NOTES CLIENT INSTALLATION AND UPGRADE

Configuring component update for composite applications
Composite application update, supported by IBM® Lotus® Notes®, IBM® Lotus® Domino® and IBM® WebSphere® Portal, is available in this Notes release. Composite applications and associated Eclipse-based features can be updated when a user opens an application. Composite applications can update composite application definitions. Certain Eclipse™ features can also be updated.

A composite application definition can reference one or more Eclipse features as application requirements. Each requirement can specify a particular update site from which it will be provisioned.

You can use composite applications to install or update custom or third-party features in Notes, as described here. You can also use the Eclipse update manager, if exposed in Notes, to install or update custom or third-party features in Notes.

For information about installing new features as part of Notes install or with a third-party installer, see the topic Installing custom and third-party features and plug-ins in this guide.

When a user opens a composite application or when a composite application update operation occurs, if the application definition has changed, an update operation is run to provision both newly specified features as well as existing features that have newer available versions.

The feature requirement update site setting can specify a Domino server (or local NSF replica) or a Portal server (or any HTTP server). Update site URL examples for each server are as follows:


Domino NSF-based update sites

Domino provides the capability to put an Eclipse™ update site inside an NSF database. An NSF-based update site is typically a separate database that doesn't contain composite applications. However, since any Notes application NSF can contain a composite application, an update site NSF may contain a composite application. For example, a third-party could deliver a composite application and an update site, with the former pointing to the latter. Or an administrator could put the composite application in an NSF-based update site and make it available to users that way.

For more information about NSF-based update sites, see "Creating and using an NSF-based update site."

You can import Eclipse update sites into an NF-based update site application as described below.

Creating and preparing the NSF-based update site

1. Create an NSF-based update site, for example UPDATESITE.NSF, using the File - Application - New menu sequence and the Eclipse Update Site template (UPDATESITE.NTF) installed with Domino or Notes.


2. Open the NSF-based update site.

3. Click the Import Local Update Site... action button.

4. From the resultant explanatory panel, use the Browse button to navigate to the Eclipse update site.

5. Select the SITE.XML file.

6. Click Open.


Editing a Composite Application's feature requirements update site URL

There are two methods you can use to edit a composite application's feature requirements update site URL:

A. Recommended method: Using the Composite Applications Editor to specify an update site for feature requirements

The preferred way to edit the update site URL for a feature requirement is through the use of the Composite Application Editor (CAE) as described in the following steps:

1. In Notes, open the composite application.

2. Click Actions - Edit Application... .


3. From the resultant component list, right-click the desired component and select Edit Component Properties.

4. Click Advanced.


5. Select the property for the desired feature, for example url.Feature_NN, and click Edit.
6. Click OK to exit Advanced.

7. Click OK to exit the Properties pane.

8. Click Done to close and save the changes.

9. The modified CA XML is re-read and processed.

B. Alternate method: Configuring a composite application to specify an update site

Use this process to define update sites for the contents of a particular composite application NSF.

10. The administrator obtains a composite application NSF, for example MyCompAppabx.nsf.

11. Accompanying the composite application NSF, the administrator obtains an update site folder, which contains a \features and \plugins subdirectory, as well as a SITE.XML file. The SITE.XML file lists features contained within the update site folder.

12. The administrator modifies the composite application's XML to point to a specific Domino update site.

13. Save and close the XML file.

14. In Domino Designer and within the open composite application, click the composite application name in the list, click the Refresh tab, and select the modified composite application XML file.

15. Open the NSF-based update site application, for example UPDATESITE.NSF, and import the SITE.XML file from the local update site folder that accompanies this composite application.


For information about deploying and provisioning features to an existing client runtime, see the topic "Deploying and managing client plug-ins with widgets and the widget catalog."

Retrieving composite application definitions (CA XML) from Domino

The NRPC URL format for retrieving composite application updates is as below:


WebSphere Portal and Composite Applications

WebSphere Portal composite application update is made available to the Notes user through the Home Portal Account setting in Notes, as determined by the Domino administrator. In addition, the administrator must also have installed the WebSphere Portal composite application support for Notes on the same WebSphere Portal server to which the user's Home Portal Account points. WebSphere Portal composite application update pertains typically to the Notes user who is working with composite applications that contain Web projections.

For information about configuring users for composite applications that contain portlets, see the following topics in this guide:


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