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Advansys Formativ gives you the power to
make GroupWise work the way you want! To help you understand what is possible
with Formativ, read on for an insight into a particular solution and how it can
help you. We discuss how it works and offer some suggestions for extending its
functionality even further.
Featured Solution:
DWS Go to
sender's web page
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How does this applet benefit me?
The DWS
Go to sender's web page is a cool and useful Formativ powered solution
written by Dave Strickler,
DWS President. As with all useful tools,
the DWS applet was built to save time when addressing a simple, everyday need:
when you receive an email from someone you do not know, before replying, you
may wish understand a little more about the sender. One of the easiest methods
to gather additional information is to go to the sender's Web address by
manually copying the domain part of the sender's email address, for example the
'emailsolutions.com' part of the address
'dstrickler@emailsolutions.com', and then adding 'http://www.' to it in
the MS Internet Explorer URL address field
(www.emailsolutions.com).
As this facility is not a standard
GroupWise feature (assuming the sender's URL is not accessible in the message
body text), Dave wrote the DWS solution in Formativ to do all the steps
automatically, at the click of a button on the GroupWise mail message toolbar!
Thanks to Dave sharing his applet in the
Formativ
Applet Central area at
GroupWise Cool
Solutions, you too can benefit from the time-saving convenience which
Dave's solution offers.
Download
The DWS Go to
sender's web page applet can be downloaded from the Formativ Solutions
Download page  .
How does it work?
The great
thing about the DWS applet is that it is simple and effective. When the
? icon is clicked on the mail view toolbar, the applet automatically
extracts the domain portion of the sender's address, prefixes it with
'http://www.' when passing the URL to Microsoft Internet Explorer. An example
of its use is shown in Figure 1 below.
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| Figure 1 - Jump to the sender's web
site |
| Integrating with GroupWise |
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One of Formativ's key strengths is its ability to execute
applets, with point and click simplicity, from just about any toolbar, menu or
event in GroupWise - and absolutely no programming is required!
The
DWS Go to sender's web page applet is integrated with the GroupWise mail
view toolbar. The check box at the bottom of the dialog indicates that
the applet will appear on the Formativ Run menu, which can be found under the
main Applets menu. See Figure 2 below.
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| Figure
2 - Formativ Integrations |
Take a look at the Formativ User's Guide to
see just how easy it is to integrate applets with GroupWise.
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Applet operation
When activated by the
user, the applet first checks to see if MS Internet Explorer is installed in
"C:\program files\Internet Explorer\iexplore.exe". If not, the applet exits.
The applet then checks if we have a GroupWise message open and, if so, it
extracts the sender's email address and extracts the domain portion (i.e. all
text to the right following the '@' character). It then runs MS Internet
Explorer and passes the new URL on the command
line.
Techniques
Checking for a valid GroupWise
message
The Set Msg = Client.ClientState.CommandMessage will
set the Msg object equal to the currently active or selected message in the
GroupWise client. The check if Msg is Nothing then identifies that if
the Msg object is empty, then display a message, otherwise proceed with the
applet.
Processing the sender's address
As we have a valid
Msg object, getting the sender's address is simple as using the command
SenderAddress = Msg.Sender. The domain portion of the sender's address
is then extracted using parsing commands DomainName =
Mid(SenderAddress,InStr(SenderAddress,"@")+1,255), which essentially finds
the location of the '@' character in the SenderAddress and copies all text to
the right into the DomainName variable.
Starting Microsoft Internet
Explorer
Internet Explorer (IE) is started by using the Call
GroupWise.RunProgram(IEPath, "http://www." & DomainName). The first
parameter of RunProgram, IEPath, is the location of the IE application and this
contstant is defined at the beginning of the applet. The second parameter is
the command line information, which is the just 'http://www.' appended to the
contents of the DomainName variable. |
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| The DWS Go to sender's web page applet was written for an
immediate need and is not intended to be a 'commercial strength' solution.
However, only very minor enhancements would be required to introduce some error
checking, such as exiting the applet if it is not an internet address (i.e.
does not contain and '@' character), and extending it to work with both MS
Internet Explorer or another browser. You would also remove the hard-coded
refence to the location of the browser software. |
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Download
The DWS Go to sender's web
page applet can be downloaded from the Formativ Solutions Download page
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Installation
The applet should be
copied to the Formativ local applets folder, the default being c:\program
files\advansys\formativ\local\ and then restart the GroupWise
client.
Distribution
For personal use, the installation
procedure described above is sufficient. To share the same applet easily, you
may also install Formativ Admin or Formativ Client so that the Local applets
folder points to a shared network folder. This is useful for users, perhaps
within a particular department, who wish to run the same applets. For fast,
flexible and secure distribution at a corporate level, it is recommended that
network and GroupWise administrators implement Formativ's eDirectory
capabilities. |
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If you have any questions on this applet or you have a
need for a different applet, feel free to post a question or comment in the
Advansys Formativ Support Forums by clicking on the following
link:
Developing
Solutions with Formativ
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