I don't typically hock my wares on the blog, but I thought that this would interest the readership.

I'm currently putting the finishing touches on my latest application - Spread, my NotesData Export Engine for the Lotus Notes 8 (and above) client. This is a consumer-focused product aimed at... well, I suppose anyone who has to take content from a NotesDatabase and work with it in Microsoft Excel.

Today, it's going into Microsoft Excel. Tomorrow -- meaning phase 2 -- I'm going to expand the export capabilities to not only CSV but also OpenOffice and Lotus Symphony.

Some of you may be curious as to what it does: simple really. An admin will define an Export Template. That Export Template will consume a NotesDocumentCollection - either via a defined Application Profile and NotesDocument Selection Formula or at runtime passed via the Lotus Notes client UI (UnproccessedDocuments, etc.). The engine takes each NotesDocument and evaluates it against a defined subset of values that will make up the Excel spreadsheet.

That was all geekspeak for You can either select some documents from a view or just tell it which report to run, and it'll just export the info into Excel! The goal is to make it simple for people to generate reports from any Lotus Notes application, and to do that...

This application will be a Lotus Notes Composite Application, wired as a widget. Once this widget is installed, the idea is that you can select a bunch of documents, right-click, and select Export... from the pop-up menu. A prompt later - mostly asking what it is that you want to export - and you're staring at your spreadsheet complete with NotesData from your application.

I'll babble more about this, as well as talk about the build once the product ships... but I thought that I would show you the Lotus Notes client UI for the application itself:

I've tried to go with as much of a Web UI as I could in the Lotus Notes 8 client without impacting functional integrity -- the last thing this application needs is a flaky UI just because I want it to stand out.

The build is fairly basic - a single Frameset Design Element used as the Default Launch Object for the Lotus Notes Client (since you can't lauch a Form Design Element without relying on hacking), Embedded Views on the application Dashboard/Home page, and a simple-yet-functional interface into what I hope will be an easy to use yet extremely powerful Lotus Notes Client plug-in.

I'll be putting out the call for alpha testers soon, but anyone with export needs that can report bugs back to me please contact me.

This will be a product that I'll be selling -- still working out fair pricing and just what you get for said price, but talk of that will follow.

Also, I'll keep this as far from being a commercial and more focusing on -- when I do bring it up -- the development of the product, as I think that is the more interesting part of this whole exercise for my developer-minded readers.

Just a little teaser video showing you the Frameset-less Lotus Notes Client UI Design that I had mentioned a few weeks back.

It's not much, but it should give you an idea as to what I was getting at from a functional design standpoint. ;-)

More to come - as I mention in the video - as soon as I get some downtime to play around...

I've put together a simple little teaser video that shows off the RenderKit architecture for the Lotus Notes Domino CMS I'm currently working on and plan to use to host not only this site, but also a few pro-bono websites I'm putting together.

Once complete, I plan on publishing the Lotus Notes Domino CMS to OpenNTF.org, so if you have any comments, questions, and suggestions, please feel free to comment in this post!

I had the opportunity recently to speak with Sean Poulley - Vice President of Online Collaboration Services at IBM - about LotusLive - a Business 2.0 service offering that is far beyond "yet another social network".

Expect to see an article on the whole conversation, discussing things that customers and business partners should know about LotusLive, later this week... but today's post discusses one of the key phrases that I was introduced to while speaking with Poulley: onsite product portfolio.

See - LotusLive is only partially a cloud service! One of the intentions is to allow you to seemlessly integrate the onsite product portfolio with the ever-expanding LotusLive services portfolio - allowing you to better leverage (not abandon) your current technology investments in the Lotus brand.

One of the integration points that's available today is the LotusLive Plug-In for Lotus Notes 8 (LotusLive Login Required).

I'll give you a visual companion to the directions supplied by the LotusLive Support Team via the LotusLive Engage Support FAQs, and when complete you will be able to push and synchronize your Lotus Notes Contacts with your LotusLive Contacts!

Perform the following instructions on the workstation where you have Lotus Notes installed.
1. Using a text editor, open the following file:
Notes Install Directory\framework\rcp\plugin_customization.ini
The Notes Install Directory is usually C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes
2. Perform one of the following steps:
If the following line is not present, then add it to the end of the file:
com.ibm.notes.branding/enable.update.ui=true
If the line is present, make sure that the value is equal to true.
3. Save the file and close your text editor.
4. Stop and restart Lotus Notes, if it is running.

These steps are required for the initial setup of any of these plug-ins in the Lotus Notes 8.n Client. If you're setup TwitNotes, Document Viewer, et al, I think you can skip these steps...

Next, go Lotus Notes and perform the following instructions.
1. Select File > Application > Install. The Features Update box displays.
2. Select Search for new features to install, and then click Next. The Application Location box displays.
3. Click the Add Remote Location... button, and then add the following:
Name: LotusLive Updates
URL: https://apps.lotuslive.com/install/lotuslive_notes_plugin/site.xml

4. Click OK to continue. LotusLive Updates displays in the list of locations.
5. Click Finish and a new window displays.

6. Select the check box for LotusLive Updates, and click Next.
7. To continue, you must accept the license agreement, and click Next.

8. Click Finish. If a window displays about trusted signers, you must select Install this plug-in and OK to continue.
9. Select Yes when a message to restart Lotus Notes displays.

Now that you've installed this plug-in.. you'll want to use it! Simply select Tools\Sync contacts with LotusLive from the Lotus Notes Client File Menu.

If all's fine in the world, you will be prompted for your LotusLive User Name and Password credentials:

Author's Note: If you were originally a bluehouse.lotus.com user and your account was ported to LotusLive, change your account password via LotusLive Administration. Apparently (as I - and several others - experienced this exact issue) those ported accounts would allow us to access LotusLive.com, LotusLive Sametime and LotusLive Connections (even via the Activities sidebar), but thus plug-in only accepted authentication credentials post-account password change.

Once you've successfully authenticated, your Lotus Notes Personal Address Book Contacts will be pushed to the LotusLive Contacts list, and any changes with those contacts updated!

This is not only a pretty slick feature on it's own, but it should both show you where LotusLive can go once you understand integration with the onsite product portfolio, as well as give customers and business partners ideas on how they can make their own products integrate either with other cloud services or specifically with LotusLive.

See... it's stuff like this that makes me giddy: Lotus Notes is being positioned/has the potential to be positioned as the solution that binds cloud service offerings, in-house custom application development efforts, and thus the single functional dashboard to a customer's world!

If you're not already signed up, I suggest checking LotusLive out. And while you're there, feel free to make me a connection!

I came to a realization today that I'm doing it wrong!

I've been using Domino Designer in Eclipse for a while now - both in pre-release as a Design Partner and the Public Beta, and as my primary development environment for the past few weeks... and I've been using it how I've been using Domino Designer for years now. In fact, I had been using the Lotus Notes 8.5 client the same way that I have for the past few years. That is, I've been relying on the Workspace as my Home Page, right-click Open in Designer... as needed, and keeping my Lotus Notes and Domino applications grouped in Workspace via tabs with even further visual segregation of the chicklets through use of whitespace. And this worked for me! I was able to quickly get to any of the applications I was working on, that I needed to work in, and I had it down to a science! That is until my laptop's hard drive decided to die on me!

Now, don't worry - I was able to recover all of my data (thankfully), but I vowed from that point onward to force myself to use the latest features within the applications that I spend the majority of my life in... and to start that bold new venture, I went with a fresh installation of the Lotus Notes 8.5 client.

After the initial setup, I fought the urge to set the Workspace as my Home Page and went with "Basic". Doing so, I found a new trick for non-Notebook users who blog, and I found myself becoming more and more comfortable with this entry point into the Lotus Notes client. I did, however, have some frustrations with the DDE client - specifically the time it took to launch a given Notes Application. This is the real subject of this post - and only several paragraphs in! - and something that I would urge all of you to check out.

See, prior to about 30 minutes ago... I would open a Notes Application in Domino Designer as needed. When I was done with whatever I was doing in that given application, I'd remove the application from the Domino Designer bookmarks. Sound familiar?

Well, if you try to do this in DDE, pack a sandwhich! Each time you do this, DDE builds out the project... and you wait.

It got to the point that opted to run Domino Designer 8.0 on another laptop instead of dealing with this apparent lag.

I see now that I was being a stupid end user. I wasn't using the DDE client as designed! I wasn't using the features that would alleviate my problems, because I was stuck in the past usage experiences. I was using the Workspace all over again...

So what do I recommend? Well, try this out. Open in Designer a Notes Application in DDE. Now exit the DDE client. Now open the DDE client directly - from either the DDE launcher in the Open menu or from your system's DDE Shortcut. Faster huh? So the answer is to leave all Notes Applications in DDE. Every. Single. One. But that could very well make the DDE client unusable... or at least the Applications Navigator Pane.

The answer is to manage your Notes Application into Working Sets!

What's a Working Set? From Lotus Domino Designer 8.5 Help:

When working with applications, you may wish to group several applications together as a "working set." The Applications Navigator can use working sets to restrict the sets of applications that are displayed. If a working set is selected in the Applications Navigator, only resources, children of resources, and parents of resources contained in the working set are shown.

So, from the Application Navigator, select Manage Working Sets.

From here, you can create, edit, and even delete Working Sets.

You can easily select the Notes Applications you wish to include in a given Working Set.

Now, you can apply load your chosen Working Sets at will - allowing you to filter what Notes Applications are displayed in the Application Navigator Pane in DDE.

Pretty simple, yet allows you to not only alleviate the aforementioned lag when opening a Notes Application in Domino Designer in Eclipse for the first time, but this new evolution in the Domino Designer allows you to better categorize and structure you work. See, it's faster and smarter!

I feel like I'm growing as a person...