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Thu 31 Oct 2013, 09:49 AM
I've learned to wait a few days before making these announcements, but here is the press release for Midas LSX 5.

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Announcing Midas LSX 5
Contact:
Ben Langhinrichs
Genii Software
+1 216-991-5220
Ben@GeniiSoft.com


Cleveland, Ohio
Today -- 
Genii Software is pleased to announce the immediate availability of Midas LSX 5.00, a major new release of the widely acclaimed product extension for IBM Notes/Domino. After sixteen years of ongoing success as the Midas Rich Text LSX, the name has been changed to reflect the growing capabilities of the Midas LSX.

Midas LSX 5.00
is available now for all 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms running IBM Notes/IBM Domino 9.x Social Edition and IBM Lotus Notes/IBM Lotus Domino 6.5x/7.x/8.x/8.5.x. 

Please visit our 
Midas LSX page to find out more about pricing and customer benefits. A fully functional evaluation license is available for free by filling out our on-line evaluation form.

Midas LSX 5
: Along with enhancements to our widely recognized HTML generation engine and modifications to support IBM Notes/Donmino 9 Social Edition, Midas LSX 5 offers a new set of abilities to support the fast-changing mobile development market as well as the need for better ways to use company's valuable Notes/Domino data stores outside of the classic Notes environment.

ePublishing
: Long gone are the days when every customer could be expected to read data on a large screen. With the explosion of mobile devices of various sizes from tablets to phones, along with the standard corporate desktops and laptops, there is a need to present data in fluid, reflowable formats that adjust properly to the device being used. The global standard for this content is the EPUB format. Midas LSX 5 offers the ability to create EPUB representations of collections of documents with extensive control over the content, presentation and navigation inside thse "instant eBooks". All current iPhones and iPads will read EPUB files directly, and there are readily available free apps for reading EPUB files on all Android devices. Firefox, Chrome and other browsers offer free plugins to allow direct reading of EPUB files as well.

JSON generation
: To support programmatic access to IBM Notes/Domino data from XPages, mobile devices and external software packages, the Midas LSX enables generation of JSON for both rich text and other data in single documents or collections of documents. Developers can depend on Midas to be fast, accurate and secure.

CSV exports
: When the need arises to move a large quantity of data out of Notes to go to SharePoint or Google Apps without loss of fidelity, the Midas LSX 5 offers the best way to take all the content out including rich text fields, images and attachments. Using a CSV format, this data can be read directly into a SharePoint data store, or into most SQL databases that support the CSV format for input.

Mail Archive exports
: Both collections of documents and individual documents can be exported to Mail Archive format (.eml) for input to other mail systems including Microsoft Exchange. High fidelity rendering provides a safe and secure way to migrate data from IBM Domino to another email system when the need arises.

Web Archive exports
: Both collections of documents and individual documents can be exported to Web Archive format (.mht), either as linked documents of in a single document "capsule view". The web archive format can be read natively in Internet Explorer, but is also supported easily in most other browsers via plugin. Companies can use these snapshots of data to produce mini-catalogs completely customized to a an individual's needs (e.g., real estate listings in a specific price range with specific constraints, or a product catalog based on a customer's prior purchases).

Web to Notes imports
: High quality data imports allow you to turn a collection of HTML files into separate Notes documents quickly and cleanly. Midas LSX 5 will even read HTML files from inside a zipped collection to allow import of various packaged collections such as EPUB.

Midas LSX 5 continues to stand alone as the preeminent extensions allowing data movement into and out of IBM Notes/Domino, and manipulation and control of rich content inside IBM Notes/Domino. Over 50% of the largest companies worldwide have used the Midas Rich Text LSX since it was introduced in 1997, and with its expansion as the Midas LSX today, we anticipate an even wider reach.

The 
Midas LSX is solely owned and licensed by Genii Software Ltd.

###

Copyright © 2013 Genii Software Ltd.

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Wed 30 Oct 2013, 03:58 PM
This has nothing to do with my products, but I was glad to see that IBM has embraced the EPUB format as well, making 786 of its IBM Redbooks available in EPUB format as well as PDF. They've published 14 of them this month alone, so there are likely to be more where these came from.

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Visit http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/redbooks.nsf/epub?Open to search for a favorite Redbook and get it in EPUB format.

Copyright © 2013 Genii Software Ltd.

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Wed 30 Oct 2013, 02:02 PM
A few people have written and asked about getting a copy of the IBM Domino Designer Help db with the Eclipse help documents included. While I'd like to just post it, I don't really want to step on IBM's toes on this. So here is the deal I have for you. Since you could go ahead and import the documents yourself using Midas V5, there's no harm in giving you the database if you have an evaluation license for Midas. So, if you want a copy, fill out the evaluation license request, download version 5.00b from the Midas Downloads page and the Curb Appeal sample, which is the first sample on the Midas LSX Samples page. This will have to be on your honor, but try out at least one agent, and let me know by email that you have, and I'll send back the fully populated Help db, as well as the sample I used to build it in case you want to add additional packages such as the foreign language Sametime Connect packages and such.

That's easy enough, right? While you are at it, of course, feel free to look at ways the new Midas LSX could improve your business, or that of your clients.

Copyright © 2013 Genii Software Ltd.

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Wed 30 Oct 2013, 01:44 PM
It occurred to me it might be useful to use Midas V5 to create an EPUB version of the 300 fixes in the IBM Notes/Domino 9.0.1 release. You can download a copy or read it directly from FixList901.epub.  Of course, if you  requested a Midas LSX 5 evaluation license, you could generate your own EPUB, HTML or MHT files for any release, or combination of releases, or topic area, or whatever. The full agent I used is below. The only extra thing I did was create a shortened version of the Public form (which I called EPUBPublic) because I was annoyed that IBM hasn't removed the "This feature is in a future release" note yet.

Option Public
Option Declare
UseLSX "*lsxrtc"

Sub Initialize
   Dim ui As New NotesUIWorkspace
   Dim count As Integer

   Dim gcoll As New GeniiCollection  
   count = gcoll.AddByFormula("""r5fixlist.nsf"|Select MaintVerNum="9.0.1"|)
   If count > 0 Then
      Call gcoll.SortCollection("OfficialDesc""Client_Server")
      Call gcoll.ExportToEPub("c:\demo\FixList901.epub""RenderWithForm='EPUBPublic' dc:title='Notes/Domino Fix List 9.0.1'")
      Call ui.Prompt(PROMPT_OK, "EPUB export""Exported "+CStr(count)+" documents to c:\demo\FixList901.epub")
   End if   
End Sub

If you would like to try out Midas LSX V5 for yourself, request an evaluation license and we can get you set up.

Copyright © 2013 Genii Software Ltd.

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Tue 29 Oct 2013, 09:25 PM
We released Midas LSX Version 5.00a with a few bugs fixes, and with the Import from Zip functionality turned on. To test it, I looked at the Eclipse help packages where all the Designer help has gone. These are packages in zip files, with an XML table of contents. The code I used looks like this after I traverse the XML files with the standard classes, then for each .html file in the Zip file, it creates a blank document, sets the form and such, then imports it.     Update: You can get a copy, just see this post.

Call rtitem.CreateBackend(doc.Handle, "Body"True)
Call rtitem.Everything.AppendHTML("File", srcfile, "Package='"+zipfilename+"' StoreMetaData='Yes' BasePtSize=11 TitleField='Subject' ")

The srcfile is something like LSAZ_WORKING_WITH_EXTERNAL_C_LANGUAGE_FUNCTIONS.html which comes from a toc.xml such as the one below, except with thousands of entries:

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The HTML file is never unzipped to disk, but simply read from the zip file along with any images, the CSS stylesheets and so forth that are also part of the zipped package. The StoreMetaData='Yes' parameter simply stores a field for each meta tag in the HTML file, such as:

<meta name="DC.Title" content="Calling external C language functions" />

which will then create a field called DC.Title with the value "Calling external C language functions", thus allowing you to script based on the title, keywords, etc. The BasePtSize=11 says that all relative point sizes and default point sizes should be 11pt, so when the CSS says that the body should be 0.8em, that is 8.8, which rounds to 9pt, the standard for the Help database. The TitleField='Subject' says that the HTML title tag should be saved in the Subject field.

All that and a bit of script to update the fields from the meta data, and in 18 minutes my Domino Designer has 11997 nicely formatted and linked together documents instead of 297.

But you could play with all that if you had an evaluation license

Copyright © 2013 Genii Software Ltd.

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Thu 17 Oct 2013, 03:57 PM
This community always impresses me with the constant desire to help one another. Brian Moore of Thomson Machinery wrote:

Ben,

I follow your blog, and I appreciate you putting out the client help as an epub. Since I need mobi for my Kindle, I converted it I'm attaching it for you, in case you'd like to share it as well. If you're interested, this is the program I used: 
http://calibre-ebook.com/

Cheers,
 
Brian
 

So, here it is in MOBI format. Simply download or email to your Kindle the IBM Notes 9 Client Help in MOBI (Kindle) format at NotesClientHelp.mobi.

Copyright © 2013 Genii Software Ltd.

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