Tag: ND802

Notes 8.0.x – Webbrowser, Standardbrowser, HTTP Preview

As you all know, you can select the browser to use in the Notes Client by editing the location document and select the browser in the “Internet Browser” tab. So far, so good. This works fine, if you want to use a different browser as the standard browser registerd for your computer in the Notes Client.

I do not know exactly when IBM changed this, but I know that it has been changed.

Take a look at this screenshot:

Your selection now only has an effect for the “Preview in Web Browser” option in Domino Designer. To set the browser to be used when clicking on a http link in a notes document, you now have to go to “File – Preferences”

What I am missing is an option to select a differnt browser like you could do in the location document prior to Notes 8.0.x.

UPDATE: The Web Browser preference is stored in the file system. ( see screenshot )


Export View Data (Update)

Last month I wrote about the new “Disable View Export” feature in Notes 8.0.2. In another post I stated that it is not possible to set this option programmatically using LotusScript.

Yesterday I stumbled upon an IBM Lotus Software Knowledgebase technote. This technote says that

Enabling or disabling of this option can also be done using an API call (setOption) or a  LotusScript (SetOption).

I cannot find anything about this in the designer help.  Has anybody any information about which (undocumented) “DBOPT_ …” constant to use with the notesDatabase.SetOption( optionName% , flag ) function?

UPDATE: 85 = Disable Export Of View Data
more undocumented stuff


Programmatically Check If Export Of View Data Is Disabled

In Lotus Notes /Domino 8.0.2 you can disable the export of view data by selecting this option in the application properties. To programmatically check if the export is disabled, you can use the following LotusScript.

Function IsExportDisabled () As Boolean
	IsExportDisabled = False
	Dim s As New NotesSession
	Dim db As NotesDatabase
	Set db = s.CurrentDatabase
	Dim IconDoc As NotesDocument
	Set IconDoc = db.GetDocumentByID("FFFF0010")
	If ( Not IconDoc Is Nothing ) Then
		If IconDoc.HasItem("$DisableExport") Then
			IsExportDisabled = True
		End If
	End If
End Function

Notes stores the information in the application’s icon design document. If export is disabled, the $DisableExport field is present. The script simply checks if the field is available. If so, export is disabled and the function returns true else false.


Tweak Notes 8.0.2 Start-Up Sequence

The Notes start-up sequence has been reordered as part of performance enhancement in release 8.0.2. Notes users are now prompted to authenticate (log in using their Notes password) before the Notes workbench appears on-screen.
You can (for whatever reason) disable this new feature by adding ENABLE_EARLY_AUTHENTICATION=0 to the notes.ini.


Disable Export Of View Data

Notes 8.0.2 comes with a new feature to disable the export of view data. You can enable the feature in the application properties. The feature is great but has one disadvantage.

When you disable the export and a user tries to export data from a view, from the security aspect the application behaves as designed. From the users point of view it looks like Notes does not work correct. There is no hint for the user that the export is disabled for this application. ( unless he takes a look at the application properties, what a user never would do )

So IBM, please either disable the menue option for exporting data when the “Disable Export of view data” is checked or at least show a message box to the user who tries to do an export.


Performance improvements from Notes 8.0.1 to 8.0.2

IBM published a technote in the Lotus Software KnowledgeBase about performance improvements in the Notes 8.0.2 client.

“The Notes 8 client is a highly integrated application built on an open framework.  The software stack was optimized to streamline the loading of Java bundles during the initial launch of the Notes 8.0.2 client.

We were able to reduce redundancies and dependencies inherent in a highly integrated application.  Additionally, we have re-ordered the start up sequence. This means that we load only the things necessary to get to your Inbox most quickly, loading other components either in the background, or when they are accessed by the application for the first time. The result is that the Notes 8.0.2 client launches more than twice as fast as the Notes 8.0.1 client.

We didn’t stop there.  The amount of memory that is used by the Notes client was reduced by about 20% in Notes 8.0.2.  This helped us to nearly double the number of Notes users supported by a single Citrix Presentation Server.  This was done by updating to later versions of the underlying stack (JRE, Eclipse, Lotus Expeditor) as well as the same optimization described above.

While the focus has been on the time needed to launch Notes and the memory consumed, attention has been given to other, more generic, tasks that are completed multiple times over a typical day.  These include such tasks as composing emails and opening a calendar entries.  Our findings have shown that the time needed to complete these types of tasks in comparable to the time needed to complete them using the Notes 7.0 client.  The lesson, here, is that while Notes 8 may take longer to launch the many new capabilities it brings, using the client during your work day is similar, with regard to performance, to previous versions.

The efforts that  were spent on performance gains in Notes 8.0.2 will be realized in Notes 8.5 and subsequent releases.

With the many pieces of Notes, this has been a resource-intensive task, but one that is well worth it to give our clients the best possible experience. This information is given in an effort to help you better understand the kinds of things that we have been working on.  The bottom line is that we have looked into many areas where performance can be improved and will present a faster experience in Notes 8.0.2 and Notes 8.5 compared to Notes 8.0 and 8.0.1.”

Chris Miller recently posted a list of technotes for Notes / Domino 8.0.2.