version of TinyMCE.  You can even download various language packs, if you need a different language version of the editor.
2. Extract the downloaded zip file and copy its contents to the html directory of your Domino server.  It might be something like d:\lotus\domino\data\domino\html.  The default directory name will be tinymce.  You can rename it, if you like, just remember what it is as you will need to reference it in the initialization code of your form.
3. Next, build your form.  The easiest way to deploy a TinyMCE editor is to have hook into any text area on your form.  So create at least 1 RichText field.  If you want to control its appearance, you can use the style field on the HTML property tab.
   
4. Now, you’re ready to add TinyMCE to your form.  In the HTML Head section of the form, add this 1 line of code:
   “<script type=\”text/javascript\” src=\”/tinymce/jscripts/tiny_mce/tiny_mce.js\”></script>”
   Make sure that the path to you editor matches your directory structure, in case you renamed it for whatever reason.
5. Add the function to initialize the editor to the JS Header section of the form.  The function below loads the TinyMCE editor with all available options and buttons.  The beauty of this editor is that you can truly control what options and abilities you will give to your users.  Things like a spell checker, for example, are a must.  But you may not want to allow your users to create tables.

tinyMCE.init({

mode : “textareas”,

theme : “advanced”,

plugins : “safari, pagebreak, style, layer, table, save, advhr, advimage, advlink, emotions, iespell, inlinepopups, insertdatetime, preview, media, searchreplace, print, contextmenu, paste, directionality, fullscreen, noneditable, visualchars, nonbreaking, template, wordcount”,

// Theme options

theme_advanced_buttons1 : “save, newdocument, |, bold, italic, underline, strikethrough, |, justifyleft, justifycenter, justifyright, justifyfull, styleselect,formatselect,fontselect,fontsizeselect”,

theme_advanced_buttons2 : “cut, copy, paste, pastetext, pasteword, |, search, replace, |, bullist, numlist, |, outdent, indent, blockquote, |, undo, redo, |, link, unlink, anchor, image, cleanup, help, code, |, insertdate, inserttime, preview, |, forecolor, backcolor”,

theme_advanced_buttons3 : “tablecontrols, |, hr, removeformat, visualaid, |, sub,sup, |, charmap, emotions, iespell,media,advhr,|,print,|,ltr,rtl,|,fullscreen”,

theme_advanced_buttons4 : “insertlayer, moveforward, movebackward, absolute, |, styleprops, |, cite, abbr, acronym, del, ins,attribs,|,visualchars,nonbreaking,template,pagebreak”,

theme_advanced_toolbar_location : “top”,

theme_advanced_toolbar_align : “left”,

theme_advanced_statusbar_location : “bottom”,

theme_advanced_resizing : true

// content_css : “styles/editor.css”

})

6. Lastly, include the TinyMCE save function in your Submit code.
   tinyMCE.triggerSave(false, false);
7. You’re pretty much done.

Now, keep in mind, that the text coming out of TinyMCE will be all HTML formatted.  This is not something that will look good opened in the Notes client, so, primarily, this works well for web only applications.  For applications used both in the browser and in the client, you may want to do some MIME to RichText conversion.

GRANITE in the suburbs?

If you are a Lotus professional in or around Chicago, did you ever you feel that you wanted to come to one of the GRANITE meetings but didn’t want to make the trip downtown?  Roy Rumaner is looking to start a suburban chapter of GRANITE.  He has a discussion going on LinkedIn.

So, if you’re interested, join the discussion and show your support for the idea.  And if you’re not already on LinkedIn, this is a good opportunity to join and connect with other professionals around our town.

Phishing SPAM and it’s from IRS

This is a new one for me.  And the link, of course, doesn’t really go to IRS.

More Lotus-related jobs are being advertised

If you are on LinkedIn and are a member of some of the Lotus-related groups, you should be receiving emails notifying you of new group discussions.  It seems that in the last few weeks there’s been a surge in new Lotus-related jobs being advertised on the forums.  Admittedly, a large number of these sound like mid and long term contract positions, but they are positions and openings never the less.

I don’t know about you, but I’m reading this as a positive sign, a sign of change.

And of course, if you’re actively looking for a job and you’re not on LinkedIn, you really should be.  These jobs and positions are not listed in your weekend classifieds.

“Lotus Knows” Bus is Coming to Chicago

The "Lotus Knows"

Hopefully by now you have heard of the Lotus Knows marketing campaign aimed at promoting the Lotus brand.  Yes, not just an IBM “Smart Planet” campaign, but an actual effort to promote that unique brand inside of IBM — Lotus.

As a part of the campaign, IBM has hired a bus, a big black bus, the “Lotus Knows” bus to travel around the US and Canada as a part of the marketing effort.  I got to see the bus last week at the Lotus Leadership Alliance.  And now this same bus is coming to Chicago.  On the bus, Lotus will showcase Lotus demos and solutions staffed by the local technical teams, Lotus Knows business partners videos and USB giveaways containing links to trial downloads and collateral.

The bus will be in Chicago next week, October 6th and 7th.  On October 6th, it will be somewhere in the vicinity of the Metropolitan club.  Wonder if they will be able to park it on Wacker Drive in front of the former Sears tower.  This will be during the “Get Smart: Smarter Collaboration Means Smarter Business” event.  There’s still time to register for the event and to see the Lotus Knows bus in action.

It’s great to work with a great team

Every now and then a project comes along to remind me of how great of a team I have the privilege to work with at PSC.

Our client had asked us to come up with a custom solution to secure large PDF files.  They have a DRM solution, LockLizard, but, considering the large number of users involved, didn’t think it was appropriate in this case.  So, in about 1 day, two of our “Notes” consultants came up with what the client called “one of the most elegant solutions” they have ever seen.  Even though it was designed by our Notes team, the final solution does not involve Notes but rather a custom application to secure and package the PDFs.

If all you have is Lotus Notes, everything looks like an NSF.  But in today’s world, it is impossible to stick with one tool, with one solution.  A great consultant is not afraid to stretch out of his comfort zone and admit that his tool of choice may not be the best tool for the job.  If Notes doesn’t fit, don’t try to shove a square peg into an NSF.

I am glad that at PSC we have great consultants.

Free Gyros in Chicago on September 1st

If you like eating gyros and you live in Chicago, you’re in luck.  Tomorrow, September 1st, 2009, Kronos Foods is offering a free gyro at one of 44 participating restaurants.  To take advantage of the offer just visit the Kronos’ website and print out a coupon.  Bon appetit!

‘Twas the night without Twitter

So this was quite a refreshing experience…

The first social event at MWLUG, the pre-conference informal get-together, brought together 17 of us.  Is started off with a couple of rounds of drinks at the Crowne Plaza hotel and ended with a dinner at Roditys.  (Roditys just happens to be my favorite Greek restaurant, so I was very happy to hear that everyone liked the food.)

What made the night really special was a refreshing absence of business and Twitter in our conversation.  Majority of the people that got together I met for the first time face-to-face: some I’ve never met before, others were on-line acquaintances  from  the Lotus community.  But our conversation seemed like that of old friends.  I admit, I don’t remember what it was all about, but I do remember that there were no awkward silences.  And even more so, I don’t remember seeing anyone pull out their mobile device to Tweet.  Maybe they did and I just didn’t notice.  If they did, I applaud their stealth.  If they didn’t — cool!