To facilitate the building of NSF/NTF files from source code repositories, Domino Designer has provided a command line build system. 

It is not a necessity to import source repositories into the Designer application to build NSF/NTF files.

This is aimed at supporting team based development using the Domino Designer.

 

To enable this functionality, one line needs to be added to the notes.ini file

DESIGNER_AUTO_ENABLED=true

 

The command line build can be run in two different ways

 

Single Command

Command File

 

The single command has the format:

 

designer -RPARAMS -vmargs -Dcom.ibm.designer.cmd= [single command]

The single command is made up of a number of comma separated components, and is contained within double quotes.

 

[clean],[exit],[file name],[job name],[file path],[file name]

The values for each of the components are:

 

clean: true/false

exit: true/false

file name: String value containing the name of the NSF/NTF to be created. If no file extension if included then a type of NSF will be created.

job name: the job to be run

file path: the path to the .project file of the repository to be built

 

 

The Headless Designer supports a number of jobs:

 

importandbuild [on disk project path] [nsf name]

imports the on-disk, creates the NSF, and begins the association. Processing of the next job does not wait for the sync or build to finish.

Note: this command will fail if the on-disk project already exists in the Designer workspace. Using clean will remove these when done processing. Specifying an already existing NSF file will not cause the build to fail.

wait [project name] [# of retries]

Waits for the given project to complete all build or sync operations. Since its not deterministic when (if) either event will start or finish, this loops a number of times looking before failing.

config [stop on error - true/false] [exit on error - true/false]

allows configuring some properties that control operation

clean

deletes all projects create so far in this execution. Does NOT delete the project contents.

exit [# milli delay] [restart-true/false] [resume - true/false]

Exits Designer. restart will restart the Designer, and resume will tell Designer to continuing processing the command file if there are commands after this exit command.

 

 

Example:

 

designer.exe -RPARAMS -vmargs -Dcom.ibm.designer.cmd="true,true,Discussion.nsf,importandbuild,C:\XPageApps\Discussion\.project,Discussion.nsf"

 

The output of the build can be viewed in a console by specifying the console as a program argument

designer -RPARAMS -console -vmargs -Dcom.ibm.designer.cmd=single command

 

The command line build also writes to its own log files

 

HEADLESS0.log

HEADLESSJOB0.log

These files are stored in the root Notes directory

 

 

For multiple commands, it is possible to pass a file path as a Java property to the command line build.

 

designer -RPARAMS -vmargs -Dcom.ibm.designer.cmd.file=path to command file

This file will contain one command per line, and a sample command file would be as follows:

 

config,true,true

importandbuild,C:\test\XPagesExt\.project,testXPages

wait,testXPages,20

importandbuild,C:\test\XPagesSBT\.project,testSBT

wait,testSBT,20

clean

exit

 

Although this is a command line build system, the Designer is launched and immediately minimised. However, no user interaction is needed with the GUI. However, due care needs to be taken as with the existance of the GUI, there is potential for issues where some unexpected state could display a dialog, etc.

 

Import an on-disk-project and create an NSF

Remove any on-disk or NSF projects imported into the Designer since the beginning of a command-line session

Ability to restart Designer at any point during the command processing and resume where it left off.

[possible IBM internal feature] expose Eclipse Update Manager command line syntax for installing/updating update sites, etc.

[possible IBM internal feature?] extension points to allow adding commands

 

These were added to allow some ability to update the Extension Library plugins using the command-line syntax.

 

com.ibm.designer.domino.tools.userlessbuild.jobs.UpdateManagerJob command

 

where "command" is a standard Eclipse Update Manager command.

See: http://help.eclipse.org/indigo/index.jsp?topic=%2Forg.eclipse.platform.doc.isv%2Freference%2Fmisc%2Fupdate_standalone.html

 

 

Also, if the [internal] Update Manager command interfaces are being used, it will probably be necessary to disable the Notes provisioning security, in order to allow "dropping" plugins into Designer.

 

command install -from jar:file:file_url -to file:/workspace_applications -featureId featureId -version version

command enable -to file:/workspace_applications -featureId featureId -version version

command disable -to file:/workspace_applications -featureId featureId -version version

command uninstall -to file:/workspace_applications -featureId featureId -version version

An example command file, using a few Update Manager commands:

 

config,true,true

com.ibm.designer.domino.tools.userlessbuild.jobs.UpdateManagerJob,-command install -from jar:file:C:/UDS/com.ibm.sbt.domino.updatesite.zip!/ -to file:/C:/Notes90/Data/workspace/applications -featureId com.ibm.sbt.domino.feature -version 1.0.0.20131121-0623 

exit,18000,true,true

com.ibm.designer.domino.tools.userlessbuild.jobs.UpdateManagerJob,-command enable -to file:/C:/Notes90/Data/workspace/applications -featureId com.ibm.sbt.domino.feature -version 1.0.0.20131121-0623 

exit,18000,true,true

importandbuild,C:\test\XPagesExt\.project,UMtest

wait,UMtest,20

com.ibm.designer.domino.tools.userlessbuild.jobs.UpdateManagerJob,-command enable -to file:/C:/Notes90/Data/workspace/applications -featureId com.ibm.sbt.domino.feature -version 1.0.0.20131121-0623 

exit,18000,true,true

com.ibm.designer.domino.tools.userlessbuild.jobs.UpdateManagerJob,-command enable -to file:/C:/Notes90/Data/workspace/applications -featureId com.ibm.sbt.domino.feature -version 1.0.0.20131121-0623 

clean

exit,12000