Lotusphere 2011 is over and apart from “Get Social. Do Business” Xpages was the main topic. IBM’s strategy is mobile and web with xpages as the underlying technology as far as Lotus Domino is concerned. You have all seen the demo (Hey, what time is it again? It’s demo time!) in the OGS showing Notes Next, right? The web browser took a huge part of the whole and Ron presented xpages mobile controls on his android device. So talking web and mobile which piece of the cake will Lotus Script get?
XPages is JavaScript, Java, CSS, XML and a portion HTML. Hey, my name is Lotus Script, may I join the game? Nope, go play bingo with the old dudes.
It’ won’t be a quick death since there are so many excellent applications out there relying on Script, but it will die sooner or later. There will be no efforts by IBM to keep Lotus Script up to date, no new functions, no new classes. It will simply stay as is. Use it or not, but I reckon Lotus Script developers will have to get used to Java and JavaScript as soon as possible to keep their position and be able to develop state of the art applications in the next couple of years.
I provided a couple of links yesterday to XPages resources to get started with this excellent technology. Today I want to introduce a set of controls which allow to create mobile applications with XPages within hours (or even minutes): XPages Mobile Controls! Big thanks to OpenNTF, in this special case to Niklas Heidloff and Steve Castledine. Great work guys!
OK, what are XPages Mobile Controls. Niklas uploaded a presentation to Slideshare that shows the capabilities of these controls. Check it out first to get the idea:
You will find a couple of videos on the OpenNTF page for mobile controls. Here is one that provides a good overview of the capabilities of mobile controls.
So this is an awesome add-on to XPages that every developer should be aware of. I downloaded the controls and will check them out next. You will find my first steps and the results on my blog in the next couple of days. So stay tuned!
Lotusphere’s top topics this year are mobile, social and web browser. One keyword is being peeped and posted these days that shows which technologies Lotus provides to support the main topics: XPages!
XPages are a technology integrated in Lotus Notes/Domino since version 8.0 that leverage development and user experience to a new level. Developers are given tools and technologies to develop application for the Lotus Notes Client, the web browser and mobile devices. Other than classic Lotus Notes development XPages base on Java Server Faces (JSF), Java and JavaScript. These technologies are popular to web developers all over the world outside of Lotus Notes/Domino. Domino developers can now use these technologies to build state of the art web and mobile applications AND those applications even run in the Lotus Notes client!
Did I catch your attention? Do you want to learn more about XPages and their capabilities? Then start digging deeper. The links provided below lead to valuable sources.
So you should consider upgrading to 8.0x or better 8.5x in the next couple of weeks. If you attend Lotusphere 2011 check the capabilities of Lotus Notes / Domino 8.5 and you will be urged by your guts to update as soon as you return.
