McGarelGramming

 
I was looking through an older application I have and came across this technique. I don't claim to have invented it, but I want to pass it along as, after a quick Googling, I couldn't find mention of it. It is both easy to setup and maintain and it works without an agent.

This technique exports a view to Excel via a browser using only three items: the view itself, a Page design element, and a URL.

View Setup
1. Create a new view.
2. in the view properties, click the box for "Treat view contents as HTML"
3. Add the data columns.
a. Format the column header text with table header HTML tags, e.g. "<th>Column Head</th>". Since the column heads will be grouped as a row, add "<tr>" to the beginning of the first column header text and "</tr>" to the end of the final column header text.
b. Format the column values with HTML tags, e.g., "<td>" + fieldvalue + "<td>. You may want to place the value within an @Text formula, e.g. @Text(fieldvalue), to mitigate data export issues. Since each view entry will be treated as a row, add "<tr>" to the beginning of the first column value and "</tr>" to the end of the final column value. By the way, I like to align rows to the top, so use "<tr valign='top'>" at the beginning.
4. Save the view.

Page Setup
1. Create a new page.
2. In the page properties, change the Web Access Content Type to "Other" and enter  "application/vnd.ms-excel" (no quotes) in the box.
3. On the page, type "<table>", enter a carriage return, then type "</table>" (again, no quotes).
4. Add an embedded view on the empty line between the table tags. Select the view above as the source. I change the default line value to 1000 to make sure I get everything.
5. You can add a title without needing to know the number of columns by adding "<p><b>Title</b></p>" (no quotes) above the table tag.
6. Save the page with a browser-friendly name (i.e. no spaces or special characters) and a ".xls" extension for Excel.
You're ready to go!

URL
To open the spreadsheet, call the page with with a standard Domino URL, e.g., "http://www.acme.com/dbpath/dbname.nsf/excelpage.xls".

Caveats
* I have not used this with a huge number of either columns or rows, so you may run into some limits if you do.
* I wouldn't recommend using this technique if you need to create a lot of spreadsheets, since each view index adds to the database size.

 
The deadline for submitting abstracts for Lotusphere 2010 is tomorrow, October 9th. Here's some titles I'm leaving alone:
1.  XPages -- In 3D!!!!
2.  Fine-Tuning Your Workspace Icon: Tips & Tricks For All 1024 Pixels
3.  Relaxation Tips from the Lotusphere Idle
4.  PHBs in the ACL: A-OK or OMG?
5.  Celebrity Case Study: Jon and Kate Plus Notes 8
6.  What's Up, Domino.Doc?
7.  Designing For Men Using XYPages

Did someone say "take it"?

getAnswer(question) {
  return "blowin' in the wind" ;
}

As Yellow Day 2009 winds down later, sit down in your favorite chair, click the TV remote and enjoy the following:

1.  Madmin
This award-winning series is set during the Lotus heyday of the later 1990s. The main character is an administrator, drunk with power, who is equally adept at manipulating server settings and co-workers.

2. My dbName is URL
A client-side Notes developer (JSON Lee) turns his apps around and web-enables all his doclinks.

3. M*A*S*H*U*P*S
Contrasting tense business conflicts with clever coding one-liners, the team stitches together data for the sales people on the front lines.

4. CSI: New User
When an unknown employee calls the Help Desk asking about his mailbox, the Corporate Security Infrastructure unit starts its investigation:  When did he start? What department is he in?  What databases does he need access to?  Why didn't anyone let us know beforehand?

5. Blogfights
The History Channel and TNT ( "We know drama" ) combine to recreate past disturbances in the Yellow Bubble.

6. Dora the Internet Explorer
Junior programmers can join Dora as she solves problems caused by a non-compliant browser, i.e., IE.  Guest-starring you-know-who as the grumpy old troll.

7. True Yellow Blood
Despite myths and rumors surrounding Lotus software, the Loti are becoming more mainstream. But many in I.T. fear the software's long life and superhuman abilities. Warning: graphic data feeding.

8. U Lost
Survivors of a server crash must find the best software to collaborate and get off their data island. Can they solve the clues right in front of them?

If you have your own recommendations and don't have a BleedYellow account to comment, email them to me at mcgarelgramming at gmail.com and I'll do what I can to post them below.

By the way, if you enjoyed these, you may also enjoy last year's "8 Movie Recommendations for Yellow Day."

Earlier this week, I was looking for a JavaScript charting solution to display some simple charts on an intranet application's dashboard. This article led me to Bluff, which I was able to implement fairly easily and has a lot of flexibility.

I tried to use Dojo (since the app will soon be Xpages-enabled) and while the actual charts looked fine, I had trouble formatting and placing the text elements (e.g. legend, labels) the way I wanted to. I find the lack of documentation . . . disturbing.

We updated recently to 8.5.  While reviewing a change I made today to a form on an existing Web-based application, I noticed the two radio button fields were styled incorrectly.  No one  had touched the fields or the style sheets the app uses, so I was perplexed. My immediate reaction in cases like these is to view the HTML source to see what is being sent to the browser. That's where I noticed a new, Domino-generated label tag enclosing each element of the radio button fields.

It is a minor thing, but it's something I wanted to fix right away.  First,  I made sure I didn't accidentally check the box to enable enhanced HTML generation. I experimented with turning off  pass-thru HTML to see if it made any difference -- it didn't.

After that, I just modified the style sheet to fix the page layout, so that issue is taken are of.  Then I did another test and noticed the same thing happens with checkbox fields. So I ask the Yellowverse:  Has anyone else noticed this? Is this correct behavior for 8.5? Is there something I can do to turn this off?

Update: How fascinating! This morning, I was reminded to check the 8.5 forum and there was an exact description of my issue plus a response with the reason (accessiblity) and a workaround (creating a CFD field called $$HTMLOptions with the value  "FieldChoiceLabel=0" ).

Today I replaced Lotus fun with Disney fun and spent the day at the Magic Kingdom with the family.  As I try to catch up on emails and blog postings tonight, I realized I should send out some well-deserved thanks:

• To all the bloggers who gave Lotusphere advice beforehand -- thanks in particular for the suggestion to talk to strangers at the lunch and breakfast tables. I did it this year and acquired some insights into other environments, received some helpful advice, gained some companions at subsequent sessions and possibly started some new friendships.

• To the many bloggers I met and hung out with -- thank you for your warm reception at various formal and informal get-togethers.

• To Mitch Cohen, Warren Elsmore and Conxys -- thanks for all your hard work and support for Blogger Open. It was great fun and I hope it becomes a Lotusphere tradition.

• To anyone at IBM Lotus connected with bringing in Benjamin Zander as the closing speaker -- THANK YOU!  He made me laugh a lot, he made me cry a little bit, he made me think in brand new ways.
  

Finally, birthday greetings go out to Lotus Notes (20) and Eric (none of our business). Here's a toast to bright futures ahead for you both!

Microsoft, realizing the obvious superiority of Lotus products, keeps silent this year. Instead, they aim all the fans from the unused servers in their Live Services data centers toward Orlando, producing unseasonably low temperatures in the area.

It still won't spoil the fun. See you there!

I finally created some Xpages/Xfiles desktop images.  Here's the zip file, which includes my original image.

Happy New Year, everyone!
 

All of these movies get a "thumb drive up" from me:

1.  IIt's a Wonderful Database
In this holiday favorite, an executive realizes the wealth of information he has in his personal address book.

2.   8 1/2
A film within a film about the next major Notes release, from a director who prefers fractions to decimals.

3.  @Transform-ers
Two opposing sets of data modification agents cause conflicts throughout the system.

4.  Bodyfield
A monster-sized rich-text field consumes network traffic and defies attempts to export or display its data. (Visual warning: this movie was shot using a shaky Lotus Screen Cam).

5.  Old Yellow
This children's classic tells of a young admin who takes over an abandoned V3 group mail database. He slowly learns to appreciate it before it intercepts an email virus that could have infected the entire company.

6.  SharePoint Break
An FBI agent goes Web surfing to find a gang of bank robbers, who turn out to be a small IT department trying to get the money to pay for their "free" SharePoint technology. Starrng Patrick Swayedeasily.

7.  Lotus Reno 911
An irreverent look at what happens when a business partner "helps" a police department.

8.  Blog Day Afternoon
A Notes developer holds his users hostage as he spends his time reading blogs related to Yellow Day. (Reportedly based on a true story.)

 XPages . . . the code is out there.

One might say  Batman  has  issues.

In  fact, someone did.

To see them, go to The Ten Mental Illnesses Batman Indisputably Has.

In honor of George Carlin and his "Seven words you can never say on television," here's my take on seven words that's bound to cause grumbling and grimaces among the Loti:

• OOXML
• SearchDomino.com
• Sharepoint
• iPhone
• Lyons
• Radicati
• Workplace

(Special thanks to John Roling for inspiration.)

 I'm adding the term "purported" when referring  to Microsoft's Office Open XML because:

• As it written now, Office doesn't use it.
• It is filled with proprietary specifications so it is not really open.
• It is not very good XML.

Hence I will use the new acronym: POOXML.

(Childish, I know.)

I staked out a spot (I'm in the back) in the new round robin writing experiment, "Albino Butterfly," initiated by Ben Langhinrichs.

(OK. There are some rules. But I noticed there is nooooooooooooooo Rule 6.)

Start with Chapter 1 , which is great IMHO. You can get an RSS feed that Julian Robichaux so graciously hosts at http://www.andthentheboilerburst.com/AlbinoButterfly.rss.