Category: Cry For Help

bookmark_borderINDIP/CRYFH: having legacy Lotus Script code do your work!

Posted on by admin

In our company we do have a wonderful, flexible, proven, stable own-built workflow engine, but it is written in Lotus Script code. baah..

I didn’t want to rewrite the whole thing in Java…

But you may now think: hey why does he not run an agent?

I tried, and I failed, how else!!! Always the way I understand things, they will never really work!

Luckily I then I found Kathy Browns article how to do it and it works!!!

Solution:

  • put some value into the NotesDocument to “control” your logic in the LS agent
  • run the agent with the document as parameter
  • write some field in the agent into your document: NO NEED TO SAVE THE DOCUMENT!!!
  • read the result from you NotesDocument in your xPage code and process it
My mistake was: I tried to update a field which was visible on the xPage, and here my approach failed. 
Or could I manually “refresh” the xPage after the agent has run? Seems to be maybe a “timing” issue, cause the value is there, it’s only just not displayed in the field on the xPage. Anyone?

How we use this technique with our workflow engine:
The engine can require a comment to be given for certain target state. But the target state I don’t know yet in the xPage, cause this logic is handled in LS. But with the technique above I can create an agent provide the target action (reject/approve or something else), calculate the target state and find out if for that state a comment is required. If so I can then call a dialog in the xPage where the user can enter his comment. In the agent which runs then, to process the workflow, I then simply read this comment field and process it. In our case it’s written to a workflow log and also included in the notification to the approver of the next state
Nathan: did you read my comment to your comment? I bow to you..

bookmark_borderunQUINDIPping QUINDIP and other accronyms

Posted on by admin
according to Tim Tripcony (read the comment on this blog) quindip means confusion, I am now trying to unConfuse you about the confusion I created with my accronyms I use 
  • INDIP: INDispensabletIP (those ones which I deem very important in any xPages developers knowledge bag)
  • QUINDIP: QUickINDIP (those ones I deem quickly explained, 2min to read,  understand and implement)
  • FRULE: FRUstratedLearningExpierence (things I learned the hard way (shall I repeat how hard?), ie. it took me hours/days to get the hang of it and mostly in the end it was so obvious only I lacked some very basic knowledge in the first place)
  • CRYFH: CRYForHelp (when I have no clue anymore how to proceed and I need your input)
  • YOUFEB: YOUrFEedBack required (please gimme comments, ask questions what you want me to blog about etc)
  • DYHOP: DoYouHaveOtherProposals for accronyms? 😉
ups.. something very important I almost forgot…

let the game begin (provide your ideas in the comments): any idea what the anagram of in-mood is?

well.. a hint: in-mood is the anagram of the actual word. When I had my own company few years ago, I was so in (good) mood about stuff I was doing that time.. that I figured: great this will be my company name!

Unfortunately I cannot offer anything as a price to the winner besides maybe some special mentioning in a blog entry or my personal effort trying to help to solve an interesting xPage problem!