On Friday, we submitted our session proposal for next year's Lotusphere 2009.
Please take a look at what we have to offer. We'll know in November if IBM accepts the session.


Session Title: Integration of legacy swing application to the Lotus Notes-Client 8.x
Speaker Name 1: Tammo Riedinger
Speaker Name 2: Karsten Lehmann


Session abstract/description:
In this session, we want to present necessary steps to integrate a standalone Swing-based Java application with the Lotus Notes-Client 8.x.
We believe that such an integration is extremely valuable in combination with the Composite Application technology of the Lotus Notes-Client.
We want to show, how one can add value to a legacy application, by enabling it to interact with other components within the Lotus Notes-Client.

Step 1:
Basic example with a complete Java application inside a tab and exposing properties to the property broker.

Step 2:
Tighter integration: application's menus, toolbars and shortcuts to those of the Client

Step 3:
Traps and pitfalls, look-out


Please outline why it is important that this session be included on this year’s Lotusphere agenda:

To leverage the Lotus Notes Standard-Client, it is important to integrate as many third-party solutions as possible. With our session we would like to help solution-providers to get started with their standalone Swing-based java applications.

With the provided resources and tips, the audience should be enabled to achieve a quick integration of their legacy Swing solution into the Lotus Notes-Client 8.x,  without having to reinvent the wheel over and over again.

Details to the three phases of the session:
As a first step we will demonstrate a very basic example of an integration, by displaying a complete Java application inside a tab of the Lotus Notes-Client.
Adding a Composite Application interface and a few more Java tools to this example, will show,  how such a basic integration can increase the business value of a legacy application, by using the Lotus Notes infrastructure to communicate with other components and enable the use of third party add-ons.

In the next phase, we focus on increasing the level of integration. This includes adding the application's menus, toolbars and keyboard-shortcuts to those of the Lotus Notes-Client as well as a few other steps to create a more seemless user experience.

In the last part, we want to give a look-out on possible modifications of the legacy application in order to provide an even tighter integration, as well as pinpointing traps and pitfalls of this process.


Detailed list of topics:

• motivation
  • value added by integrating legacy applications to the Lotus Notes client
  • integration with other components via Composite Application technology
• scenario of the example
• wrapping a standalone Swing-base Java application
  • initializing Swing
  • mapping of Swing-Frame to a plugin-tab
• using the Swing-bridge project
  • explanation and example
• integration of menu-entries and toolbars into the Lotus Notes ui
  • static vs. dynamic registration of actions
  • delegation from Eclipse-actions to Swing-actions
  • dynamic activation of actionSets/controlSets
• enabling shortcuts
  • dynamic shortcut-handling with contexts
• composite application
  • exposing functionality via property broker
• possible modifications of legacy application
  • supporting Eclipse-services, like e.g. selection service
  • breaking legacy application into views
• avoiding traps and pitfalls