Running Notes from the Lotus Expeditor IDE
When developing Eclipse components for composite applications in Lotus Notes, you may wish to develop the Eclipse components in an Eclipse IDE and then run Notes and the Eclipse components directly from the IDE. This avoids assigning the components new version IDs and having to export them to update sites every time you want to test them. It also lets you use the Java(TM) debugger.

Configuring the Lotus Expeditor IDE to run Notes

Note This information assumes that Lotus Notes was installed into the default location, and the Java 5 VM has been installed from the Lotus Expeditor DRE CD.

After installing the LotusR Expeditor Toolkit and restarting the IDE, you are presented with a dialog box for configuring the toolkit. From the Test Environment drop down box, select Notes8. The rest of the fields will be updated based on the default information for Lotus Notes.

If you have not installed Lotus Notes nto the default location, you can browse to the appropriate Target Location for your system before pressing OK.

Note In addition to setting the target platform, JRE and compiler compliance level, the toolkitfs configuration process also sets the default target to Notes8. This causes the target field to be set to Notes8 in all dialogs where the target name must be given.

The recommended setting for the auto-configuration preference is Attempt to configure the toolkit the first time a workspace opens. If you select this option, you will only be prompted to configure the toolkit the first time you use a workspace with the toolkit.

Use the following steps if you ever wish to reconfigure the IDE environment:

1. From within the Eclipse IDE, select Window > Preferences.

2. Expand Client Services.

3. Select Configure.

4. From the Test Environment control, select the desired test environment.

5. Change the Target Location, Compiler compliance level or VM name (optional).

6. Click OK.

Launching Notes from the Lotus Expeditor IDE

After developing your applications, you can launch Lotus Notes to test them from within the IDE. In order to do this, you must first uncomment the following two lines (by removing the # sign) in the <Notes Default="">\framework\shared\eclipse\plugins\com.ibm.notes.branding_3.0.0.<verson_number>\hannover_plugin_customization.ini:


Next, use the following procedure to create a launch configuration and launch Notes from within the IDE:

1. Select Run > Run...

2. Select Client Services.

3. Click New.

4. Enter a Name.

5. Select Clear workspace data before launching.

6. Click Run.

The Notes8 target will set the VM arguments for the launch configuration. The tabs on the client services launcher function similar to the Eclipse PDE launcher, with a few additions. If you want to add or remove plug-ins from the launch configuration at a feature level, change to the profile tab and select the features to add or remove.