Fetching all Lotusphere presentations in one batch
by Volker Weber
Fetching the session presentations from Lotusphere Online is a stretch. The site is incredibly slow, and you have to go into each session document to detach the PDF. Luckily there is a better way, and Alan has documented it.
Downloaded: 172,141,114 bytes in 130 files
Well, 130 files is hardly all presentations, but it is a good start. Now imagine the filenames would contain the session titles:
And imagine, you would receive a CD with all presentations instead of just a t-shirt, when you turn in your conference registration. Gasp.
Comments
perfect! Thank you very much for that hint.
Ah but as you know Volker, once you have the PDFs, it’s no stretch of course to walk the download directory, attaching the right PDF to the right session abstract courtesy of Ben L ;o)
Imagine you would have Anonymous Lotus Notes Access to the pdf.nsf and could replicate it.
Imagine? Guys, come on, you know who you're talking about. Dream!
some dream, some do.
Sub Initialize
Dim ses As New notessession
Dim db As notesdatabase
Set db=ses.Currentdatabase
presentationdirectory="c:\presentations\"
filename=Dir(presentationdirectory)
Dim sessions As notesview
Set sessions=db.GetView("BySessionID")
Dim abstract As NotesDocument
Dim body As notesrichtextitem
While Not filename =""
If Lcase(Right(filename,4))=".pdf" Then'don't get upset with the .txt file or anything else there
sessioncode=Mid(filename,1,Instr(filename,".")-1)'strip out the .pdf bit
Print sessioncode
Set abstract=sessions.GetDocumentByKey(sessioncode,True)
If Not abstract Is Nothing Then
Set body=abstract.GetFirstItem("body")
Call body.EmbedObject(EMBED_ATTACHMENT,"",presentationdirectory+filename)
Call abstract.Save(True, True)
End If
End If
filename=Dir'called without a path it gets the next file in the directory
Wend
End Sub
Isn't it kind of funny if a company deems themselves a "leader" in collaboration but is unable to deliver with their own platform?
The sad thing is that even this clever work by Alan only solves a small part of the problem (as he mentioned when he posted it). What we REALLY need is the current presentations, which we presenters have no choice but to post on our own blogs because IBM doesn't provide a central solution, and even more importantly the demonstration code, which again we have to post on our own sites.
We day-dreamed about a Lotusphere Connections setup. What about a Presenters' QuickR for all the presentations and code? Why is this impossible? All the gods know that IBM did a terrific job at Lotusphere this year, and we all went home very happy, but this issue comes up every single year.
Even better: a version of the lsess07 db with all materials attached.
Doh, I meant with demo materials as well...
@Alan, thanx, will use code in an adapted copy of the db, with an extra Materials rich text field.
My solution for this thus far in the public (replicatable) version is to put a link to the official PDFs in every session where they are available. That is already there. Then, any speaker can send me a link to a page or download with an updated presentation and demo samples, etc. I will then update that session. If I see a presentation (and I am actively looking) on a blog or website for a speaker I know, I'll include those as well. Anybody who replicates can then easily determine which sessions have which resources by looking in the By Session ID view, which shows icons for the different types.
Obviously, Volker is correct that this could be far better handled by IBM, but you do what you can. I can't violate copyright by posting the actual PDFs, although I considered it, so this is the best approach I could think of.
Last year they zipped the pdfs for each track and made it available for download. It would be nice if they would do it again this year.
Ben, you are doing an incredible job cleaning up after IBM. It starts with your session db for preparing before Lotusphere, and as I just learned, does not end there. Suggestion: Put an agent into the db which pulls those attachment from the IBM database.
Kathir, zipping the attachments does not get you more than Alan's solution.
Copyright be damned, I paid to attend the conference and I shouldn't have to jump through purple flaming hoops to get the presentations. It's pretty f'ing absurd that after 13 years of doing this Lotus still hasn't figured this out.
This whole issue hints at a Notes weakness. If IBM wants to make it simple to get at the data, they could open a Domino server for anonymous access, default reader and let everybody and their dog replicate the database. However, there is no good way to limit access to Lotusphere attendees. Username/password is not good enough for NRPC authentication. That is why they use the clunky portal.
Quickplace is a case in point. It was invented to allow ad-hoc collaboration with people outside of your directory infrastructure.
Of course IBM could burn the database to CD/DVD and mail it to you.
Lotus could mail the Lotusphere user id to every attendee. And we could use this id to connect to the LSphere Server
