Portalizing an IBM Lotus Domino view or form
It has been reviewed by two experts
Stephan wissel ( IBM Singapore) and
Kiran Bellari ( ex- IBMer and Consulatant in Infosys India)
Introduction:
This article demonstrates how simply you can use Web services in the Lotus Domino development
environment. It shows how you can extract a list of all Action button names from a Lotus Notes view or
form. This ability gives you an edge when you want to portalize a Lotus Domino application.
The major advantage here is we are using lotus script to create this webservice , this gives advantage to
many domino developers who are well versed with lotus script ,to play with Webservice and can leverage
their skills in creating webservice without much effort. here we make use of Standard classes of lotus
script such as NotesDXLExporter,NotesXSLTransformer and NotesDOMParser ,. Etc
Abstract:
This article helps domino developers to understand how easily one can leverage the power of webservice
with a simple example along with the code in lotus script .The basic idea of the article is to show how
easily we can create a Web service in an IBM Lotus Domino database to pull out the names of Action
buttons in design elements (forms/views)
This is quite useful in leveraging domino capabilities to support webservice , especially in case of
portalizing any domino application . This will enable the developer to pull out all action buttons of any
design element (form/view ) of any database dynamically.
In current situations many organizations have a Mixed environment with Lotus Domino and IBM
websphere and It is very Important to have a portalization of their current existing complex notes
applications
This article shows how simple to create a webservice especially in the context of moving any domino
application on to Portal server or for dual access (on domino as well as Portal server).Developers will
understand the Power and importance of Webservice in the current World as Webservice is a Universal
Interface between different technologies
This article covers how to design a webservice including code and also tells about how to test it and see
the output
Designing a Webservice from Notes designer client:
Softwares used: Websphere Portal Server 6.0, Domino 7.0.2
The following steps explain how to create a Web service and to request this Web service from WebSphere
Portal.
1)open notes designer client and create a new database by choosing File-> databse  New from
Menu
2)Select the Sever and enter database title as “Portal configuration tool” and file name as
“PortalConfig.nsf” and press OK button to create a new lotus notes database
3)In the database expand shared code by clicking on “+” sign next to “Shared Code” Folder and
locate webservices as shown in figure 1
Figure 1
4)Click on webservices to see different options like “New Web Service “,”Sign”,”export WSDL” and
“show WSDL” as shown in below figure2
Figure2
5)click on “new webservice” to create a new web service
6) It opens a new window
with blank webservice as shown in below Figure3
Figure3
7)Enter details like name ,Comment port type class etc , in this case enter Name as ” dbviewformInfo”
,comment as “Delivers information about the structure in a db like actions and other thing” and in port
type class “dbInfoClass” and once you enter all this information click on Right Icon to save the name and
click on close
8)Go to declarations section in the above saved web service and paste the following code . Please select
entire code from starting to ending
Const DefaultNameSpace = "reddy.ws.viewformactions"
Public Class dbInfoClass
Public Function getFormActions(FormDefinition As FormDefinition) As formActionSetInfo
Dim w As formActionSetInfo
Set w = New formActionSetInfo
Call w.PopulateActionsform(FormDefinition)
Set getFormActions = w
End Function
Public Function getViewActions(ViewDefinition As ViewDefinition) As ActionSetInfo
Dim x As ActionSetInfo
Set x = New ActionSetInfo
Call x.PopulateActions(ViewDefinition)
Set getViewActions = x
End Function
End Class
Public Class ViewDefinition
Public dbName As String
Public viewName As String
End Class
Public Class FormDefinition
Public dbName As String
Public formName As String
Public includeSubForms As Boolean
Public IncludeButtons As Boolean
End Class
Public Class ActionSetInfo
Public ActionSets() As ActionInfo
Public source As ViewDefinition
Public errorCode As Integer
Public errorText As String
Public Sub PopulateActions(viewSource As ViewDefinition)
Set Me.source = viewSource
On Error Goto Err_PopulateActions
Dim s As New NotesSession
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim dbView As NotesDatabase
Dim v As NotesView
Set db = s.CurrentDatabase
Set dbView = New Notesdatabase(db.Server,viewSource.dbName)
Set v = dbView.GetView(viewSource.ViewName)
If v Is Nothing Then
Me.errorcode = 999
Me.errorText = "The view you were seeking is out of sight, but endless others
exist"
Goto Exit_PopulateActions
End If
'Get the view into DXL and transform
Dim viewUnid As String
Dim viewDoc As NotesDocument
viewUnid =v.UniversalID
Set viewDoc=dbView.GetDocumentByUNID(viewUnid)
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
'REM Export document as DXL
exporter As NotesDXLExporter
transformer As NotesXSLTransformer
domParser As NotesDOMParser
docNode As NotesDOMDocumentNode
actionNodeList As NotesDOMNodeList
actionNode As NotesDOMNode
attributes As notesDOMNamedNodeMap
nodeCount As Integer
i As Integer
x As Integer
y As Integer
Set exporter = s.CreateDXLExporter
Set domParser=s.CreateDOMParser
Call exporter.SetInput(viewDoc)
Call domParser.setInput(exporter)
exporter.Process
'get the document node
Set docNode = domParser.Document
Set actionNodeList = docNode.GetElementsByTagName("action")
nodeCount = actionNodeList.NumberOfEntries
If nodeCount = 0 Then
Msgbox "No actions found"
End If
Redim ResultArray(nodeCount)
Redim Me.ActionSets(nodeCount)
For i = 1 To nodeCount
Set actionNode = actionNodeList.GetItem(i)
Set attributes = actionNode.Attributes
x = attributes.NumberOfEntries
Dim r As ActionInfo
Set r = New ActionInfo
For y = 1 To x
If
attributes.GetItem(y).NodeName="systemcommand" Then
r.name =attributes.GetItem(y).NodeValue
End If
If attributes.GetItem(y).NodeName="title" Then
r.label =attributes.GetItem(y).NodeValue
End If
Next
Set Me.ActionSets(i-1) = r
Next
Exit_PopulateActions:
Exit Sub
Err_PopulateActions:
Me.errorCode = Err
Me.errorText = Error$ & " in Line " & Cstr(Erl)
Resume Exit_PopulateActions
End Sub
End Class
'new class for form actions
Public Class formActionSetInfo
Public ActionSets() As formActionInfo
Public source As FormDefinition
Public errorCode As Integer
Public errorText As String
Public Sub PopulateActionsform(FormSource As FormDefinition)
Set Me.source = FormSource
On Error Goto Err_PopulateActionsForm
Dim s As New NotesSession
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim dbView As NotesDatabase
Dim Fo As Notesform
Dim ncol As NotesNoteCollection
Dim FormDoc As NotesDocument
Dim FormDocInt As NotesDocument
Set db = s.CurrentDatabase
Set dbView = New Notesdatabase(db.Server,FormSource.dbName)
Set Fo = dbView.GetForm(FormSource.FormName)
If Fo Is Nothing Then
Me.errorcode = 999
Me.errorText = "The form you were seeking is out of sight, but endless others
exist"
Goto Exit_PopulateActionsForm
End If
Dim nid As String, nextid As String 'note IDs
Dim i As Integer
Set db = s.CurrentDatabase
Set ncol = dbView.CreateNoteCollection(False)
ncol.SelectForms= True
Call ncol.BuildCollection
nid = ncol.GetFirstNoteId
Set FormDocInt= dbView.GetDocumentByID(nid)
'get access of form as NotesACL document
For i = 1 To ncol.Count
Forall j In FormDocInt.Items
If j.name="$TITLE" Then
'Msgbox j.text
If j.text Like "*;*" Then
If Strleftback ( j.text,";" )=FormSource.FormName
Or Strrightback ( j.text,";" )=FormSource.FormName Then
Set FormDoc=FormDocInt
End If
Else
If j.text=FormSource.FormName Then
Set FormDoc=FormDocInt
End If
End If
End If
End Forall
nextid = ncol.GetNextNoteId(nid)
If nextid="" Then
Set FormDocInt= Nothing
Else
Set FormDocInt=dbView .GetDocumentByID(nextid)
End If
nid=nextid
Next
If FormDoc Is Nothing Then
Me.errorcode = 998
Me.errorText = "The form name you were seeking is not matching.please type
exactly(case sensitive) as the name exists in form design element"
Goto Exit_PopulateActionsForm
End If
'Get theforminto DXL and transform
'REM Export document as DXL
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
Dim
'
exporter As NotesDXLExporter
transformer As NotesXSLTransformer
domParser As NotesDOMParser
docNode As NotesDOMDocumentNode
actionNodeList As NotesDOMNodeList
actionNode As NotesDOMNode
attributes As notesDOMNamedNodeMap
nodeCount As Integer
i As Integer
x As Integer
y As Integer
Set exporter = s.CreateDXLExporter
Set domParser=s.CreateDOMParser
Call exporter.SetInput(FormDoc)
Call domParser.setInput(exporter)
exporter.Process
'get the document node
Set docNode = domParser.Document
Set actionNodeList = docNode.GetElementsByTagName("action")
nodeCount = actionNodeList.NumberOfEntries
If nodeCount = 0 Then
Msgbox "No actions found"
End If
Redim ResultArray(nodeCount)
Redim Me.ActionSets(nodeCount)
For i = 1 To nodeCount
Set actionNode = actionNodeList.GetItem(i)
Set attributes = actionNode.Attributes
x = attributes.NumberOfEntries
Dim r As formActionInfo
Set r = New formActionInfo
For y = 1 To x
'Msgbox
attributes.GetItem(y).NodeName,0,attributes.GetItem(y).NodeValue
If attributes.GetItem(y).NodeName="systemcommand" Then
r.label =attributes.GetItem(y).NodeValue
End If
If attributes.GetItem(y).NodeName="title" Then
r.name =attributes.GetItem(y).NodeValue
End If
Next
Set Me.ActionSets(i-1) = r
Next
Exit_PopulateActionsForm:
Exit Sub
Err_PopulateActionsForm:
Me.errorCode = Err
Me.errorText = Error$ & " in Line " & Cstr(Erl)
Resume Exit_PopulateActionsForm
End Sub
End Class
Public Class ActionInfo
Public Name As String
Public Label As String
End Class
Public Class formActionInfo
Public Name As String
Public Label As String
Public Code As String
End Class
9) save and close the webservice
10)now you are ready to test the webservice
for Testing you can open the webservice in a browser by using following url
http://hub.wwcorp.com/PortalConfig.nsf/dbviewformInfo?wsdl
this Url contains hostname(hub.wwcorp.com is the server name, PortalConfig.nsf is notes database name
and dbviewforminfo is webservice name before “?” mark in the URL
you can see WDSL file in the browser.
We can also test this in any standard tools from where we can create new SOAP request . use any
standard tool (like XML spy, Oxygen xml editor etc )
You need to enter URL of webservice to create a SOAP request for example as shown in below figure 5
http://hub.wwcorp.com/PortalConfig.nsf/dbviewformInfo?wsdl
Figure5
please change the hostname, database name accordingly as per your domino setup
11) The SOAP request will show you to options to select as we have two classes one for View actions, and
other for view actions, as shown in below figure6
Figure6
12) Select one option and then enter to see the content like shown in below figure 7
Figure 7
here the parameters we need to enter is database name,view name accordingly as shown below
example in figure 8
Figure8
13) Once we enter database name and view name then send the the request to server as shown below in
figure9
Figure 9
14) Once request is processed by domino server, It will populate all action button details of
Given design element name of the given database as shown below in figure10
Figure10
15) Once you have tested and satisfied that it is working fine then we can call the same SOAP request
from Portal to pull out required information(View actions or form actions) to Portal
Conclusion:
Please note that it will only list out all the action buttons ,but it does not get any code /code event related
with the action button. there could be several ways to test this webservice. I have shown the simple
screenshots to make the basic concept clear
Webservice is very vital concept and going to be very popular as different technologies can communicate
each other by using a standard webservice and hence domino developer can not ignore this powerful
feature
The above article shows how we can write our own webservice with simple lotusscript which is mastered
technology by Lotus domino devlopers already
Similarly we can design and develop several Webservices to suit our customized requirements
Srinivas Reddy Kothapally , IBM Certified Application Developer – Lotus Notes and Domino /6.5 and IBM
Certified Admin Domino 6/6.5 has been working as a Principal software engineer for ASEAN customer in
ISL Labservices in the area of domino and domino extended products.
My Special Thanks to My Guru Stephan H Wissel, Stephan H Wissel/Singapore/IBM, who was very
instrumental with able guidance in understanding and developing webservices.