IBM Workplace Designer has shipped!

August 25 2005

Take a few days of holidays, and see what happens... IBM Workplace Designer 2.5 is now available.

CRN, IBM Queues up Workplace Designer, Notes/Domino 7 Shipments:

IBM executives said Workplace Designer suits both highly proficient developers and relative novices. "You can drag something onto a page, preview it to see what it looks like, tweak it and put it into production very quickly. You can do very useful things with not a lot of lines of code," said James Russell, director of application development tools for IBM's Workplace, Portal and Collaboration Group, usually known as Lotus.

IBM will also continue to offer Domino Designer for Domino-centric developers and a host of other tools for server programming. It also will continue to offer Domino Designer for Domino developers, Russell said. Workplace Designer acts as a kind of bridge between the Java-based Workplace world and the Domino realm by letting Domino developers preserve their investment in Domino scripting tools.
CNET news.com, IBM Launches Development Tools for Workplace:
Included in the new Workplace Designer package are set of preset forms and scripts presented in a visual development environment that promise companies the ability to create composite applications using a drag-and-drop interface. IBM has also included a number of sample collaboration components that developers can use to build their own tools.

Additional components built into the package include tools for adding blogging programs, project management tools, contact management lists and online discussion forums to Workplace's existing features. The system is also capable of importing forms from IBM's Lotus Domino applications to use in building new Workplace applications.

IBM said that more than 2,000 developers have accessed a beta version of the development package since it was first made available in June.
SearchDomino.com, IBM Officially Releases Workplace Designer 2.5 Development Tool :
Workplace Designer is a scripting tool based on JavaScript, but because it and Domino Designer share the same views, data connections and logic, it will allow Domino developers to build Workplace components using methods they are familiar with. "It looks almost identical to Domino Designer - the same icons, the same window pane," said Dirk Nicol, program director of IBM Workplace Application Platform. "For instance, we've taken JavaScript and extended it to similar constructs and syntax, like @ functions."

According to Dick McCarrick, a content developer for developerWorks: Lotus, "If your background is in Notes/Domino programming, you can think of Workplace Designer as a tool for providing Domino Designer type application development functionality to the IBM Workplace family of products. But Domino Designer will still be available as the primary tool for developing applications within a Notes/Domino environment, he noted. With Workplace Designer, Nicol added, IBM was able "to take a lot of functionality based on Eclipse -- code complete, color coding of classes and objects within classes you're writing, and an advanced IDE experience - and make it available to the Domino developer community."

Ed Brill Bhaile Átha Cliath, Éire (Dublin, IE) Category:  IBM Workplace  Add/View Comments [4]

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  1. 1  Andrew Price www.healthspace.com | 8/25/2005 6:28:27 PM

    Here is my question (and concern): beyond such superficialities as icons and windows, and even language syntax, how do the two product lines merge/mesh?

    I am sure this is just my own ignorance, but at what level does data move between Workplace/Notes -- can Workplace things reach into Domino dbs? Or is that later? Can someone point me to a doc that explains this? What pieces would we need to develop a test app that uses data we already have? Would we have to move that data to a legacy rdb instead of our advanced Notes containers? What pieces would we need to expose that to clients? What pieces would our clients have to buy?

    What does 'by letting Domino developers preserve their investment in Domino scripting tools.' mean? Is the object model similar? Are the Notes facilities there?

    Apologies for cluelessness -- I'm sure this is all explained somewhere.

    btw: Were these excerpts meant to seem patronising towards Notes/Domino or is that accidental? (help help, I am lost without drag and drop -- sheesh)

    Andy

  1. 2  Ethann Castell www.caliton.com | 8/25/2005 9:20:10 PM

    Great news ! Definitely worth having a Guinness or two, if you happen to be anywhere near an Irish pub :-)

    @1 check out { Link } This site contains loads of info on Workplace but you'll have to do a bit of reading to get answers to all your questions.

  1. 3  Bob Warth  | 8/26/2005 2:50:23 PM

    In general I liked the SearchDomino, all except for "....to help Domino developers move into the J2EE space...."

    "Move" is definitely the wrong verb, and it fuels the idiotic "Notes is Dead" mis-conception we still hear daily. "Move" implies leaving one place to go to another, so are the decision makers here meant to infer that leaving the Notes/Domino environment to go to the J2EE space is a good thing to do, or a necessary thing to do? It's easy enough to argue that that's not what the author is saying, but not so easy to explain to someone who only read the first paragraph.

  1. 4  Daniel Koffler http://www.rsmexperts.com | 8/30/2005 10:26:59 AM

    As a Domino developer I've been very interested in trying out Workplace Designer but have become frustrated by the process. First of all the list of requirements to get designer running is astonishing:

    1) Install Workplace Collaboration Services 2.5 server with IBM Cloudscape.

    2) Install IBM HTTP Server.

    3) Install Workplace Designer Runtime Server

    4) Install Workplace Managed Client 2.5

    5) Install Workplace Designer Client

    Now considering that to start using Domino Designer all I need to do is install Domino Designer, it seems like a lot of effort to play with a limited subset of the Domino app dev environment.

    While I'm more than willing to push through the long and complex install process to learn a little more about Workplace and how it fits into the Lotus roadmap, I am frustrated that there does not seem to be any way to download all the required components to setup a test design environment. I can't find a beta or trial release of the Managed Client or the Collaboration Services server anywhere.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated.