Maureen Leland: Domino Designer in Eclipse

May 17 2006

Now I know why Maurren Leland was so focused on heading in from dinner early on Monday night....

Unfortunately, I missed Maureen's session here at DNUG/ILTF yesterday.  Here's a bit about something she covered:

Seeing what the Eclipse editors could do for the same experience in Workplace Designer out of the gate, it was clear to me what needed doing. I've been championing a cause inside IBM for a while, gaining support for it, and yesterday, I was thrilled to show a prototype of Domino Designer embedded in Eclipse.
My colleague Mark Jourdain, realizing that there would be some interest in this topic, sent around a few additional tidbits about this.  One in specific that I knew would be asked is this:

Q Does this proposed addition of the Eclipse framework imply that Notes/Domino developers will need Java skills?
A No. This addition supports options for improvements in the application development tool.  While IBM/Lotus encourages Notes/Domino developers to refine and expand their skill set, the addition of the Eclipse framework does not mandate Java skills for the Notes/Domino application developer.

I know there's been some discussion of this on Bruce's site already, and probably elsewhere.  I know there are a zillion questions.  I've already asked Maureen for her slides, and to do a podcast for TakingNotes.  Watch this space...

Ed Brill | Karlsruhe, Deutschland Category:  Notes and Domino 8  Add/View Comments [14]

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  1. 1  marco foellmer http://www.ebf.de | 5/17/2006 5:14:30 PM

    I would really like to see Domino Designer and Domino Admin for Linux and Mac support!!!

    Thank You DNUG and IBM for the great event in Karlsruhe!! Awesome!!!

    Cheers marco

  1. 2  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/17/2006 5:20:00 PM

    Well that didn't take long.

    -strikethrough-

    I had originally given a different answer here. I need to clarify. The key word in all of this is "proposed" ...the prototype that Maureen showed at DNUG/ILTF does not presently have a formal product plan or timeframe. Which also means that there's no specifics on whether it would/will work and/or be supported on Mac, Linux, or anything else. Hence, "stay tuned".

  1. 3  Craig Wiseman  | 5/17/2006 9:53:58 PM

    @2 Still impressive!

  1. 4  jwylie  | 5/18/2006 2:07:41 AM

    @2 It may be proposed, but I'd like it now. It would be better to run Deisgner in eclipse and therefore hopefully on Linux desktop than require a Windows VM image or Wine for the purpose.

    Good stuff.

  1. 5  Lars Berntrop-Bos  | 5/18/2006 2:35:21 AM

    We (all my colleagues and myself) would absolutely love Designer in Eclipse. For refactoring etc.

    Go go go!

  1. 6  Axel  | 5/18/2006 3:27:47 AM

    A good book about using eclipse (not developing plug-ins) should be enough. I think Ed Burnette has written one. Must be good. It should help to get the basic concepts like perspectives, views and editors.

    Not sure, but afaik there are popular php and ruby_on_rails plug-ins for eclipse. And the people working with those are often not very interested in Java neither.

  1. 7  Andres Gorostidi  | 5/18/2006 7:26:32 AM

    @7, you agree in fact, eclipse is being used in the development of Joomla....

    Joomla is one of the biggest and more recogniced projects for a CMS system, and is deloped as an open source project. Joomla is programmed on PHP and MySql... but the tool to develop on PHP, share a repository (CSV) of latest builts, etc, is eclipse !!!

    So, again, Eclipse is NOT ONLY JAVA... Is a fantastic tool for development on whatever language you wish !!

  1. 8  Samuel deHuszar Allen  | 5/18/2006 8:30:02 AM

    As a fellow user of Domino Designer and Admin on a VMWare windows image, I too would LOVE to see an Eclipse version, even if Linux & Mac compatibility is a ways off. Hope is a beautiful thing.

  1. 9  Angel Figueroa www.interactiveworkflow.com | 5/18/2006 9:08:33 AM

    Ed, even thought this is only "proposed". I think that the entire developer community would love to have the flexibility that the eclipse environment offers.

  1. 10  Julian Robichaux http://www.nsftools.com | 5/18/2006 9:25:12 AM

    I think the assumption being made by everyone here is that Designer has been rewritten as an Eclipse plug-in. In other words, that this thing that Maureen is working on is somewhat of a native Eclipse application.

    Is that true? Or is it just an OLE component that is managed by the Workplace client (which would be nothing more than the Designer client wrapped by a Workplace shell)?

    The reference to "embedded in Eclipse" leaves some room for translation. As far as the Workplace client goes, I was under the impression that virtually any Windows application could become a "managed" application. Which is not the same as being a native Eclipse app.

  1. 11  Axel  | 5/18/2006 3:26:22 PM

    @7: Eclipse is written in Java (at least big part of it).

    So in the good name of nitpicking: Eclipse is Java, but can be used for a very wide range of things.

  1. 12  James Summerton  | 5/18/2006 7:31:58 PM

    @2 What if it was released as an open source project or through alpha works...