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Tag: Gary Sherman

Using Ubiquity to "edit" web pages

September 29, 2008 I commonly take screen-shots of our web applications, and use them here within my blog. Occasionally when I do this, I want to hide or obfuscate certain pieces of information. For example, I may want to share a screenshot of a case from one of our production systems, or I may have some data that I use in my dev system, that isn't exactly "professional", so I wouldn't want the outside world seeing it. Or perhaps even a URL that I don't want to expose. I used to do a bunch of work, and jump through some hoops in order to make everything professional, hide data, etc. But using Ubiquity, its really easy to change the page on the fly - no programming necessary. For example, lets say that I start with this page: I then invoke Ubiquity (ctrl-space), and…

Commenting on Solutions

One of the things I've wanted to do for a long time is have the ability to add comments on objects within the Clarify/Dovetail system. As a specific example, I've wanted to be able to add comments to a solution. For those not versed in Clarify/Dovetail speak, a Solution is essentially a KnowledgeBase (KB) article. By allowing comments, I (and others) can (hopefully) enhance the information that is within the Solution. For example, consider a  KB article that is available on the web, such as a Microsoft KB article, or a Dovetail KB article. Now, lets say that I use the information in that article, but I run into a bit of a snag, discover another tip or workaround, or perhaps I've even found something wrong in that article. What can I do? I'd like to be able to leave…

Microsoft + jQuery

Totally rockin announcement today: Microsoft will be shipping jQuery with Visual Studio. If you follow the Dovetail Developers, you already know that we're big fans of jQuery at Dovetail. ScottGu has details on his blog about this announcement, as does John Resig. Scott Hanselman also has a good write-up. From ScottGu's post: We will distribute the jQuery JavaScript library as-is, and will not be forking or changing the source from the main jQuery branch.  The files will continue to use and ship under the existing jQuery MIT license. We will also distribute intellisense-annotated versions that provide great Visual Studio intellisense and help-integration at design-time. The jQuery intellisense annotation support will be available as a free web-download in a few weeks. We will also extend Microsoft product support to jQuery beginning later this year, which will enable developers and enterprises to…

Adding a signature to Log Email in Dovetail Mobile Agent using Ubiquity or GreaseMonkey

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've started using Dovetail Mobile Agent for my day-to-day case activities. Its still early in its project lifecycle, so it doesn't have all of the bells and whistles (yet), but that's OK with me. For example, you can Log an Email, but it doesn't have the capability to automatically populate a signature within the email. Since this is something that I wanted now, here's how to make that happen, without modifying the application itself. Ubiquity In a previous post, I detailed my first Ubiquity command for working with Dovetail Mobile Agent. Now, we'll add a new command for inserting my signature. The Ubiquity code: CmdUtils.CreateCommand({   name: "signature",   icon: "

Styling Dovetail Mobile Agent – without modifying the app itself

September 17, 2008 I've started using Dovetail Mobile Agent for my day-to-day case activities. Its simplicity and ease of use really pleases me. Even though it was targeted as an app for mobile devices, it works just as well using normal browsers on desktops & laptops. However, its currently styled for mobile devices, with their limited form factor. We may get to the point of creating different stylesheets for different browsers, but we're just not there yet. But I'm impatient, so last night I decided to take matters into my own hands. The default styles look good on a mobile device, but could be better on a desktop. Adding my own styles with Stylish My browser of choice is Firefox. (I am digging Google Chrome, but its current lack of plug-ins keeps it from being my default browser). One of the extensions available…

Proposal for a change to EmailAgent

September 10, 2008 We're considering a change to Dovetail EmailAgent, and wanted to float it by our users to see if anyone had any concerns or objections. Currently, when EmailAgent adds more information to a case, it actually performs a Log Note action. Clarify has a "Email In" activity, but we don't currently use that. This is odd. EmailAgent also creates attachments for any files that were attached to the email. One of the issues is that there is no relationship between the notes (notes_log) and the attachments (doc_inst), so it can be difficult to determine exactly which attachments were for which email. Why Log Notes? History, mostly. We don't have an "Email In" API in ClearBasic - which is the language that our original email processing engine was written in (it was then called SuperEmailClerk). So, the "Log Notes" API was used…

My first Ubiquity command : view a case in Dovetail

September 8, 2008 I was pretty excited to play with Ubiquity, a new Firefox extension that lets me think and act in a more natural language with my PC. From the Ubiquity Tutorial: Ubiquity is an experimental Firefox extension that gives you a powerful new way to interact with the Web. You're used to telling Firefox where you want to go by typing Web addresses into the URL bar. With Ubiquity installed, you'll be able to tell Firefox what you want it to do by typing commands into a new Ubiquity input box. The commands that come with Ubiquity are just the beginning: anyone can create new commands and share them. Some of the built-in commands include: add-to-calendar calculate define ebay-search email flickr google map search tinyurl weather zoom After playing with the build-in commands, I was ready to try and write my…

Customizing Seeker: Indexing and Searching Custom Objects

August 15, 2008 In previous posts, we've covered the basics of Seeker, along with searching custom attributes of an object (such as case.x_notes).Continuing on, lets look at how to index and search custom objects.In our environment, we keep track of the software license keys that we send to our customers, and we do this in our Dovetail system.This is an entirely custom object, so this will make a great example.The License Key TableUsing BOLT, we can quickly see what this table looks like:We need to know the database table information so we can modify the documentSpecifications.xml file. Modify the documentSpecifications.xml fileSeek.exe is the application that performs the actual indexing. The documentSpecifications.xml is the configuration file that seek.exe uses so that it knows what to index.The documentSpecifications.xml file consists of many dovetailDocumentSpecifications. For example, there is a specification for case, one for subcase, one for…

Customizing Seeker: Searching custom data

July 30, 2008 In a previous post, I covered some details on Seeker - our full-text search engine, along with its integration with applications, such as Dovetail Agent. One of the other things I really like about Seeker is its extensibility. Via configuration, Seeker can easily be extended to search additional (including custom) fields (such as a custom field on the case or solution). Here we'll cover that scenario. Modify the documentSpecifications.xml file Seek.exe is the application that performs the actual indexing. The documentSpecifications.xml is the configuration file that seek.exe uses so that it knows what to index. The documentSpecifications.xml file consists of many dovetailDocumentSpecifications. For example, there is a specification for case, one for subcase, one for solution, etc. The contents section determines what columns are searched. For example, the baseline contents for the case object includes id_number, title, and case_history: <contents>…