Now that we are all “connections developers” according to IBM, sooner or later you will need to starting dealing with Web sphere in a serious fashion, this is no simple task, as Web Sphere admin as far more complex that developing for Web sphere and the documentation makes massive assumptions, so I will be doing a series of simple and essential tips for developers so make your life a bit easier, starting off will be changing XML config on connections.

Most of the connections config resides in a file called “LotusConnections-config.xml”, now there are copies of this file all over the place, to change them you check them all out, make the change in one place then check them back in, this not only keeps the changes consistent over your connections installation but it validates your changes and keeps a backup.

To do this first go to the bin directory of your deployment manager, in my test server’s case that is (yours will most likely be very similar except for it being on “E”)

E:IBMWebSphereAppServerprofilesDmgr01bin>

Then enter the wasadmin console with

wsadmin -lang jython

Next run the Connections Config jpython file

execfile("connectionsConfig.py")

Once that is done (after a load of output to the screen) you need to check out the config files, you need to provide a location to check the files out to (just create a directory somewhere safe) and the name of the web sphere cell you want to get the files from (see below on how to get that)

LCConfigService.checkOutConfig("E:working","WIN-L5H5FQ2LKP1Cell01")

If you don’t know the name of the cell you are working on (hell I never know) you can find out by typing the following.

AdminControl.getCell()

You can now alter the files in the directory to suit what ever changes you want to make, the best way though is to use the “updateConfig” command which makes sure that you don’t make any bad types and screw your config up.

LCConfigService.updateConfig("profiles.directory.service.extension.enabled","false")

Once you are happy with your changes, you can check them them back in with the following (you will most likely need to restart the connections apps for the changes to take effect

LCConfigService.checkInConfig()

_NOTE: I’m not a proper Web Sphere admin, If you want proper Web Sphere and Connections admin you want [the Turtle Partnership](http://www.turtleweb.com/)_

This year was my busiest year yet at Connect with 6 hours total on stage, and as there is a good chance that technical content will be cut from next years conference these might be my last presentations there, so enjoy

SHOW104 – Practical Java (with Julian Robichaux)

Sunday | 13:30-15:30 PM | Swan Osprey

Take a whirlwind tour of the many ways in which Java can make your life better as a developer. We’ll use Java in IBM Notes, Eclipse, and the latest IDEs. And we’ll show you examples of best of breed libraries that can analyze data, create PDFs, and perform image processing on the fly. Get connected to IBM Connections, access relational data, open sockets, and parse feeds. And along the way we’ll throw in tips for testing, performance, and writing good code.

#####SHOW303 – Proper Connections Development for Proper Domino Developers (with [Matt White](http://mattwhite.me/))

_Tuesday | 10:30-12:15 | Swan Osprey_

This is a session with a mission: to take a much loved IBM Domino app and deploy it to a client’s new IBM Connections environment. We’ll show different solutions such as the use of iWidgets or creating a REST API to make the application available to IBM Connections users and walk you through the process, from beginning to end. If you’re an IBM Domino developer who knows nothing about IBM Connections, this is the session for you.

Source Code Snippets to be uploaded in a bit

So I’m back from Connections 2014 and Ignoring a terrible case of the IBM Connect flu (which has been upgraded to include vomiting and diarrhoea) the event has been a great success

The previous 2 years of LotusSphere and IBM connection have been more than a little depressed and to a certain extent ‘desperate’ feeling, this year it felt much different, not the happy go Lucky ‘lets have a party’ of older Lotuspheres, but a heads down lets do some work feeling.

I ended up making far more contacts and having far more business conversations than in previous years, which has ended with the best set of business leads to be got from the conference in many a year. If I was honest this is largely due to the assistance provided to me by The turtle partnership and other members of LDC, which made my skill set perfectly timed for IBMs current focus.

IBM have re-badged us “Connections Developers” when what they really mean is ‘Web sphere Developers’, it’s what they have wanted us to be for years with little success and at last they have found a way to sell it to us without a revolt, this is fine by me as I had already started the transition, but it is a little bit ‘marketing’

The scheduling sucked, sorry but it did, people found lots of sessions with similar subjects matched against each other, there are tracks for a reason people!!, if you are a developer you should be able to follow the developer track without constantly deciding which developer sessions you can attend due to there being 3 on at once.

The social side of the conference was excellently done with Veronica Belmont (who’s autograph I got) providing a professional touch, plenty of things for people to do and the placement of the social cafe was just right as it provided a excellent amount of foot fall though the vendor area (always a good idea)

There were some indication that IBM is tightening the purse strings, such as the lack of entertainment at the party and there only being 4 rides open at the fairground trip, but that was compensated by none of the messing about with speaker tickets that we had last year, mind you as I was working neither worried me, but I might have cared if had paid 2k for a ticket.

My habit of walking though a crowd just listening in order to get a feel for it revealed a surprising large amount of Germanic and eastern European languages and quite a lot of Japanese, far more than I remember in previous years, perhaps market areas to pay attention to in the next year. Hmmmmmm

Conclusion: A good conference all round, and other than the scheduling, well done, if IBM can repeat it next year then I will be there, but if only 30% of the rumours of changes are true, it might only be a conference for management and HR staff, who tend not to ask difficult questions about technical products.

The Other LDC Blogs on the same subject

Matt White

Julian Woodward

LDC Group Photo for Connect 2014: aren’t we beautiful