Yesterday we hosted our first IBM Social Business Toolkit webinar. Mark Wallace, the technical lead of the SDK, gave a one hour session with many live demos showing how to access IBM Connections and IBM SmartCloud for Social Business from JavaScript.





The next webinar will be on 06/26. Bhavesh Bhat will present how to use the SDK from Java applications. Check out our page for a list of scheduled events.

IBM has created a new landing page for developers who are using or want to start using the IBM Social Business Toolkit. Today, in time for IBM Innovate, IBM is announcing and launching a first version of this web site. Our plan is to extend and improve this site over time.

Visit the new page: ibmdw.net/social.



(created via breezi)

The Social Business Toolkit contains several components like the IBM Collaboration QuickStart image, support for OpenSocial and more. Currently the focus of the new page is the Social Business Toolkit SDK. Developers can use the SDK to easily access IBM Connections and IBM SmartCloud for Social Business via Java and JavaScript APIs.

The home page contains links to getting started information for different types of developers. For example XPages developers can learn how to install the SDK and how to code their first XPage. For client side JavaScript developers it's even easier to get started since they can use our hosted Playground to write and test their first snippets.

The new page also contains the Social Business Toolkit Blog. This new blog replaces the existing blog in the Connections community. The new landing page will replace over time the current Social Business development page.

On the events page you can find all currently planned Social Business Toolkit related events as well as recordings of previous events.

The documentation page contains links to key documentation in our various Wikis, esp. the API and extensibility documentation.

Last but not least the community page describes other websites and communities that are used by Social Business Toolkit developers. For example we encourage developers to use StackOverflow for questions, the SDK and samples are available as open source on OpenNTF and GitHub and news can be read on Collaboration Today. There is also a new YouTube channel with Social Busines Toolkit related videos and in order to find out about latest activities follow us on Twitter.



A big thank you goes to my colleague Steve Kuan for creating the design and to several colleagues from the IBM developerWorks team for providing the new infrastructure for this site.

Since May there has been a new IBM Collaboration QuickStart image available in the IBM SmartCloud. The image allows social business application developers to easily get started with IBM Connections and XPages development since it comes with IBM Connections and IBM Domino pre-installed and pre-configured.

Today IBM announced a 60 Days trial for new IBM SmartCloud Enterprise customers. Among other images this offer includes the "IBM Collaboration QuickStart for Social Business v2.0 64b".

You can use this image to participate in the IBM Connections App Dev contest where you have a chance to win one of five $1000 prizes.

There is a new You Tube channel for the IBM Social Business Toolkit.

The channel contains six videos initially that have already been published earlier. The IBM development team has planned to publish several new videos to this channel soon.

IBM published new documentation for the IBM Social Business Toolkit SDK in the IBM Social Business Development wiki. Most of the new articles are about the installation of the SDK.

I wrote four documents describing how to get started with the SDK. There is one overview document and three documents for the different developer types.
Getting started with the SDK
Getting started with the SDK as XPages Developer
Getting started with the SDK as JavaScript/HTML Developer
Getting started with the SDK as Java Developer

The getting started documents for Java and JavaScript developers already refer to some new capabilities that we haven't made available yet, but plan to do so soon. In order to make it easier for Java and JavaScript developers to get started, we want to add a complete Eclipse workspace to the SDK. The workspace will contain a Tomcat server, all of our SDK samples and it will be preconfigured to run out of the box with minimal changes. Additionally we've planned to add more documentation how to use our samples. More soon ...  

We are happy to announce a new initiative - the Social Business Toolkit webinars.

We've planned to host one or two webinars per month on various IBM Social Business Toolkit app dev related topics. Our intent is to deliver high quality content which is presented by various experts from the IBM development teams and potentially from people from the community. In the first 30 - 45 minutes the speakers do the actual presentations and the last 15 minutes are for open discussions.

The webinars will usually be hosted live on the second and fourth Wednesday each month at 10:00 AM EST (US east cost). Additionally the sessions will be recorded and published on the IBM Social Business Toolkit YouTube channel.

Attendance is free and no registration is required. You can attend the webinars by simply joining the following IBM SmartCloud meeting. The e-meeting supports audio broadcasting. In order to speak you need to dial in the conference separately.

E-Meeting
https://apps.na.collabserv.com/meetings/join?id=065-675
Meeting password: ICSAppDev

Conference Numbers
https://www.teleconference.att.com/servlet/glbAccess?process=1&accessCode=71387162&accessNumber=06924432290#C2
Passcode: 71387162

Below is a list of scheduled webinars.

We look forward to seeing you on our webinars!


06/12/13 - 10:00 AM EST: How to use the IBM Social Business Toolkit in HTML/JavaScript Applications

Add to your calendar.

Speaker: Mark Wallace, IBM, Social Business Toolkit Architect, @mewallace




06/26/13 - 10:00 AM EST: How to use the IBM Social Business Toolkit in Java Applications

Add to your calendar.

Speaker: Bhavesh Shah, IBM, Social Business Toolkit Developer, @bhavesh_23




07/10/13 - 10:00 AM EST: How to use the IBM Social Business Toolkit in XPages

Add to your calendar.

Speaker: Martin Donnelly - IBM, XPages Architect, @TweeterDonnelly



Speaker: Padraic Edwards, IBM, XPages Developer, @paidi_ed

There has been a lot of XPages blogging recently (again). As other people already noted, there seems to be a new trend of doing full series of blog entries about certain topics. Below is a list of some of these series.

Amazing content. Great community. Thank you.


Source Control: The Good Stuff (9 entries)

Read the introduction and overview.

Author: Russell Maher / @RussellMaher




"Today I am launching a series of posts and videos to guide Domino Developers through using Mercurial Source Control in Domino Designer 9 starting with installation and ending with using source control across multiple databases and server environments. My goal is to get you to where I've gotten to with source control...but faster."


EXTJS in XPages (9 entries so far)

Read the overview and the list of entries.

Author: Mark Roden / @MarkyRoden




"For ever and a day it has been the dream of Lotus Notes developers to be able to modernize their notes client applications and provide their clients an interactive user interface which is similar enough to the notes view interface to seem “familiar” but it different and “cool” enough to help them make the decision to modernize. I believe EXTJS used correctly, provides that user experience and compelling business demands to upgrade."


Dojo Data Grid (17 entries so far)

Read the overview and the list of entries.

Author: Brad Balassaitis / @Balassaitis




"The Dojo Data Grid control is another option we have for displaying data in XPages. It provides a more modern look and the potential for much more functionality than a view panel, yet it functions in a way that’s a little more familiar to Notes client users in that it uses a scroll bar, rather than paging."


Java for Selections (6 entries so far)

Read the overview and the last of entry.

Author: Paul Withers / @PaulSWithers




"It’s no surprise that, despite coming from a background of minimal Java in the days before XPages, I now use Java as my main language in XPages back-end coding. There are a few areas where I’ve had to put my thinking cap on to work out how to use Java correctly when mapping between components and Domino, not least in number handling and Collections."


XPages Masterclass (4 entries)

Read the introduction and overview.

Author: Tony McGuckin / @tonymcguckin




"Follow the XPages Masterclass Video Series throughout 2013 where four series will be published covering various topic areas vital to building robust, performant XPages applications."


Taking the scary out of Java in XPages (3 entries)

Read the overview and the last of entry.

Author: Tim Tripcony / @timtripcony




"The discussion following my last post made stark the need for greater availability of information that makes the nature of Java more accessible to Domino developers. Credit for the title of this post goes to Declan, who is considering writing a series of blog posts on this topic. I will be doing the same; hopefully there will be a fair amount of duplication."


Getting To The Java Roots of XPages (14 entries so far)

Read the overview and the last of entry.

Author: Declan Sciolla-Lynch / @qtzar




"Now, Tim Tripcony is doing a series on taking the scary out of Java for XPages ( he stole my original title but that’s ok ) but Tim already knows Java where as I’m just starting down the road to Java. I have basic ( not the language ) knowledge of how some bits fit together and how to reference it from XPage applications but right now I’m like the majority of XPage developers and I use SSJS a lot so in this series I’m going to take you  with me as I discover Java and Xpages and how it all fits together."


Getting Started With Twitter Bootstrap (3 entries so far)

Read the overview and the list of entries.

Author: Kathy Brown / @RunningKathy




"First off, what IS Twitter Bootstrap? Well, right on their front page they say it is a “Sleek, intuitive, and powerful front-end framework for faster and easier Web development.” Okay, so what is it really? It’s a thing that provides stuff to make your XPages prettier. Too simplified? Okay.  If you’ve been using OneUI in conjunction with the Application Layout control, it’s sort of like that. A tool that provides the bits and pieces to quickly and easily style your Web application with a modern look and feel."


Creating Twitter Bootstrap Widgets (1 entry so far)

Read the first entry.

Author: Richard Moy / @richardmoy




"In this five part series, I will walk you through the process of creating a Bootstrap widget by first understanding how Bootstrap widgets are structured, how to layout a widget, tie it together using Dojo, turn it into a responsive widget, and how to create it as a XPages custom control for you XPagers out there. There are three prerequisites to continue, you need to have a good understanding of CSS especially CSS3, you need to know Dojo, and have created Dojo classes using dojo.declare."

We've updated the developerWorks/social page. This landing page contains links to key resources for social business application developers, including several community resources like StackOverflow, GitHub and Collaboration Today. There is also getting started information explaining different types of developers how to start using the IBM Social Business Toolkit.

The page can be reached via the short URL developer.ibm.com/social.

We have updated and restructured the content, but haven't touched the style. Stay tuned for more improvements in this area.



Thanks to my colleagues Michael Stewart and Craig Lordan for making this happen.

Thanks to Paul Bastide and the IBM Collaboration Solutions app dev team there is a new version of the IBM Collaboration QuickStart image available in the IBM SmartCloud.

The image can be used by developers to quickly build social apps. It comes with the following pre-installed and pre-configured products and some test user accounts:
- IBM Connections 4.0 CR2
- IBM Domino 8.5.3 FP3
- IBM Sametime community server 8.5.2 IFR1
- IBM Sametime Proxy Server 8.5.2 IFR1

Watch this movie (13 mins) to see how to set up your own development environment in less than one hour.



In the video I used the default configuration with 8 GB Ram which costs $0.48 per hour. You can find out more about costs using the estimator.

The documentation is available in the app dev wiki. Paul also talked about the image at IBM Connect 2013 (video, audio, slides).

In order to start using the image and other images on the IBM SmartCloud Enterprise you need to register to activate your IBM ID to get access.

The image can also be used for the Connections App Dev contest where developers can win 5 x $1000.

IBM has posted video and audio recordings of some of the sessions from IBM Connect 2013 on socialbiz User Group. The videos can be watched without registration, audio tracks and slides can be downloaded by authenticated users.

Below is a list of sessions about the IBM Social Business Toolkit and IBM Connections app dev topics.

INV110 - AppDev Strategy: Coding Social Business Applications --- video, audio, slides

AD101 - Social Applications Made Easy with the New Social Business Toolkit SDK --- video, audio, slides

AD102 - Using IBM Collaboration Quickstart for Social Business --- video, audio, slides

AD206 - IBM Lotus Domino XPages: Embrace, Extend, Integrate --- audio, slides

JMP102 - Extending Your App Arsenal With OpenSocial --- video, slides

JMP202 - Extending IBM Connections to Build an Exceptional Social Learning Platform --- video, audio, slides

ID301 - What's New and Coming in IBM Connections --- video, audio, slides

App Dev Throwdown --- video