News Release: Yellow Blob Machines (YBM) Announce New Developer Tools

Jan 19 2011: As part of the release of Lotus Notes X announced at Yellowsphere 2010 today, collaboration software giant YBM announced two new development products that seem certain to send shock-waves through the development community and place collaboration rivals Microsoft (SharePoint)  & Google (Gears) on the back foot.  Rather than trying to be all thing to all people (developers) with a single development platform, YBM will now market two separate products for Notes development.  DDXpress and DDProfessional.

Domino Designer XPress:

Requiring little or no training, DDXpress is targeted at the growing DIY programming market of business professionals and academics wanting to implement collaboration solutions without the need for advanced programming skills.  YBM Sale Manager Mr Ed explained this had been a core market for Lotus Notes since its inception but many customers had complained that the power and complexity of Domino Designer for Eclipse was proving to be too confusing and intimidating for novice and part time developers.  Rather than leave this important sector of our market behind we decided to develop a specific development environment that would better meet their needs and allow them to grow over time.   DDExpress will be made available free of charge with Lotus Notes X and the new Lotus Notes XPress clients in a bold bid to encourage computer users to customize and develop applications for it thick client platform.  DDXpress will also allow customers to develop advanced features for its Lotus Symphony product.

DDXpress is based upon Domino Designer 8.0 but goes to even greater lengths to simplify the experience.  This is not your fathers Domino Designer Mr Ed added.  The interface provides true WYSIWYG capabilities to application design and add drag/drop capabilities for an expanded set of controls that can be quickly added to each design element.  Some design elements found in Designer 8.0 such as Navigators, Java Libraries, Web Services, and Styles Sheets have been removed.  DDXpress is designed for Notes Client applications.

Simplifed Programming Choices:
DDXpress will provide three levels of programming, allowing novice developers to slowly graduate as they become more familiar with Notes client programming.

1. Simple Actions:  At the simplest level Notes applications can be constructed using a wide range of common tasks known as simple actions.  YBM have added 150+ simple actions that can now be easily added to Notes applications.
   
2. @Language: The existing @Command and @Formulae language has been updated and expanded from Notes 9.0
   
3. LotusScript: For full programing capabilities, users of DDExpress will be provided with access to the latest version of its LotusScript programming language.  It has been a long time coming but YBM finally decided there was a need to modernize this language that the yellow blob has so strongly supported.  We tried to get these people to budge several times but they just wouldn't Mr Ed admitted.
   

New Application Templates
In collaboration with OpenNTF, YMB have announced a greatly expanded set of application templates for home and office productivity and collaboration.  These new templates will form part of a new Notes XPress Client, a scaled down version of the powerful Notes client targeted at Home & SMB markets that can operate in standalone without the need for a Domino server.  A total of 50 templates are being made available covering a wide range of common applications at both home and work.

Domino Designer Professional

For professional developers YBM have expanded it Domino Designer Eclipse (DDE) product into an exciting new offering that leapfrogs it past Microsoft's Visual Studio as the clear leader in professional application development. Domino Designer Professional provides access to the same design elements supported in Domino Designer Express but adds additional capabilities based upon  it XPage technology introduced with 8.5.

Programming Choices Expanded:
Similar to Microsoft .Net, YBM have announced that it will be fully supporting multiple (three) languages:-

1. LotusScript has been redeveloped  as a full-featured Object Oriented Programming language similar to VB.Net.  This includes support for abstract, partial, and sealed classes, interfaces, casting and the ability for the first time to extend product classes.  Methods can now be overloaded allowing the number and type of each parameter to vary.  An new try/catch error handling schema has also been added.
   
2. SSJS has been expanded to bring it line with the capabilities of LotusScript.
   
3. Java has also been updated to bring it in line with the capabilities of LotusScript.
   

New User Interface Options
YBM sale Manager Mr Ed announced a new alliance with telerik that was crucial in developing a series of 30 new powerful controls for the Notes client.  These controls include date/time picker, name picker, rich text editor, image editor, tag cloud, gauge, slider, action bar, carousel, scheduler, tabstrip, outline, treeview, menu, sliding panel, data grid, graphing, report generator, file exporter, and media player.

1.  Web versions of the controls have integrated AJAX support.  These new controls all render brilliantly in the Web client rivaling Microsoft's Silverlight technology. 
   
2. Notes client versions of these controls add additional capabilities beyond the capabilities of Web browsers.
3. A third, lighter, version of these controls is being supported on leading mobiles devices such as Blackberry and iPhone.

Enhanced Editors
Editors for LotusScript, Java, and SSJS have been enhanced considerably.  Powerful new features have been added for code refactoring.   Integration with the Rational Suite also allowed classes for all programming languages to be built from data models generated during Systems Analysis.  Integrated collaboration connects the developer to a much wider range of on-line documentation, wikis, and new discussion forums that include sametime chat sessions between developers around the globe.

Powerful New Data Sources
DDProfessional will now provide access to a wide range of relational databases using the Xpage design element.  Now for the first time Rapid Application Development and true collaboration can be quickly and easily added to front-end data stored in a wide range of RDMS such as Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase and BD2.
  
Multiple Client Support
The true power of  Notes application development is the speed with which a single application can be developed and deployed for use by Web browsers, mobile devices and the power Notes client.   The enhanced version of XPages now renders almost identically on all clients.  The only exception being the richness of the controls is determined by the capabilities of the client and/or device.

Migration Tools
YBM also announced completion of a project that allowed all existing Notes code and data to be represented in XML.  This means for the first time that both code and data can be exported as XML, translated using XLST and reliably imported back into the some, or another Notes database.  This same capability has lead to YBM developing  a series of migration tools for taking application developed in DDXpress and importing them into DDProfessional.  Mr Ed explained this was another capability high on the wish list of the Notes community since the release of Notes 8.5.

Integrated Code Control:
DDProfessional will include a license for a new version of TeamStudio CIAO allowing for the first integrated code control in a team environment.

New Collaboration Features
DDProfessional will also contain new document management and workflow capabilities taken from its Domino.Doc and Lotus Wo0/rkflow products.  Key components of Lotus Connections and Quickr are being made available to bring many capabilities of these products to the Notes client via Pages.  This move signals that YBM have finally decided to use its Notes product to take Microsoft Sharepoint head-on.

Full Cluster And Load Balancing
In a related announcement YBM also announced that its server products Domino X would now provide better support for application clustering, load balancing, and state management.  Clustering and load balancing now allow a home server to be designated for Notes applications.   Clustering and  load balancing can now be enabled for Notes Client and Web client access ensuring users are constantly being directed to an operating server best placed to service the clients needs.  YBM's powerful replication and clustering technology is also being used to actively replicate state data between servers to ensure no information is lost when it becomes necessary to redirect an active session to an alternate server.


Commenting on this announcement , Notes guru Mr NTF indicated that YBM had finally found a way to exploit JFace technology and JavaBytes to bacback-end SSJS via RPC calls that could elevate dilithium xpage plamsa to an elevated state whereby hypnotic carousel trances could be induced.  As usual no-one else in the yellowverse would admit they had no idea what he was saying but all were still very impressed that he alone seemed to understood how Lotus Notes really worked and that this would go a long way to ward off his arch-nemisis voldemort.