Implementation Notes: DRAPI Login via Keycloak OIDC — Works on Domino 12.0.2, No Need to Wait for 14

Wiring DRAPI (Domino REST API) up to a modern IdP like Keycloak, Azure AD, or Okta is widely assumed to require Domino 14, since most of the public documentation centres on the 14-era OIDC story. In practice, DRAPI's oidc mode works on Domino 12.0.2 — no server upgrade required. This article is the implementation notebook from reproducing the full setup locally: picking among DRAPI's three OIDC modes (jwt / oidc / oidc-idpcat), debugging the three-layer auth architecture (identity / mapping / authorization), and the four traps that ate the most time — the biggest of which is providerUrl using localhost failing across machines because Java resolves IPv4 by default. Full step-by-step lives in the companion GitHub repo and Pages site; this article doesn't repeat the setup, it focuses on decisions and pitfalls.

HCL Domino 14 vs Earlier Versions: A Reference for Admins and Developers

When upgrading from V11 / V12 to Domino 14.x, the structural changes that actually break existing deployments are surprisingly limited — concentrated in a few areas. This article organises the 14.0 / 14.5 / 14.5.1 differences along five dimensions: notes.ini location, Java / JAR environment, XPages editor (CKEditor → TinyMCE 6.7), new modules (Domino IQ / DQL @FTSearch / AdminCentral / AutoUpdate), and the complete deprecation list (iNotes UI, SNMP MIB, DCT, Server Load Utility, etc.). Each entry is tagged with its starting version and official source, plus a pre-upgrade checklist at the end.

NotesRegistration: Automating User Registration with LotusScript

Every Domino admin gets the same drumbeat — new hire onboarding, employee leave, departure notifications, all eventually landing as 'create / update / disable a Notes user' tickets. Clicking through Admin Client one user at a time scales badly. NotesRegistration is LotusScript's built-in answer: a single class that programmatically wraps user registration, certification, and ID-file management. This article walks through the practical HR-system-driven scenario, RegisterNewUser's 14 parameters, the required property setup, the server-context prerequisites, and a complete CSV batch example.

FTSearch vs db.Search vs DQL: Choosing the Right Domino Search Mechanism

Starting with Domino 14, there are three technical paths for searching documents: FTSearch (full-text index), db.Search (@Formula full scan), and DQL (introduced in V12, structured query using the design catalog and NIF indexes). This article puts the three side by side in a multi-dimensional comparison table, walks a three-question decision tree, and digs into Domino 14's integration of `@FTSearch()` as a DQL term — which finally lets you express text + structured conditions in a single query. Three practical scenarios (one-off lookup, scheduled agent, high-frequency REST API) map to recommended paths, with cross-links to the full search series and the DQL trilogy.

db.Search: Brute-Force Document Search with @Formula — The No-Index Path

NotesDatabase.Search is LotusScript's second search mechanism — no full-text index needed, just @Formula evaluated against every document. This article breaks down the three parameters (formula / dateTime / maxDocs) and how their semantics differ from FTSearch, why the result is unsorted, how the dateTime parameter doubles as a cursor for incremental processing, the truly-unlimited maxDocs=0 (unlike FTSearch's 5000 default cap), the @function subset that doesn't work in this context (UI / lookup / write-back), the snapshot-not-live-view gotcha that catches developers after StampAll, and a production-ready incremental scheduled agent example. Part 2 of a three-part series — the follow-up compares FTSearch / db.Search / DQL side by side.

FTSearch: Domino's Three-Tier Full-Text Search API (NotesDatabase / NotesView / NotesDocumentCollection)

FTSearch is a method on three different Domino classes — and each tier returns something different. This article walks through NotesDatabase.FTSearch (returns a new collection), NotesView.FTSearch (filters the view object in place, returns a Long count), and NotesDocumentCollection.FTSearch (in-place reduction, void), the sortopt and options constants, a query-operator cheat sheet, the five CreateFTIndex options-bitmask flags and their relationship to `load updall -x`, the silent gotcha that FTSearch on a non-indexed database still runs (just slowly), the default 5000-document cap, the wildcard `*`-only-at-end constraint, and the must-be-uppercase rule for AND / OR / NOT. First in a three-part series — db.Search comes next, then a decision article tying everything together with the DQL trilogy.

Exporting NotesView Data to Excel from LotusScript: Four Paths, CSV by Default, When to Reach for POI

'Export this view to Excel for the user' is one of the most common asks in Domino dev. Four paths — CSV via NotesStream (recommended default), HTML-as-xls (legacy formatting trick), OLE Excel.Application (client-only ad-hoc), Apache POI via Java agent (production-grade .xlsx) — each with its sweet spot. This article walks the trade-off table, a complete CSV implementation (with UTF-8 BOM, CSV escaping, and NotesViewNavigator 5-10x speedup), when to use HTML-as-xls / OLE / POI, the web-download pattern, and the three traps most people forget (missing BOM, wrong escape rules, using GetFirstDocument instead of ViewNavigator).

NotesDateTime + NotesDateRange: LotusScript's Date/Time Workhorses

Two of the most frequently touched utility classes in any Domino codebase — NotesDateTime represents a single point in time, NotesDateRange spans a start-to-end interval. This article covers instantiation (New vs session.CreateDateTime), the three time-zone property families (Local / GMT / Zone) and when to use which, the six Adjust* methods for date arithmetic, TimeDifference vs TimeDifferenceDouble precision, ConvertToZone's in-place mutate semantics, NotesDateRange's four-property flat shape (with zero methods), the SetAnyDate / SetAnyTime wildcards used for view searches, the timezone trap when reading from NotesItem.DateTimeValue, and two practical examples (a stale-document reminder agent + a cross-timezone meeting scheduler).

NotesJSONArray / Element / Object: Parsing and Building JSON in LotusScript

The earlier lotusscript-http-json article walked through NotesHTTPRequest + NotesJSONNavigator — the pairing that brings the entire 'call REST API, get JSON' loop inside LS. This article picks up where that left off, going deep on the three building blocks under the navigator: NotesJSONElement (name/value pair), NotesJSONObject (object node), NotesJSONArray (array node). Full method/property tables, tree-walking patterns for parsing, the reverse path for building JSON via Append* + Stringify, the version-sensitive 64K story (including the 10.0.1 FP2 fixes via SPR# DCONB8VMAV / ASHEB95LFR and the element-value > 64K trap still live on 14.5), and a complete POST-and-parse round-trip example.