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| | | Solved! Apache and Domino running together
Sunday, 13 November 2011 00:14:39 EET | | | | | We can use Apache as frontend HTTP server running on port 80, and Domino on port 81, so that users can access both Apache and Domino pages via port 80 only.
This is done via the Apache Rewrite Engine, but until now it caused one nasty problem: When doing a submit on a Domino page, then Domino would add the port 81 to the URL, and the user could not access that page, if only port 80 was opened to the internet.
I found a solution how to overcome this Domino's problem, by adding Apache Reverse Proxy Engine to the httpd.conf.
It's very simple to setup, just add these lines at the end of your Apache's httpd.conf file, and replace the IP: 1.2.3.4 number with your internet server's IP number or domain name.
In this Rewrite setup, I made it so that all .php ending URLs are handled by Apache, and all other URLs by Domino. This gives us the possibility to add php5 and sqlite3 code to any Domino site.
ProxyRequests Off
<Proxy *>
Order deny,allow
Allow from all
</Proxy>
ProxyPass / http://1.2.3.4
ProxyPassReverse / http://1.2.3.4
<VirtualHost *>
ServerName 1.2.3.4
ServerAlias 1.2.3.4
DocumentRoot "D:/Apache/htdocs"
DirectoryIndex index.html index.php index.sh default.jsp
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} "!.php"
RewriteRule ^/(.*) \http://1.2.3.4:81/$1 [P]
</VirtualHost>
The above ProxyPassReverse setup will now return all submitted pages to http://1.2.3.4/:81/ (yes, that's intentionally a malformed URL), and this allows us now to redirect the malformed URL via a Domino Web Configuration document to the wanted port 80 back.
For this we create a Web Configuration document like this:
| Basics |  |
| What do you want to setup: | URL-->URL |
| Mapping | |
| Incoming URL path: | /:81/* |
| Replacement URL string: | /* |
That's it, now you have a fully working Domino running under Apache!
PS.
If you haven't setup Apache before, all you need to do is to install it, and uncomment the following lines from httpd.conf, to enable the Rewrite and Proxy engine:
Uncomment line 110, 115, 118:
LoadModule proxy_module modules/mod_proxy.so
LoadModule proxy_http_module modules/mod_proxy_http.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
| | | | | | |
| | | Yeah, Google+
Tuesday, 12 July 2011 01:58:04 EET | | | | | It just came like a lightning from the clear sky, and illuminated us all.
I can't remember to have ever seen such a great success in concept, it's so unbelievably thought troughout.
All the details you experience, all the things which just work like they should have always worked in other systems.
Everything is real, the people, the talks, the lifes, the avatars, the celebrities, just everything. The Google+ system leads it to be that way.
It's simply amazing, and very valuable.
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| | | A new Domino based forum template
Sunday, 10 July 2011 02:53:43 EET | | | | | I have developed my own forum software for Domino for some time, because I was always shocked with the basic lacks of functionality of conventional forum softwares like phpBB, vnboards, Invision Power Boards, SMF, etc.... For them it seems normal that all messages are lost when the forum software is updated, and they just eat it with a bitter taste in their mouth. They also take happily backups every day, but most of the backups fail because of some misconfigured ftp accounts.
For someone who has worked with Domino that is absolutely not acceptable, since in Domino the database design and data is completely isolated from eachother, so no data is lost ever. And a backup is a backup in Domino, it's a file, and not some SQL mess which only simulates the actual data.
So far I have used my Domino forum template in 3 different forums:
http://www.toiveet.fi
http://www.fortran2008.com/forum
http://www.wishforum.com
And with this latest one, I have started to make it like a SharePoint template, so you can easily just make a new site and it works, everything is parametrized in a simple Parameters view.
IBM is also developing something similar, but I doubt they can make it as fast as I can :)
When it's completely ready, I will also upload a public free version to OpenNTF, since that's the nexus for standard Domino templates, and supported by IBM too.
All people who have seen the forums have thought it's not a real forum. I think it's because they are used to lots of spam and unneeded features, and they can't imagine that you can make things also elegant, kinda like google.com or an Apple device.
So far the forum template has the following features:
1) Posting as Anonymous user (can be disabled if wanted)
2) Posting as Anonymous user, but impersonating someone else (can be also disabled)
3) Logging in without registering (the forum registers you automatically and instantly (a secret Domino feature :))
4) Uploading files to any post or into your forum profile document (also short links work).
5) Streaming OGG files directly (needs a little Domino httpd.conf hack)
6) Dynamically scaling to any screen resolution
7) List of latest modified topics (not a spam list of each post)
8) List of deleted posts
9) Undelete button
10) CSS 3.0 oriented visual layout
11) Single file database design (allows easy backups and offline working)
12) Fully parametrizable via a simple Parameters view
13) Support for root URL and sub URL forum home locations (for example: / or /forum)
14) Library area for structured sticky posts, including sublibraries
15) News area
16) Embedding of any HTML and JavaScript code (can be disabled)
17) CKEditor integration (can be disabled)
18) Fully modifiable design and code and using CSS and LotusScript
19) Free and paid support (including custom modification wishes)
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| | | IBM Lotus Notes/Domino is dead, long live IBM Notes/Domino!
Sunday, 03 July 2011 15:55:47 EET | | | | |  Just fresh out from the press: IBM will drop the Lotus part from the name, because it misleads many people who remember Lotus 1-2-3, Lotus Smartsuite, and yes even Lotus Notes which is often thought as ancient and dead.
This is very cool, because it removes the long name nonsense and makes it clear that it's a real IBM product, and everyone knows that IBM is the leader in computer technology, mostly on the hardware side, but since the aquisition of Lotus also on the software side, and of course since the invention of Fortran.
Also a SharePoint killer app will be included out-of-the-box with IBM Notes/Domino at some point. I don't have any details on this, but I would assume it would integrate IBM Quickr plugins in it, without needing a seperate IBM Quickr server.
As I mentioned earlier on Vowe's blog, I converted from C/C++ to IBM Fortran. I never liked Microsoft C#.NET, because it's slow and bloated (and I just can't understand why someone would use Garbage Collection, since for me it means only that the programmer has no skills and discipline and should not program in first place), and IBM Fortran beats even C/C++ in speed and of course it beats both C#.NET and C/C++ in easyness to write code, thus increasing productivity a lot.
IBM Fortran for IBM Notes/Domino is indeed a double RAD solution: radical performance combined with radically easy development. Usually they work reciprocally, but not with this approach.
I have a plan to make Fortran 2008 a sexy and modern language, and it involves several steps:
1) Establish web site for Fortran 2008: http://www.fortran2008.com [DONE]
2) Establish IBM Domino based custom forum for Fortran 2008: http://www.fortran2008.com/forum [DONE]
3) Make a OpenGL and FreeGLUT demo for Fortran 2008, because it seems that nobody has done it before: http://www.fortran2008.com/posts/3D46BEECFB7212EDC22578C200420D3E [DONE]
4) Implement the most advanced realtime 3D engine for Fortran 2008 [Coming in 2011-07-30]
5) Implement IBM Fortran API for IBM Notes/Domino [Coming in 2011-09-30]
6) Continue implementing and supporting several other essential high quality libraries for Fortran, like sqlite3, sdl_net, etc... and make easy to follow tutorials so that even beginners can understand them.
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| | | The Fastest Programming Language of the World
Tuesday, 21 June 2011 00:00:22 EET | | | | | I was looking at some old programming languages like COBOL (a business oriented language, and the second oldest language: founded in 1959), Ada, Fortran, Prolog, and few others. My interest was only to see how programming worked in the old days, and if they had any good ideas which I could reuse for the upcoming symbolic visual language.
When I stumbled upon Fortran, I remembered that some people had said that it's faster than C++, and I remember the funny fact that Intel has the fastest C++ compiler, but still they sell it side by side with their Fortran compiler. That kinda made me curious to see, if the reason why Intel still supports Fortran, is indeed because it's faster than C++, and I was positively surprised when I made some speed tests and in each test MinGW G95 (now also MinGW Fortran, aka gfortran) beat MinGW C++ in performance.
So far I've been using MinGW C++ because it makes faster code than Visual Studio 2008 and 2010 C++ (and compiles also much faster, like the same program takes 2 seconds to compile with MinGW C++ and 30 seconds with VS 2010), and I haven't got a business case to invest for Intel C++ which might be even faster than MinGW C++.
And the loop to IBM closes as I found that Fortran was actually invented by John Backus of IBM in San Jose, California in 1950: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortran :)
My study on Fortran involved learning the language in a few days, and I came up with this chart:
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| | | Next Generation Computer Programming
Thursday, 16 June 2011 00:03:49 EET | | | | | Today I was explaining what the problem with all programming languages today is, that they have all failed, because they are not intented to make results (except Prolog maybe), but rather to aid the programmer to tell the computer what to do. This is a fundamental mistake, since computers should serve humans, including programmers. So the base for a better programming language is to focus on what the programmer wants as result, and let the computer optimize and decide what method is best to implement it.
This brought me to the next step, that a programming language must indeed only be a medium to listen what the programmer wants, and the programmer doesn't need to know how to do it, as long the computer works within the limits given by the programmer. My initial idea was to have a "English Programming Language", but then I discussed this idea with a friend who was a fan of graphical programming using flowcharts.
It was obvious that a spoken text based and graphical based approach are both good at some things, but neither is better than the other in all situations. I realized that both are actually parts of some bigger picture, and I realized also that spoken english (like all spoken languages) is only a failure of communication skills, since using a symbol language all people would understand eachother, including the computers. Then I started to draw the bigger picture and came up with this:
| | | | | | |
| | | My First XPage
Monday, 14 February 2011 14:33:47 EET | | | | | Today I tried to make a simple web page using the Domino Designer 8.5.2FP1 XPage design element on a Domino 8.5.2FP1 Linux server. Getting to know how it works is pretty easy, and I didn't need to read any documentation.
I made a Form with a Subject and Body field, and a View which shows the Subject, then I made an XPage which uses the Form as its Data Source.
Then I found some good and bad sides about XPages:
| The Good | The Bad |
1) It's quite easy to learn how to use XPages, as the UI makes sense. It's pretty close to Visual Studio also.
2) The design element toolbar is nice, and you can drag and drop any design element to your XPage.
3) You can easily connect fields from Notes Views and Notes Forms with visual design elements.
4) A RichText type field activates CKEditor automatically, and it saves it as Notes RichText so it can be visually seen in the Notes Client also. Getting rid of the IBM Oracle Java RichText applet was a very good decision of IBM. Now they just have to get rid of the rest of IBM Oracle Java in Notes/Designer/Domino and things would be faster and better than ever. CKEditor rocks hard!
5) XPages have many useful premade actions which you can use in Buttons, for example Create Document, Edit Document, Toggle Read/Edit mode, Create Response Document, Delete Document.
6) The design elements have a nicely structured Data/Style/All properties tree view, from which you can visually change many CSS tags, JavaScript events, Notes functions, etc....
This makes visual working effective and fun, even when it's only visual coding, as the visual output is a different issue.
7) You can integrate standard JavaScript libraries visually into XPages, like Dojo, JSon, REST, etc.... | 1) The visual layout in Designer does not match the visual layout in SeaMonkey or Notes very much. I get a much closer match with SeaMonkey's Ctrl-E visual editor, from which I can copy/paste individual design elements into a Notes Form for further processing. I thought that maybe the main reason is the difference in the default settings of SeaMonkey/Notes/Designer, and by adding a CSS stylesheet, the visual output would match closer in all clients. A stylesheet didn't help either, and Designer still shows the HTML page completely different than the browser. I found a workaround though: adding computed fields with HTML code on the XPage around all XPage design elements solves the problem, and I get a decent browser output.
2) The HTML/CSS source code is calling some XSP JavaScript class, and it's impossible to edit or analyze the page with SeaMonkey afterwards, since there are no div tags or any other HTML tags. This is not very compatible with anything, and makes development harder. It seems there are divs after all, but they don't support the position:absolute style.
3) The fact that CKEditor saves RichText as Notes RichText has its bad sides too. You can't correct errors in the HTML code when the transformation goes wrong. Also the Source button in CKEditor is missing, as well as the Layer (=div) button. Maybe there is a hack to make it save as HTML? Fixed: It actually saves as MIME/HTML so the HTML source code of the rich text field is intact, this is great!
4) When I made a very simple XPage with only a Subject and Body field, Domino Designer managed to mess up its own XSP code and caused 2 errors which broke the XSP compiler, and the XPage could no longer be compiled/updated. I removed manually some duplicate action/save tag in the XSP code and it worked again.
5) When Domino is configured to run on port 81, and even when I have the firewall opened for port 80 and 81 from my Workstation and Server, the XSP RichText CKEditor breaks when port 81 is used, and only a small textarea is shown. This is however not a real issue, as I need to add some redirection code anyway to redirect Domino back to port 80. I just hope XPages allows such redirection, like the $$Return field in Forms does, or the Print statement in WQS LotusScript agents. I wonder why Domino even tries to force the user to port 81, when the web page was opened from port 80 or no port was specified (which defaults to 80). Domino should not care what is written in its server document, but only look at the incoming URL.
6) The XPage opens fine in SeaMonkey, when I choose Design/Preview in Web Browser, and it worked first in Notes too, but after I added the Body field, it stopped working in Notes completely, and I only get an error: Item not found. Workaround found: Opening the XPage manually from the server works fine in Notes. |
I would be glad to hear what I did wrong, and how I can get those bad things fixed.
| | | | | | |
| | | Why LAMP is better than Domino
Saturday, 12 February 2011 17:32:17 EET | | | | | Since the end of life of Notes/Domino 7 is coming in 2011-04-30 according to Ed Brill: End of Life for ND7, it's a good time to review the benefits of the two best Web Database platforms available on the market today: LAMP (=Linux Apache MySQL PHP) and Domino.
1) LAMP database design can be edited with any text editor remotely, even with vi via secure shell (SSH). Domino Designer 7 and Notes 7 work fine, but not Domino Designer 8.5 or Notes 8. Domino Designer 8.5 is written in Java and is thus ridiculously bloated, slow, buggy and exposes lots of security holes.
Notes 8 crashes when opening documents which contain HTML code, while the same document opens fine in Notes 7 and Notes 8.5, although some of them crash also Notes 7, but Notes 8.5 doesn't crash on any of them. Android got rid of Java in their OS, and users are praising the smaller memory footprint of 30MB and the incredible raise in speed due to native C++ code. OpenOffice uses Java also, and is a bit slow, but by miles not as slow as IBM's Java engine, which you can experience with Domino Designer 8.5, Notes 8.5 and Symphony.
Although many things can be done with a graphical design in Domino Designer, the graphical features need to be replaced with LotusScript code when the application needs more features and customization. If you've ever worked with a simple application ready web server like Quickr, Sharepoint or Ruby On Rails (which are all horribly slow and inflexible compared to LAMP or Domino), as a developer you will love systems which are exactly the opposite and have thus full programmability and speed, and easy customization support, even if they don't have any ready apps.
Hmm, actually this is a good question why does Domino not have any ready apps, or does it, if you count openntf.org? It's just not marketed as such by IBM. I think IBM should understand what collaboration really means, it means that the community does eventually official things, and not only IBM. A half point goes to LAMP.
2) LAMP combines HTML and server side code in the same php document. This makes coding very easy and convenient, while in Domino Designer you need to juggle with a WebQueryOpen and WebQuerySave agent, which usually needs then more code and visual design elements to handle all different situations - you have to place additional fields in the Form and address them in the LotusScript code.
This point is a draw though, since in LAMP you need to code everything, while in Domino Designer you can avoid some coding, and despite that it usually needs some more effort later on, it also saves time.
3) The Domino 8.5 server has had known and fatal bugs for years, and although IBM knows about them, they haven't been fixed. One of those fatal bugs is for example that LotusScript WebQueryOpen agents keep running forever, until the memory is full, when the user closes the browser. The only workaround is to make a HTTP restart every night. In Domino 7 this problem does not exist.
Another fatal bug is that chronos.exe crashes the server, however this can be fixed by deleting chronos.exe (speak: move it to a backup subdirectory, as you might need it for the next incremental installer), as it is some remain from Domino 1.0 where it also crashed all the time. And a third fatal bug is that compact increases the database size. This works fine in Domino 7. And a fourth fatal bug is that DAOS enabled databases with attachments cannot be copied to a Local file system when they are restored to a backup server first. This works also fine in Domino 7, since it has no DAOS.
Domino 7 vs LAMP would have been a draw, but since businesses are forced to upgrade to Domino 8.5, this point goes to LAMP, as it has no such fatal bugs. In a similar situation, where Microsoft's Windows Vista was a plain failure for businesses (there was no business need or even benefit to upgrade) and Windows 7 (better than Vista, but it made itself required by ending the OEM Windows XP support), there is still support for Windows XP until year 2020, because that is the end of life of Windows 7 and the Windows XP downgrade is part of Windows 7, so it extends the end of support of Windows XP equal to the end of life of Windows 7. I find it a bit ironic that Microsoft has now better backwards compatibility, while this was the ace card of IBM over Microsoft for decades.
4) LAMP is open source and free, while Domino 8.5 is closed source and commercial only. Android won iPhone, Sony/Ericsson and Nokia because it is open source and free. Likewise, the importance of a free version of Domino is to get a bigger market impact and get it more supported. This point goes to LAMP.
5) LAMP works on 12 hardware platforms, while Domino works only on 5. An important version is the 64-bit Linux version on Intel and PowerPC, and Domino doesn't have them either: FAQ: 64-bit version of Domino This point goes to LAMP.
6) Readers and Authors type fields and Groups and Roles are a major benefit of Domino. This point goes to Domino.
7) Love for Lotus and the visual development environment keeps the developers motivated. This point goes to Domino.
As it stands now, LAMP wins Domino 8.5 with 4.5:3.
LAMP vs Domino 7 would have been only a 4.5:4 win.
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