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QuickPlace Tips Newsletter #2 from Rob Novak (SNAPPS)
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| August 2005 |
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QuickPlace Tips Newsletter #2
Tips from the QuickPlace Experts at SNAPPS
Greetings!
There's a lot of excitement in the market about
the Domino, Sametime and QuickPlace 7 releases
coming in the next few weeks! With all the
excitement, and testing going on with Beta 4, it was
really hard to decide what to put in the tips
newsletter. Does that sound like an excuse for
sending it later than I hoped? Hmmmm...
For this edition, then, I decided to write about tricks,
tips and development tools that can be used across
different versions of QuickPlace. For those who don't
know the rich history of QuickPlace, I'll reveal a bit of
it here and more as I compile future newsletters.
Enjoy the tips and information below, and please let
me know what you'd like to see in future editions!
Occasionally between newsletters, I'll write a tip or
two in my LotusDigerati
blog. Feel free to drop by.
Rob Novak, President, SNAPPS
rnovak@snapps.com
QuickPlace's Undocumented URL Syntax
Users were never so easy to manage
Wouldn't it be nice to see a list of all the members of
your QuickPlace, and security access to all rooms, in
one place? After all, it can take a while to click
through the entire membership list in the Main room
alone - let alone checking every subroom's Room
Security. Well, this is your lucky day - because
there are a couple undocumented URL syntax tricks
that can yield extremely useful information for
QuickPlace Managers, in the form of HTML reports.
Now "undocumented" means a lot of things - it could
be unsupported, it could break things, who knows. In
this case "undocumented" means that it's been made
public a time or two at Lotusphere and buried years
ago in the QuickPlace Forum on LDD. But trust me,
it's pretty safe. I've been using these two for
several years and never crashed a server.
The first one lets you view the Access Control List
(security settings) of the Room you're in at the time.
This one is useful when you are in a subroom and
would like a quick way to see the Room's
membership. In addition to what you can see in the
Members list, it reports each member's access level.
Also, since this is a report from the database ACL, it
reveals things you don't see in the Member list, such
as the presence of the
QuickPlaceAdministratorsSUGroup, the Default access
level, and the Server's entry in the ACL.
To access this report, first enter a place and a room
within that place. It'll work in the main room, but the
second one is more interesting for that. Next, go to
the Address bar and remove everything from the end
back to ".nsf". Add the following: "?
OpenDatabase&RoomAcl" and press Enter. In a short
while, an HTML report will form on the screen
providing you with all the ACL information on the
room.
Example:
Original URL:
http://YourDomain/QuickPlace/placename/Main.nsf/h_
Toc/dcc8b3e1ffa177e586256fb3006b3f2c/?
OpenDocument
Your modified URL:
http://YourDomain/QuickPlace/placename/Main.nsf?
OpenDatabase&RoomAcl
The second report is my favorite. This one you want
to run from the main room. Using the same method
as described above, append the following
after "Main.nsf": "?OpenDatabase&PlaceSecurity".
This report gives you the same information, but for
EVERY room in the place! This is an excellent
administration and user reporting tool...and the best
part...it's free!
While We're on the Subject of URLs...
How About Some QuickPlace Easter Eggs?
This one has been public for a while, but it's still fun.
While reading a page in your QuickPlace, append the
exact string "&1+1=2" to the end of the URL. After a
brief pause, you'll see some phrases (commonly used
in the halls of the QuickPlace development team in
1999!) appear on the screen - flying about and
following your mouse pointer if you like. Intermingled
with the phrases you'll see names of the QuickPlace
team members (developers, QE, product managers)
going back to before it was ever shipped.
Speaking of shipping, look for the ever-popular
software industry catch phrase about 4 minutes into
the Easter Egg. "SHIP IT!"
TOP SECRET...There
was another Easter Egg in version 2.x of
QuickPlace that was never documented, reported or
found...but unfortunately was removed due to large
corporate customer requirements. I found out about
this one while walking along the Boardwalk with one
of the original three developers late one evening at
Lotusphere a few years ago...late enough that he
spilled the beans on the Easter Egg. If you happen
to have a QuickPlace 2.0.8 server (and I'm really
sorry
if you do!), type "for duty and humanity" into the
Quick Search bar anywhere in the place, and you'll be
treated to a show of the names of the QuickPlace
team at the time QuickPlace 2 was shipped in 2001.
Unfortunately this one's gone now...enjoy!
On a slightly more serious note, it's probably a good
time to point out that QuickPlace 2.0.8 reached
its "End of Life" on April 30, 2005. QuickPlace 3.0x
will reach the same point on April 30, 2006. For a
more detailed list of the dates that IBM software
products are withdrawn from support, visit
the IBM
support lifecycle site. All of
the Lotus products are found under "L". Remember,
QuickPlace was renamed "Lotus Team Workplace" for
the single release 6.5.1. Starting with
version 7, it's back to QuickPlace!
Fast Forward to QuickPlace 7
What's Coming for Users, Administrators and Developers
With all this nostalgia about QuickPlace 2 and 3, I
should probably make some mention of the upcoming
QuickPlace 7 release. We're weeks away, folks, and
this is what you have in store:
- Pretty obviously, it will run on Domino 7 (but hey,
somebody always asks)
- Quality! The build process has been merged with
Domino's
- Usability enhancements such as an embedded
folder theme choice and faster My Places display
- Safari browser support for the Mac OSX
- New access levels: Editor and Default
User....more about this in the next newsletter
- Internet Sites support - this is huge for hosting
and companies with multiple host names
- Better, more useful error messages!
- For developers - a debug template, and
unobfuscated Javascript variables
Oh yes, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that all of the
SNAPPS AnyPlace products will run on QuickPlace 7,
shortly after it ships. AnyPlace Administrator, the
admin client for QuickPlace, will run right away, as will
AnyPlace Designer, the super theme builder for
Dreamweaver. We have some work to do on
AnyPlace Explorer and Navigator due to changes in
the QuickPlace 7 architecture, but they should be
ready by the ship date.
Developers: You Can Teach Every Dog Old Tricks!
Using the QuickPlace Development Kit (QDK)
You may have heard of the "QDK" or QuickPlace
Developers' Kit. On the Downloads section of LDD,
you'll find a link to the QuickPlace 2.0.8 QDK. Good
news is that for the C API, little has changed and
most of these samples from 2000 and 2001 still work,
most of them even with QuickPlace 7. Some are
irrelevant, such as the replication clustering hook
(clustering became supported in 2.0.8) but others
can be quite valuable even today. With the QDK,
you can learn how to:
- Modify the outbound invitation text using a
Notes database
- Modify the "Notification" text - to anything you
want (I've done this, it's not easy but very powerful
for branding purposes)
- Create an audit trail of room creation and deletion
- View all of the available C API hooks as they're
fired at the server
What do you need to work with these? You need a
C++ compiler and IDE, such as Microsoft Visual C++
or Visual Studio .NET C++ (this is the one I use
now). You'll need a QuickPlace server you can play
with - hint, install one on your laptop - and some
patience getting used to the hooks. You'll also want
to study the QDK Notes database that comes with
the download - therein lies a list of all of the hooks,
their usage and some ideas!
And Now The Shameless Plug
Consulting Services and the AnyPlace™ Line of QuickPlace Products
SNAPPS is a consulting firm with several
key productivity products
for use with IBM Lotus QuickPlace and IBM Lotus
Sametime. Our product information can be found
below, but it might be useful to know what kind of
services we can provide. Over the past five years,
we have done 50 or so projects for QuickPlace,
Sametime, Domino and Portal customers - each one
unique and each one with a high value to the
customer. It's hard to categorize what we do, but
here is a representative sample:
Strategy and Business ROI
Assistance - Executive consulting on
collaboration strategy
- Business case assistance for advanced
collaboration tools and development
Administration and Architecture
- QuickPlace deployment planning
- QuickPlace and Sametime integration
- LDAP and directory conversions
- Password management, expiration, and strength
enforcement
- QuickPlace usage reporting (New!)
- Handholding for upgrades, consolidation, and
administration
Development and Customization
- Custom workflow design and document
management schemes
- Back-end and Domino integration
- Customized "my places" portal interfaces
- Custom themes, across all Lotus products (New -
includes Portal and Workplace)
- Sametime integration, customization, bots and
development
- Business process place development
- API development - custom notifications,
invitations, auditing, and more
For more information on our AnyPlace line of products
for QuickPlace, visit the links below.
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phone:
+1-913-381-4165
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below and encourage
your colleagues to sign up! Also be sure
to check out the SNAPPS web site
for information on our AnyPlace line of
QuickPlace products, services, and example
downloads.
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Rob Novak, President, SNAPPS | 9550 Metcalf 2nd Floor | Overland Park | KS | 66212-2285
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