Yesterday I found myself explaining to a new but technical user that Notes/Domino is, like Blackberry. An amazingly powerful and capable piece of software capable of everything that the competition is capable of - plus a whole lot more.divbr //divdiv....and hampered by what is still one of the worst user interfaces in the world./divdivbr //divdiviSorry Notes UI team - I know you're doing your best. The same goes for the blackberry team. I know that they're doing their best too. It's just that the user interfaces have so far yet to go./i/divdivbr //divdivbr //divdivSo, this morning, the same user asks me how to send a link to a file on our common drives without sending the attachment everywhere./divdivbr //divdivHe's already cleverly tried attaching the .LNK file, but our policies don't allow that as it's considered to be an executable file./divdivbr //divdivI said to him that I didn't actually know. 18+ years of using the product and I still really don't know how to do this. I know several workarounds but I don't know of any one all-encompassing method./divdivbr //divdivIt's sad./divdivbr //divdivEven sadder is the fact that as I received the call I was clicking the SEND button on a PDF I was sending around in the required manner./divdivbr //divdivHow did I do it?/divdivbr //divdivI added a button into my mail and dumped a chunk of code which uses the windows ShellExecute API call into the lotusscript section./divdivbr //divdivI looked around the notes client to see if there was a new way (like that wonderful new way of adding web links). Nope... I couldn't see anything./divdivbr //divdivI tried Create as hotspot... it spat the dummy about spaces in the file path./divdivbr //divdivI enclosed in quotes and tried again... this time it almost worked. I changed the beginning of the path to "file://" and it worked - but of course I know that some browsers won't accept file:// urls for security reasons./divdivbr //divdivI'm none the wiser./divdivbr //divdivI did a web search and found the following;/divdivbr //divdivbA set of instructions.../b/divdiva href="http://en.allexperts.com/q/Using-Lotus-Notes-1427/send-link-via-Lotus.htm"http://en.allexperts.com/q/Using-Lotus-Notes-1427/send-link-via-Lotus.htm/a/divdivbr //divdivNope... I'm not telling my users to do that. It's too hard and I'd rather tell them that they can't do it. Try again./divdivbr //divdivbAn External Application/b/divdiva href="http://www.virtualobjectives.com.au/notesdomino/linkhotspot.htm"http://www.virtualobjectives.com.au/notesdomino/linkhotspot.htm/a/divdivbr //divdivYou're kidding right? I mean, kudos to the guys who found an empty market niche but there's no way I'm going to accept that we need to install a third party app for this. It should be built in. In any case, the application does a sort of manual DAOS (Domino attachment and object service). It still stores the attachment in a second place - inside a database in the notes/domino system./divdivbr //divdivbr //divdivbMy Code/b/divdivI guess I should make my button code available for everyone - well, everyone who has a designer client - so, not the majority of my users.../divdivbr //divdiv1. Add a button./divdiv2. Change it to Run on Client - LotusScript/divdiv3. In the declarations section put this code.../divdivbr //divdivdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Declare Function ShellExecute Lib "shell32.dll" Alias "ShellExecuteA" (Byval hwnd As Long, Byval lpOperation As String, Byval lpFile As String, Byval lpParameters As String, Byval lpDirectory As String, Byval nShowCmd As Long) As Long/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"br //span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Declare Function GetDesktopWindow Lib "user32" () As Long/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"br //span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"'CONSTANTS/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Const SW_SHOWNORMAL = 1/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Const SW_SHOWMAXIMIZED = 3/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Const SW_SHOWDEFAULT = 10/span/div/divdivbr //divdiv4. Create a new subroutine as follows;/divdivbr //divdivdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Sub RunShellExecute(sTopic As String, sFile As Variant, sParams As Variant, sDirectory As Variant, nShowCmd As Long)/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" 'EXAMPLE: Play wav file with associated app RunShellExecute "Play", "c:windowsmediaNotify.wav", 0amp;, 0amp;, SW_SHOWNORMAL/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" 'EXAMPLE: Play avi file with associated app RunShellExecute "Play", "E:VB GraphicsaviCogs.avi", 0amp;, 0amp;, SW_SHOWNORMAL/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" 'EXAMPLE: Open txt file with associated app RunShellExecute "Open", "c:My Documentsrundll.txt", 0amp;, 0amp;, SW_SHOWNORMAL/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"'EXAMPLE: Open txt file with notepad RunShellExecute "Play", "C:windowsnotepad.exe", "c:My Documentsrundll.txt", 0amp;, SW_SHOWNORMAL/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Dim hWndDesk As Long/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Dim success As Long/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Const SE_ERR_NOASSOC = amp;H31/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Const vbTextCompare = 1/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Dim HashPos As Integer /span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"HashPos = Instr(1, sFile, "##" , vbTextCompare)/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"If HashPos 0 Then /span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"sTopic = Left(sFile, HashPos -1 )/spanspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"sFile /spanspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"= Right(sFile, (Len(sFile) - (HashPos+1)))/spanspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"End If/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" 'The desktop will be the default for error messages/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"hWndDesk = GetDesktopWindow()/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Print "RunShellExecute: " + "Topic=[" + sTopic + "]" + " File=[" + sFile + "]"/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" 'Execute the passed operation/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"success = ShellExecute(hWndDesk, sTopic, sFile, sParams, sDirectory, nShowCmd) /span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"End Sub/span/div/divdivbr //divdiv5. Write the click routine as follows; (with the LaunchPath pointing to your file)./divdivbr //divdivdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Sub Click(Source As Button)/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"Const LaunchPath = "/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#CC33CC;"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"L:VideosITHacking Fraud Example.avi/span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';""/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/span/divdivspan class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';" /span/spanspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"RunShellExecute "Open", LaunchPath, 0amp;, 0amp;, SW_SHOWNORMAL/span/divdivspan class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:'courier new';"End Sub/span/div/divdivbr //divdivbr //divdivThere.... Easy! ... erm... not./divdivbr //divdivbr //divdivbDAOS/b/divdivThe new Domino attachment and object service helps a lot in this regard. It only stores the attachment once - and without any user-intervention. It's almost a solution but not quite./divdivbr //divdivYou see, in this day and age, we often want to make video and audio recordings of our conferences available to our internal staff without having to store even a single copy on our mail server. After all, sometimes these recordings are several gigabytes because the conferences can last for days./divdivbr //divdivSometimes we just want to point people to a particular folder and not to file./divdivbr //divdivbr //divdivbNo Answer?/b/divdivWell, that's it from me. I've been using Notes/Domino for longer than I was at school and yet I still don't know an easy way to send a link to a file./divdivbr //divdivHas anyone out there got any ideas?/divdivbr //divdiv class="blogger-post-footer"img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/17199472-5304580989075789524?l=dominogavin.blogspot.com' alt='' //div
How to Adjust the timing on a Subtitle SRT file using Subtitle Workshop 4
Wed, Oct 19th 2011 4:22a Gavin Bollard In a previous post, I discussed ways to find subtitles to add to your AVI movies and I also looked at using Google Translate to modify them if they weren't in English (or your chosen language). Note: All of the software mentioned here is free. See: Finding and Adjusting Subtitles on AVI Files. In this post I want to look at how to change the timing on subtitles. Why would you need to do this? Movies have different frame rates depending upon the country that they are shown in and the system [read] Keywords: blogger
google
31
Notes and Domino 8.5.3 are out...
Wed, Oct 5th 2011 10:22p Gavin Bollard The ServerI've upgraded our test server from 8.5.2 to 8.5.3 and it took slightly under 5 minutes. Now that's what I call a good server upgrade (are you listening Microsoft???) Anyway, so far, so good, everything seems to be working but then I haven't done a whole lot of testing yet. The ClientMy client took 21 minutes to upgrade from 8.5.2 to 8.5.3, which felt like a long time. It also came back a little weird and some views didn't populate immediately. Refreshing them made a big difference [read] Keywords: domino
notes
notes client
application
blogger
firefox
google
microsoft
server
39
Finding and Adjusting Subtitles on AVI files
Wed, Aug 31st 2011 8:02a Gavin Bollard If you enjoy watching foreign films or if you're hard of hearing like me, then subtitles are a must in your movie collection. In my last post, I covered how to convert movies from DVD to AVI for playing on a portable player. In this post, I'll be discussing subtitles.
There are two types of subtitles, burned in and selectable. Obviously the selectable type is best because you can turn them on and off and you can obtain different languages too. Within the selectable type, there are a few forma [read] Keywords: blogger
google
properties
45
Converting DVDs to Good Quality AVI Files - Part 2 (The Procedure)
Sun, Aug 14th 2011 11:03p Gavin Bollard Forget the why and wherefores of what we're doing - That's part one which you can read here.
Lets get started;
IngredientsA computer with a large hard drive 20GB Free? Pentium 4 3GHz or Faster and a DVD driveA copy of DVD Decrypter - it's freeA copy of AutoGK - it's free
DVD Decrypterhttp://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/This software allows you to copy the files from a DVD to your hard drive. The project was shut down some years back but it's still possible to get hold of it on the internet. [read] Keywords: blogger
properties
37
Converting DVDs to Good Quality AVI Files - Part 1 (The Waffle)
Sun, Aug 14th 2011 4:02a Gavin Bollard I'm very much a believer in the idea that "files" will be the next big format for video entertainment after DVDs. I guessed right from the start that blu-ray would win the format war against HD-DVD but I never thought that either would take over.
About 15 years ago, after having ridden the music upgrade from LP Records to tapes and to CD, I stumbled across this "new" format called MP3. Back then, there were no MP3 players, just computers but I was enthralled by the idea that with enough s [read] Keywords: blogger
79
Scheduling Maintenance Tasks on the Domino Server
Tue, Jul 26th 2011 4:02a Gavin Bollard I'm sure that most Domino admins have been doing these tasks regularly but if you don't have occasion to touch them often, you might this post useful. As I mentioned last week, we've been having issues with the JVE running out of memory on our server. One of the "solutions" (band-aids) was to restart the domino HTTP task. I've been experimenting to see how long I can leave it and the shortest it's been is about 30 hours. It seemed to be a good idea to stop and then restart the domino HTTP [read] Keywords: admin
domino
ibm
notes
updall
xpages blogger
server
75
Domino Resource Issues under XPages
Sun, Jul 17th 2011 8:22p Gavin Bollard A couple of weeks ago, we launched a new XPages app. Hopefully the first of many. It was very impressive and we got a lot of hits.... ...until the server crashed. Not a big deal. Our server is set to restart automatically, and it was up and running in no time. Then about 1.5 days later we had another crash. We've decided to tackle this on a few fronts, first of all we're rewriting some parts of the app to be a bit less intense and to take better advantage of the recycler. That's all cutting e [read] Keywords: admin
domino
lotus
notes
xpages apple
application
best practice
blogger
development
server
workspace
xml
How to Do a Mail Merge to Email using Lotus Notes
Wed, May 18th 2011 10:26p Gavin Bollard Why do one?In today's "green" world, it makes much better sense to send out emails than letters but you still want to personalize them. Sadly, by itself Lotus Notes doesn't support mail merge to email. Of course, we know that outlook does (but then it lets anyone and anything send emails for you - even when you don't want them to). So, how to do it in Notes? OpenNTFThe first port of call is OpenNTF (http://www.openntf.org/). This place is full of great things but most of them are really bad [read] Keywords: agent
domino
ibm
lotus
notes
notes client
blogger
email
office
openntf
outlook
100
How to Turn off Local Encryption by Default in the Notes 8.x Client
Mon, May 16th 2011 5:42p Gavin Bollard What's this All AboutIf you have a test environment for your Lotus Notes applications, then chances are that you regularly find yourself copying (not replicating) from Production to test - and probably via a Local connection. If you do this a lot, then chances are that at some point you've forgotten to deselect the default local encryption. This is a great security feature but it's quite embarrassing when you arrive at your test site with a database which won't open. Did you know that you ca [read] Keywords: lotus
lotusnotes
notes
notes client
applications
blogger
database
security
