PermaLinknotes:// protocol vs NDL files
posted Wednesday 8th, October 2003
 



Like many companies, we've had a need to link from intranet pages to locations to be opened in the Notes client. We've been doing that with NDL files, but the downside is that the poor user must click 3 times to get to the target content: once when they click on the initial link (that points to the NDL file), a second time in a dialog box to select the radio button to run the file from its current location, and then a third click on <OK> to finally get to the desired link. Oh, and none of that will even work if the user doesn't have the proper registry entries (email me if you need the registry settings to get NDL files to work).

I've tried using the notes:// protocol in URLs in the past, but testing turned up a large percentage of users for whom the link wouldn't work. So here's the secret. I've tested this with several versions of Notes from R5.0.6a up through R5.0.12 (I have not tested all of the versions in there, so do your own testing). The rest of the environment in which I've tested is Windows 2000 for the O/S and IE 5.x browser

To get the notes:// protocol to work, you need to tweak your Windows Registry a little (newer versions of Notes are supposed to add the registry settings during install). So here's a .reg file that you can download and simply run - after you edit it with Notepad to ensure that the entries point to your Notes program folder - and it should add the needed entries to your Registry.

Or to be safer, you can edit the Registry manually (after taking a Registry backup, of course!). Here are screen shots of the needed Registry settings: pic1, pic2, pic3, pic4, pic5.
Comments :
 
 

1. Posted by Jerry Carter - website09/09/2007 08:43 PM



Hi Joe,

We had to do a lot of that about a year ago when we switched to outlook mail (groan). What I wound up doing was creating an installer that both updated the registry and added the NDL as an Outlook toolbar icon. I used visual basic to make the .exe, which was very small and easy to send around. The secret to getting the exe to work without creating a 2 MB distributable is to only use Windows Scripting Host objects in the VB program. Runs like a depositable agent.

Once users run this, it takes care of modifying the registry and does the following for the ndl: create the NDL file on the users C:\, associate the icon within the exe that is running with the ndl file, add a shortcut pointing to the ndl to outlook which adopts the icon of the exe, then deletes the ndl. Since outlook stores all it needs to know about the ndl within it's own self (registry?) there's no danger of the user blowing away the source file used. It took a LOT of experimenting to get right. What's nice is it's like adding a little piece of the notes desktop to the Outlook client. Works like a charm.

If anyone wants the script, let me know. I had forgotten we went through all that grief till you mentioned it, Joe!

Jerry



2. Posted by Joe Litton - website09/09/2007 08:43 PM



Jerry, Hey I'd love to have a look at the script you wrote. We're not using Outlook ...but mainly interested to see what I might learn.

For the notes:// link, what I've been offering to do for the users is to code a button to allow the user to click and then have the notes:// url sitting in their Windows clipboard, to then paste into the appropriate anchor tag on their web page. When they click the button, I'd assemble the url 'notes://' + serverName/ + dbFilepath/ + viewUNID/ (or simply '0/') + docUNID ...then use a little WinAPI code to put the url string into the clipboard. So it be easy to use for the web page coder, and easy to use for the person browsing the web page.

It's cool when we can give the users a solution that works smoothly...sometimes a bit of a brain teaser to get there!



3. Posted by Alan Bell - website09/09/2007 08:43 PM



thanks for this info, I am shortly rolling out an application that relies on the notes:// protocol so now I am prepared for any hiccups that may occur on rollout.

Alan.



4. Posted by Jerry Carter09/09/2007 08:43 PM



I need to get the Visual Basic script off of my (banished from the office) laptop. I'll send it your way later tonight.

Jerry



5. Posted by Jorge Coelho09/09/2007 08:43 PM



This feature was supported since version 5.0, but only during the 5.0.9 upgrade was the registry automatically updated to allow users to use this feature.

Check out the Notes URL Support section on this document

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/r5fixlist.nsf/0/20865e9ba8b99e7b85256cb80055a8ac?OpenDocument&ExpandSection=1