My company is looking into Blackberry and Domino. On what platform do you program for blackberry? Do you just program it for the notes client or for the web? I looked on blackberry.com and did not get very much information.
Thanks
Subject: Blackberry and Lotus notes
Not sure that I understand what you are asking. If you want to access your Domino apps using the BlackBerry, you can use the web interface or, I think, Domino Everyplace.
Does that help?
Gregg
Subject: RE: Blackberry and Lotus notes
So you have to have another application to access the notes databases on the Balckberry’s? I am wondering if I need to develop for notes client, web browser, or another platform to use Domino on the blackberries? I am already developing for the notes client, windows explorer and firefox for windows OS and then safari and firefox on mac OS X. So, I am needing to know what other considerations I have to have in mind with development. I am sorry if I was not clear before , I hope I am clearer now.
Subject: RE: Blackberry and Lotus notes
I am by no means an expert on this but I think it depends on what and how you are running your BlackBerry environment. Are you using the BES? and what can the handhelds support. In my prior company we had 7280 handhelds and they did not support javascript. I had my BES configured to let my handhelds access our intranet and it did a more then decent job of converting my forms to the BlackBerry browsers but since it did not support javascript some of my buttons and fonts did not show up. However, I believe that RIM now has a handheld that does support javascript.
If you are going to create apps to push info to the handhelds I believe that you need to use java or J2EE for that. Here is a link that may give you more information.
http://www.blackberry.com/developers/index.shtml
I hope that helps or at least points you in the right direction.
Subject: RE: Blackberry and Lotus notes
To add to Kelly’s post, if you are looking into writing Push applications (e.g. pushing web pages to the handheld) then you don’t necessarily have to use Java.
Check out this PHP example: http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/BlackBerry_Push.asp
Also there is some documentation on the BlackBerry web site that goes a bit more into detail (look for the BlackBerry JDE docs and check out the BlackBerry Developer Journal).
Mike.
Subject: RE: Blackberry and Lotus notes
Mike:
In addition, there are several third party utilities available that will magically transform a Domino database into BlackBerry-usable format.
mDB from mBizTech is an example that comes to mind quickly (http://www.mbiztech.com/products_mdb.html).
- Rob
Subject: RE: Blackberry and Lotus notes
Just found this, which goes into the push a bit more: Home
M.
Subject: RE: Blackberry and Lotus notes
To further elaborate on Kelly’s point:
AFAIK, there are two methods to using a Blackberry to interface to a Notes/Domino database:
-
if you have the Blackberry browser enabled, you can access Domino web applications as you would through the web. The obvious caveat is, unless you specifically tailored each Domino web page to utilize the given screen area of Blackberry, it’s going to look like crap. The not-so obvious caveat is that unless you have upgraded your BES to the latest 4.0, the Blackberry browser will only support plain HTML. Javascript and limited CSS support comes with upgrading to 4.0.
-
OR you can develop your own BB applications in Java/C++ by using the Blackberry JDE.
Hope that helps.
Subject: Blackberry and Lotus notes
Blackberries, in my opinoin, do not make good application devices(small screen and slow). Great for PIM functions but other than that, get a laptop with a PC GPRS data card
Subject: RE: Blackberry and Lotus notes
Don’t know about that, I suppose if you take the limitations of the platform into consideration (screen siye, processor speed, etc.) then it can be an excellent application platform.
Mike.