This is the first in my new series, Out Of Notes, which shows how the Midas Rich Text LSX can be used to take data out of complex, structured Notes documents and use it elsewhere. Whether a company needs to send small snapshots of documents usable outside of a Notes environment, or needs to export all of its data to an external system such as Sharepoint, they need the data in some different format. Midas allows high fidelity, flexible exports in a variety of formats. The one shown here is the Microsoft Web Archive format (*.mht), which is only visible in Internet Explorer, but which is a very handy single file format containing images, formatting and data together. Future videos in the series will show exports to structured columnar formats such as .csv, ePublishing formats such as EPUB, word processing formats such as MS Word and display formats such as HTML. In addition, the ability to create collections based on selection, view or formula and tied together with exported views will also be shown.

The videos will show the Midas Rich Text LSX used to export either a single document or a collection based on formula, view or category, along with an exported view of the collection. Export formats will include HTML, CSV, MHTML, EPUB, EML and more, all including rich text as well as other data.. I wanted to explain in advance that I am not either for or against taking data out of Notes permanently, but I am in favor of high fidelity exports regardless of whether you want a snapshot for a client, a data set result for a salesperson, an archive for discovery or an export for the purposes of taking the data elsewhere. That is our business.

I will highlight a number of ways to take data out of Notes, most either requiring or enhanced by Midas V5. For those of you who have bothered to read this far, I also want to extend an offer to you. Those with valid, up-to-date licenses for Midas V4 (either in their first year of free maintenance/upgrades or paid-up on renewals) on the day Midas V5 is released will get both their free upgrade to Midas V5 and the extended Midas Exports license. Those who buy Midas V5 afterwards will have to decide whether they need the Midas Exports license. Without that, there is a limit on how many documents can be bundled in a collection for export to EPUB/MHTML/HTML. So, when you watch the videos, decide whether you want to buy or renew before the offer expires the day V5 is released.

I realized that an inherent issue with video tutorials on Notes/Domino and other topics is accessibility. There are people who don't hear well, people who don't understand me easily, and people who don't speak English well enough to understand what I am saying while also trying to follow the logic of my fast-paced tutorials.

With this in mind, I am adding closed captions to the videos. I have already added them to a couple, most notably my popular Hide Your Unmentionables: Domino's Internet Site Rules. While the closed captions are in English, the CC Translate works fairly well if it is given clear captions and not the hideous auto captions. (If anybody is motivated to use these as a resource for training or anything else and would like to translate to German or whatever, let me know. It is simple to add a specific language and I can supply the transcript with timing and everything.)

Anyway, give the video a try with Closed Captions turned on, either in English or translated to your language, and let me know what you think. It takes a bit more work to add these, but seems a reasonable thing for the sake of accessibility. Also, watch it in HD, just because.

One more quick Gimp 2.8 mini-lesson. The next few I am working on are for Notes/Domino and for Midas, but this is a fun and easy technique I worked on during the weekend. The full mini-lesson is at http://mini-lessons.info/Gimp15. Watch until the end to see how frames can be made with irregular shapes as well.

Over the next few weeks, Youtube is going to switch people to their new One Channel design. If you care about the branding of your Youtube channel, I created a Gimp template you can use with layers to show or mask the various parts which will show on different size devices. You can find the template file plus instructions at http://mini-lessons.info/Gimp14, but I have included the video in case you want to understand how it works first.

My latest mini-lesson is Midas#7 Cross Reference Smartlinks, which shows off a sample database that is both very new and very old. I created an earlier version for Lotusphere 2002, I think, and have modified it and used it in a couple of other places, but never made a public sample for our website. I decided to update it more and release it now, as I have had people ask for the functionality in one way or another recently. I helped one customer build it into an XPages app, so when I get a chance I'll probably modify it again to show how it works with XPages and on the web in a classic web app.

If you follow the link above, you can see the code which is used, as well as links to the download and to an evaluation request. But first, watch the video (only 2 and a half minutes). Best to watch in HD full screen.