Today when I was reading Mary Beth's blog found something cool which I always wanted to do . Guess what , To change my Notes theme. Here are the simple steps to do the same,

1- Create new connections document with following details,

Server Name : Tranquility/TurtlePublic
Destination server address: www.noteswidgets.com




2- Go to "Preferences- > Widgets" and provide following details,

Catalog Server : Tranquility/TurtlePublic
Catalog Name : widgetcatalog.nsf




Save the changes.Wait for while when your system connects the catalog server and fetch all the themes. Basically It ask you to download .jar file (plug in). Say yes and wait for while when it gets downloaded.Once done, It will prompt you to re-start your Notes.After re-start, Go to "Preferences -> Widgets" and select "Theme" check box and save the changes.



Now you are ready to choose your theme , Click "Windows and Themes" to select your theme.



Here is my client now,



Now possible cause of failure,

1- In-correct location document creation.
2- If you received an error, make sure you can add at least google widgets in your client. If not, check your proxy which may stop you to connect the server.

Notes/Domino 8.5 Fix Pack 1 has mentioned about this error ,

" SPR# QLIG7LYB3Q - Error to connect to widget catalog server, Notes.jar recycled error".

So if anybody is having problem with R8.5 then install fix pack 1 for R8.5.

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/R5FixList.nsf/8d1c0550e6242b69852570c900549a74/43c58a61277b4cd6852576020069d93d?OpenDocument

The Notes 8 client has a feature call the Sidebar, with several miniature applications called widgets. Widgets allow you to use Notes as a "desktop" for more than just your e-mail. As it's configured when you first start up Notes, the Sidebar has widgets for RSS feeds, Activities, Sametime, and Day-At-A-Glance. Two of these are particularly useful for any Notes user. The RSS widget lets you follow RSS feeds, and the Day-At-A-Glance widget summarizes your Notes calendar. The other built-in widgets require additional software; the Sametime widget integrates Notes with the Sametime Connect client in the Sametime instant messaging software, and the Activities widget requires the Activities server.

The "free" comes into play when you activate "My Widgets" in the Sidebar. Doing so allows you to create and import useful or interesting widgets, such as Notes views, websites or additional content feeds. Best of all, they can also be widgets that you import from Google Gadgets. Yes, you can peruse the Google Gadgets catalog and bring them into your Notes desktop.

That certainly opens up a world of opportunities...

To get started, go into your Notes client preferences (File > Preferences) and navigate to the Widgets properties. Select the checkbox option for Show Widget Toolbar and the My Widgets Sidebar Panel. Close and restart the Notes client.



Once done, you'll have three new widget icons in your toolbar.



Use the "Getting Started With Widgets.." toolbar button to open widget wizard.



Next use the "Configure a widget from current context" to configure place of your widgets. Finish the wizard as per instructions



You can see sidebar at your right window , Click "My Widgets" section to add new widgets.



When you click on "Configure a component from.." option , you can find various source to configure widget. Choose "A Google gadget" to get something cool.When you do so , you can get another dialog to choose either browse to google directory or add by url.



I would prefer to go by directory , lets choose the same and select your gadget.



After selecting your gadget , next you need to add in current context. To do so , click on "Configure a widget from current context.." button.



Once done, you can see new gadget in "My Widgets" section. Just double click and open it.





Now,Notes can be your single destination for what you do and the things you manage on a daily basis. Try and see the difference.

Today I was just looking at " File ->Preferences " option in Notes menu and found something new which I never noticed before. Under " Windows and Themes " there is an option called "Group documents from each application on a tab" . I was not aware about this option so thought lets play around and see the difference.
I found great result to improve your IDE behavior while designing your system.

Lets see what I got

When we run Lotus design elements (form, view,page or document.. etc ) in client , every time it opens in new tab. What happens when 10 or even 20 window you have opened ? It makes quite hard to navigate each window . it looks something like ,



What if you wish to group application in each tabs ? Here is the option ,



Now here is the result ,



Hope you can take advantage if you never noticed like me :D

Before Lotus Symphony, if you want to send some Office documents over an e-mail then you have to compose the document , save and attach it in the memo to dispatch . But, What I noticed at first glance in Symphony, just compose new word/excel/presentation document and attach it without going out or even saving :). I love it because I don't need to save each and every document in my disk before sending . have a look,



Even more interesting , before sending it asks "Do you want to save the document before sending", If you want to save go ahead , afterward Notes will attach the document in the new memo . If you don't want to save in the disk, just say no , still it will attach in the new memo . Only difference it will attach with ".odt" extension. if you want to go with ".doc" extension you must need to save it on the disk with preferred extension and rest Notes will do for you.



I am going to stop composing MS word or Excel :-P , Because I am not in kinda managerial job where need lots of Word or Excel functionality. Stuffs which I do , I can achieve with Symphony. Explore it , You will love it . I must say IBM should release new Lotus Script classes and methods to communicate with Symphony ( Just heard API is released), It will make our life more simpler.

Here are useful urls for Symphony

Help
Gallery/Templates

THE White House is valued at more than $308 million (S$455.6 million), making it the most expensive residence in the United States, a real estate research firm said on Thursday.

It is still about $23 million less than its value a year ago, Zillow.com said in an indication that the White House has not been spared from the US home mortgage meltdown, the epicenter of the global financial crisis.

Using a formula that determines a home's current estimated worth based on public data and recent sales, Zillow valued the residence of the US president at $308,058,000.

It 'would make this by far the most expensive residence in the United States', the Seattle-based firm said in a statement ahead of president-elect Barack Obama's January 20 inauguration.

Mr Obama takes over the sprawling presidential residence when incumbent George W. Bush officially vacates it on that day.

Zillow, which estimates values for 84 million homes or more than 90 per cent of the US residential market, said it decided to put a figure for the White House just for fun.

'We thought it would be fitting to provide a (estimate) value for the most famous US home of all as president-elect Obama and his family prepare to move in,' said Mr Stan Humphries, Zillow's vice-president of data and analytics.

'Obviously the White House will never be for sale, but given the immense amount of public data on this home, we thought it would be fun to crunch the numbers and say, 'what if'.'

The White House includes 55,000 square feet (5,109 square metres) of indoor space, 132 total rooms, 35 bathrooms, 16 bedrooms, three kitchens and 18 acres (7.3 hectares) of premium downtown Washington land.

Aside from studying the home's physical characteristics to determine its value, Zillow considered the most expensive home sales in Washington in 2008, as well as other historic homes in the DC area recently for sale, and calculated the premium historic homes typically fetch.

Zillow's statisticians deemed the White House 'the most historic home in America and applied a maximum historical premium to their models to determine' its current estimated value.

The White House's estimated value has decreased by 7.2 per cent, or more than $23 million in the past year, the company said.

However, the home's value has nearly doubled from the $167.86 million Zillow estimated it was worth in January 2001 when Mr Bush was sworn in as president.

As most of the developer notice , Lotus Notes having lots of formula and functions which are not documented in help file. Some of them we can find by some source , but who knows how many are still hidden.
Long time back one of my Lotus admin colleague had requirement to find out number of files shared over Lotus sametime chat.Fortunately She was able to catch one guy from IBM, He was employed at IBM. He had given some java files and instruction document, which was suppose to use inside IBM only. Along with that He told , I can't assure you whether it will work for you or not . Since we don't support this tool. I tried the code with Lotus Sametime but unfortunately didn't work.
Anyways, It was just an event which make me realize there are certain things which could be use only by IBM. Lets see some of the undocumented and rarely use formula/functions of Notes.

@GetMembers(List; Pos [, number])

E.g; @GetMembers(list;1) REM { list:= "A":"B" }

It returns "A"

@Text(@Now; "*")

It creates new replica ID.

@DbBuildVersion

Returns build number , For R8 it returns "322"

@LocationGetInfo ([Home Server])
@LocationGetInfo([CatalogServer])
@LocationGetInfo([SametimeServer])
@LocationGetInfo([NamePreference])
@LocationGetInfo([MailProtocol])
@LocationGetInfo([WebRetriever])
@LocationGetInfo([BookmarksFileName])
@LocationGetInfo([InternetMailAddress])
@LocationGetInfo([AreaCode])

@LocationGetInfo([UNID])

All of the above provides information from the current work environment

NoPersist option in SetProfileField / GetProfileField:
@SetProfileField([NoPersist];"Value to store";@Username) @ SetProfileField ([NoPersist], "Value to store"; @ UserName)


This is a neat flag used to set variables in a virtual profile document - it doesn't really exist. This is a neat flag used to set variables in a virtual profile document - it does not really exist. It's kind of like an environment variable, except instead of writing to Notes.ini, you're writing to a temporary client session cache. It's kind of like an environment variable, except instead of writing to notes.ini, you're writing to a temporary cache client session. This only works in the UI between windows in the same database for the life of the current session. This only works in the UI between windows in the same database for the life of the current session. Each database has its own NoPersist cache on the Notes client, so unlike environment variables, this will only work in the same database. Each database has its own cache NoPersist on the Notes client, so unlike environment variables, this will only work in the same database.

@DbCommand("Domino";["LoadAddressListByIndex" | "LoadAddressListByName"];"names.nsf"; txtTargetField; strMax; [strIndex | strKey])

If entries in the registry are available:
@RegQueryValue("HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE"; "SOFTWARE\\Network Associates\\TVD\\Shared Components\\VirusScan Engine\\4.0.xx\\"; "szDatVersion") @ RegQueryValue ( "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE", "SOFTWARE \ \ Network Associates \ \ TVD \ \ Shared Components \ \ VirusScan Engine \ \ 4.0.xx \ \"; "szDatVersion")



Undocumented LotusScript



Dim s As New NotesSession
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Set db = s.CurrentDatabase
If (db Is Nothing) Then
Exit Sub
End If
Dim flds As Variant, x As Integer, fldList As String
flds = db.GetFields(False)
For x = 0 To Ubound(flds)
fldList = fldList + flds(x) + Chr(13)
Next x
Msgbox fldList, 0, db.Title + " fields"



Dim s As New NotesSession
Dim idom As String, ihost As String, win As Variant, cr As String
cr = Chr(13)
idom = "Internet Domain: " + s.InternetDomainName
ihost = "Internet Host: " + s.InternetHostName
Set win = s.GetWin32Domain
Msgbox idom + cr + ihost + cr + "Win32 Domain: " + win.ServerName, 0, "Message"
Call s.Close()



Dim uiw As New NotesUIWorkspace
Call uiw.AddDatabaseToPortfolio()
Call uiw.AddBookmark("Hello")




@ AddBusyTime(|text; text; date) @ AddBusyTime (| text, text, date)
@ FindFreeTime(|text; text; date; number) @ FindFreeTime (| text, text, date, number)
@ MailConfirmPreference
@ MailFoldersPreference
@ LocationGetOSTZ
@ LocationGetTZ (| variant)
@ LocationGetTZ
@ CharSetInfo ([character])
@ CharSetInfo ([Encoding])
@ CharSetInfo ([DefaultCharset])
@ Admin Perform Action (| date, [variant])
@ Admin Create Request (| date, [variant]) DeleteUser DeleteGroup DeleteServer
@ URLSubmit(|number)
@ URLSubmit
@ NetAccount([DeleteNTUser])
@ NetAccount([IsNetworkAdmin])
@ FindFreeResource(|text; text; text; text; [variant]) InGMT InLocalTime
@ DbUnreadCount(|text)
@ OpenCalendar(|date; [variant]) Group Individual
@ X509Certificates(|date; text; [variant])deleteX509Cert
@ MailFilterAddToFolder (| text)
@ AccountGetInfo(|text; text)
@ AdminDelegateMailFile(|number; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text; text)
@ BitAnd (| [number])
@ BitOr (| [number])
@ BitXor (| [number])
@ BitNot (| number)
@ BitShift (| number; number)
@ GetMembers (| variant; number; number)
@ UpdateViewDesign (| text)
@ ExpandNameList (| text, text)
@ CRLList (| [keyword]; fieldname; at home; max return)
IssuedBy
ThisUpdate
ThisNext
RevokedDate
RevokedSerialNumber
@ DbAdminServer
@ IsDbPrimaryAB
@ IsSoftDeleteEnabled
@ GetSoftDeleteExpireTime
@ SetSoftDeleteExpireTime (| number)
@ CertBlobPack (| blob item name; blob type; prefix; number)
@ CertBlobUnpack (| blob item name; blob type; prefix; number)
@ IsXACLEnabled
@ Mail Stop Processing Filter
@ CRL(|[Export]; fileName)
@ RecoverIDFile (| [keyword]; backupfilename; recoveredfilename; Newpassword)
@ WhichFolders
@ ShowParentPreview
@ ManageECL (| server: database)

preload preload preload