Well, not too many of you have seemed interested in my Ajax views so I guess I'm just doing this for myself. :-) Anyway, last week I added the ability to expand multiple categories in a single category domino view. This week I added the ability to dynamically fetch view data as a user scrolls down in a flat view. You can see it live here.
Is this functionality needed for the web?
To me these pieces of functionally are huge and greatly needed for Domino web apps. The iNotes team at Lotus has added the 'virtual list' ability for flat views a while back but they have yet to offer this as a 'widget' that we domino developers can use. My plan is to fill this void and offer this capability via the Domino Web Tools toolkit. My only question is this: would any of you pay for this? My plan is to offer a free version of DWT and a 'Pro' version that you pay for. This paid version will get you such things as the 'enhanced' view capability.
Why am I even considering to charge for a 'Pro' version?
Well, I honestly wasn't planning on doing this at first. I had hoped that by hosting the DWT downloads on OpenNTF.org that the paypal link would generate some money to help support the development efforts. So far, however, I have recieved $0 for all of this and that's very discouraging. I see companies like DLI.Tools and IDEAX charging thousands of dollars for similar tools and, even though my toolkit isn't as mature as theirs, I still see value in and was hoping that everyone else would too. Heck, I even see my toolkit as more valuable since I support Mozilla based browsers (even running on the Mac!) and they only support Windows/IE.
So what should I do?
So fellow readers, what do you think I should do? Continue adding the extra features to DWT for free? Or should I offer a free version and a paid Pro version? Should I try and partner with another company that is already selling a toolkit? Should I hope that IBM sees this works and hires me on to work for them? :-) ...What would you do?
Though I've been silently reading your blogs, I believe this is the first time I've stepped forward and commented.
You are pioneering work that I would also like to be doing. I have to admit that I have not downloaded the Domino Web Tools from openntf. Perhaps I should click on your link to the online demo and see what all it contains. You mention that you've received $0 for the effort and that certainly is discouraging. How many downloads have there been of the product? If there are 0 downloads then $0 revenue is predictable. 10 downloads and that's people demoing the product. 100 downloads and you should have at least someone contributing. 1000 and that's a shame.
When I think about Notes, so much of my learning about it and becoming a developer on Notes was based on the easy access to things in the notes ftp support site, the sandbox, and the notes.net forums. This was more than 10 years ago, before I was even aware of open source concepts. That made Notes and Domino very appealing to me - I could piece together applications from existing samples, and get support from others. I eventually became a pretty good developer without working with other developers or attending any formal training. My mentoring was from many people whom I never met, but who posted information just to help others.
From those standpoints, it is discouraging to hear your thoughts of contemplating charging for continued contributions to Domino. Personally, I've always tried to maintain a ratio of two questions answered for every one asked on notes.net. Now that I have young developers working for me, I encourage them to do the same. All of them are open source/open standards advocates, so this philosophy works with them.
Getting novice developers 1) interested in Domino development (since most have never heard of it or only heard bad legacy type things); 2) acclimated to the Notes/Domino paradigm (since RDBMS and OO is all they've learned); and 3) excited about what you can do with Domino; is difficult. Especially when most everything they see (sample code from the sandbox, many Domino based web sites) is dated. Our local Notes/Domino user group is markedly different than the Linux user groups in town that they also attend. I'm on the steering committee for the NDUG and I think we're making some great changes to that, but the number of young developers in my area that attend the user group meetings is a small number approaching zero.
I'm not yet a top shelf Domino developer, although I'm aspiring to become one. The work you and less than 10 others (probably less than 5 others actually) are doing is my mentoring. The contributions you are making and the work you are pioneering might not be immediately recognizable, but they are out there. To help spread excitement about the platform when the media and others have been proclaiming "Notes is Dead" for years, the Notes/Domino community needs people like you pushing the envelope and showing "yeah, you can do that with Domino also."
My junior developers are often amazed at how easy it is to do some things in Domino. What's hard is "thinking in Domino." Because of their background, it never occurs that there could be a simple @Function that does what they want to do. When they see or hear about a new technology "fashion" they are drawn to its shiny coolness and don't recognize that they can probably do the same thing in Domino. Your work, along with a handful of other contributors, with AJAX is pushing the envelope and inspiring developers more junior than you. Based on my experience, the work you are doing and sharing is mentoring other Domino developers. Some of those developers will in turn mentor others, write some articles that show how to extend Domino, pioneer some work applying new technologies to Domino, and in general spread the word and excitement. The loss of your open contributions, or any of the other small handful of elite Domino developers who blog and share code samples on topics like ajax, would be devastating.
Personally, your contemplating charging for some of this code is a call to me to step forward and write that article or two for Advisor, fix my personal web site, launch my blog, and join the community of contributors to inspire and share more with others. To charge for DWT or not to charge, that is your decision. I don't know you and I certainly haven't walked 100 miles in your shoes, so for me to make that decision for you or offer advice, would be selfishly motivated. So I can only offer an opinion, which is selfishly motivated. My opinion is continue blogging about things you are developing and sharing code snippets as examples to others. If you want to package a bunch of them together into a collection of cool tools and how to's, please do so to make them conveniently accessible to others. Personally I would like to see those things remain freely accessible. If you want to charge for customizations or more mature versions of the tools, go for it and I hope it brings revenue your way. I just hope that you don't stop blogging about some of the things you are doing and helping others like me learn.
My sincerest thanks,
Tom
Nice work! Shows a lot of promise. If I pull the scroll bar aell the way to the bottom, though, I'd want it to scroll all the way to the end of the view.
As for charging or not... it's not really my place to say, but how would you differentiate between what goes in to the open version versus the pro version? Over the long term, I could see that harming the project, as people would be less likely to contribute their ideas for enhancements via the OpenNTF channel if they think that you're likely to turn around and put them into the pro version only.
Re paypal... I wasn't even aware that the paypal links on OpenNTF went to the authors. I had thought they only went to support the operation of the site. Don't know if that changes my attitude in any way. Probably not. But I really didn't know.
-rich
BTW: added this one to my Ajax page.
{ Link }
Have I got all your articles?
Richard and Tom,
You both bring up some great points. So far there have been 2,186 downloads. I guess by and large most people won't pay for something if they can get it for free. :-)
I guess since I'm not an independent consultant this decision is tougher for me. If I were a consultant then this type of work could help in "marketing". I still haven't decided for sure which way to go. I kinda feel that if the product was already a "commercial" product and if I were to offer a "free, lite version" then everyone would be singing praises but since the product started open source then I will look like a bad guy for even suggesting a Pro version that you would have to pay for.
...Ahh, to be caught between a rock and a hard-place... :)
Richard,
I didn't even think about paypal only going to OpenNTF. I thought I recalled Bruce or someone at OpenNTF saying that the paypal dollars would go directly to the chefs of the projects but perhaps I was mistaken.
As for the scroll bar and the end of the view...that's a good idea, I'll just have to think of a way to figure out how to get to the end of a view. For a flat view it will be easy. However, I'm not sure what the logic will be for a categorized view. I wonder if there are some hidden optional arguments for ?readviewentries.
Also, you have all of my articles/blogs on Domino/Ajax. I do have plans on adding a simple document locking Domino/Ajax to DWT and when I do I'll let you know about it.
Jack
Hi Jack,
I'd love to help you out here, and especially see if we can merge our work together. I'm really busy at the moment but I'd like to talk within the next month or so.
In the meantime, the main stumbling block for complete Java view applet replacement functionality is reliably jumping to the end of the view. If you can do that, you can allow (a) the user to do it and (b) determine from the beginning how "large" the view is and present a more accurate scroll bar.
If you turn on HTTP logging on the Domino server you can see the POSTs used by the view java applet. A "ctrl-end" keystroke will cause URL with a "&SkipNavigate" option, which I think is the key to "jumping" to the end of the view. Also, IIRC simple initialization of the applet causes that argument to be passed. I think the key is there.
Hi Erik,
I've been trying and trying to get the &SkipNavigate to do something but it doesn't appear to do anything when I add it to a URL. Do you have an example of a full url where this appears? Maybe it only works in conjunction with other arguments???
If we can't get this to work, then when might be able to "figure out" the end position of a view based off of the children, descendants, and siblings attributes.
Jack
Keep up the great work with Ajax. I think at some point IBM will seek you out to sove these longstanding issues with Domino !