Fighting for control of URL in Domino

We have really annoying problem for years with our URLs on all websites based on Domino. We use classic approach because we want control all tags + we like jQuery more etc. Our problem is about mandatory action [?open | ?opendocument] for pages with parameters, so if you want to add parameters to your page (i.e. param1=123) you have to add [?open | ?opendocument] just after your URL and only then you are allowed to add parameters.

Not really a huge problem, however we want to use new tracking code from google. That tracking has problems with [?open | ?opendocument]: it does not work correctly in case if first parameter is ?open. So now its blocker for us and we want to fix it for all another cases as well. We want to have possibility get rid off ?open | ?opendocument

Question in few words: "is it possible to get this URL working?"
http://www.e-conomic.com/accountingsoftware?parameter=123
instead of this
http://www.e-conomic.com/accountingsoftware?open&parameter=123

We've tried redirect, substitutions - no success ofc :(.

Next in my queue is DSAPI and I'm sure it can solve that problem (at least from documentation) however I'm not able to do that due to my experience with DSAPI and very very low information in the web.

I've played with different events in DSAPI: kFilterStartRequest, kFilterRawRequest and kFilterRewriteURL and tried to change incoming URL from request but did not success with it. Does any of you guys can give me tips :) what I do wrong or maybe there is another solution how to achieve that quest?

Default sort order

Guys, does anybody make it (Default sort order) working? I played to much with it without success, my Domino server still ignore sorting (as Swedish) for my application.

Error pages in Domino

First of all I'd like to briefly describe few another ways we can use to manage error pages in Domino.

Also notice, I will definitely update post few times more after all.

1. Lazy solution $$ReturnGeneralError and MessageString

It's the most fast and easy solutions, it require to create 1 design element (form) $$ReturnGeneralError, style it and add MessageString somewhere to explain what is wrong

Benefits:

- I see only 1 advantage compare to another approaches, its time to implement. Once you create $$ReturnGeneralError it starts to work. So few clicks and few minutes to manage output UI and you have solution.

Disadvantages:

- works inside of application only. So if you have 10 web applications, you need to manage error page in each of it. However you can setup inheritance and manage all error pages from 1 place etc.

- not very flexible on my opinion as we can operate with form-design elements only.

2. HTTP response headers

Simply create error page as design element or as document (does not matter) and create rule for your website in Domino Directory database. It does not require special knowledge and it is simple to use.

Benefits:

- easy to manage

- path to Error page (means we can use different database to keep error pages)

- we can use both: Design Elements and Documents as error page.

Disadvantages:

- require minor Administration of Domino skills.

- it works in the same way as client side redirection. i.e. user will see “blink” of standard 404 page before loading custom 404 page.

3. "Whole server" solution

Use HTTPMultiErrorPage property in the Notes.ini file, for example HTTPMultiErrorPage=/error.html. Create rule on the Domino server for /error.html to be substituted corresponding page.

Benefits:

Disadvatages:

4. DSPAI as error handler for Domino

Most complicated approach but also most flexible from my point of view. There is quite low information about how to use it. It requires knowledge of Notes C Api as well. If you want to see how it looks, here is very good exampe (it helped me a lot) on loggin using DSAPI

Company I worked in use DSAPI for handling URL already, and now we are near to implement error handling using DSAPI as well (it already implemented it on development server, so soon I will show you real links etc).

DSAPI allows us to catch responses Domino generated for users and we can replace output in case if responce 400, 404 or any another.

I will post most important part of logic here, just to how overview how DSAPI works and what is gives to us. Notice I've changed code a bit, to show only most important part of it (I will copy comments from Paul's example just to make things faster) 

1. initiation of filter and register for response event

/*
* FilterInit() - Required filter entry point. Called upon
* filter startup, which occurs when HTTP server task is started.
*/
DLLEXPORT unsigned int FilterInit(FilterInitData* filterInitData) {
   filterInitData->eventFlags = kFilterResponse;
}

so what we did there, say to filter that we want to process response events

2. Link events we registered with functions

/*
* HttpFilterProc() - Required filter entry point. Dispatches the event notifications to the appropriate functions for handling the events.
*/
DLLEXPORT DWORD HttpFilterProc(FilterContext *pContext, DWORD dwEventType, void *pEventData)
{
 switch (dwEventType) {
  case kFilterResponse:
   return Response(pContext, pEventData);
 }

 return kFilterNotHandled;
}

Now we can process Responses to users

3. This is how we process Response to users

int Response(FilterContext* context, FilterResponseHeaders* eventData) {
 int responce = eventData->responseCode;

 if (responce==404) {
  if (Send404(context) == TRUE) {
   return kFilterHandledRequest;
  }
 }
 return kFilterNotHandled;
}

4. Finally code for Send404() how we replace content to users

While you read code you need to know that when we load filter we also initiate a table with KEY-HTML arrays. Yes we keep in memory Error HTML pages with keys we need. Our Keys - domain, we handle error pages on domain level, means for domain1.com - is 1 error page, for domain2.com is another error page. But you can do it in another way its up to you.

int Send404(FilterContext* context) {
 FilterResponseHeaders         response;
 unsigned int   errID = 0;
 char     szBuffer[DEFAULT_BUFFER_SIZE]={0};
 char     pszErrorPage[ERRRO_PAGE_SIZE]={0};
 FilterParsedRequestLine pRequestLine;
 unsigned int   pErrID;
 int      i;

 // As we are returning the entire page to the browser, we can 
 // set the response code to 404 (so the domino web log will show the error)
 response.responseCode=404;
 response.reasonText="Bad Request";
 
 // get domain name (its our key), could be done faster? right now its simple walk via 10-20 documents which is fine for now
 context->ServerSupport(context, kGetParsedRequest, &pRequestLine, NULL, NULL, &pErrID);
 for(i=0; i<errorPagesCount;i++) {
  if (strcmp(errorKey[i], pRequestLine.pHostName)==0) {
   strcpy(pszErrorPage, errorHTML[i]);
   i=errorPagesCount;
  }
 }

 if(strlen(pszErrorPage)<10) {
  sprintf(szBuffer, "Error page on %s is very small, something wrong", pRequestLine.pHostName);
  writeToLog(CRITICAL_MSG, szBuffer);
  return FALSE;
 }

 sprintf(szBuffer, "Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8\n\nContent-length: %i\n\n", strlen(pszErrorPage));
 response.headerText = szBuffer;

 if (context->ServerSupport(context, kWriteResponseHeaders, &response, 0, 0, &errID) != TRUE) {
  sprintf(szBuffer, "Error sending redirect, code: %d", errID);
  writeToLog(CRITICAL_MSG, szBuffer);
  return FALSE;
 }
    if (context->WriteClient(context, pszErrorPage, (unsigned int) strlen(pszErrorPage), 0, &errID) != TRUE) {
  sprintf(szBuffer, "Error sending redirect, code: %d", errID);
  writeToLog(CRITICAL_MSG, szBuffer);
  return FALSE;
 }
 return TRUE;
}

OK guys, I've shared most complicated part of this DSAPI for error handling, rest you have complete yourself (homework :)), but feel free to ask my help here if you need.

benefits:
- most flexible approach (at least from those which I know)
- our logic control everything we want and we clearly see what is going on
disadvantages:
- most complicated ways from all I described
- require knowledge of Notes C API
- I did not try yet this solution with Linux servers (but I know it is possible to do)
- it may crash your Domino server in case if you did you filter wrong (memory leak etc)

5. xPage error handling is on way (on pause actually) and would be nice if somebody help me with that. I've read few articles in past from Per Henrik: XPages custom 404 and error page and Controlling the HTTP response status code in XPages, I think they can be very useful for those who doing in xPages. We will try this approach as we have ongoing huge projects based on xPage. 

Hey:
- ask to update/more details to article
- notify me about issues
- let me know if you know better way to handle errors
strongly recommended as it can help to many developers in future.

Solution for Lotus Domino to the trailing slash problem

2 months ago I've posted article about solution which can solve our problem in Domino with last trailing slash in URL. As I mentioned in my previous post, Domino does not care about url with/without last trailing slash, both way would work for Domino. Well, some of you maybe even find this feature useful because it gives less problems, however what if we talk about SEO (Search Engine Optimization)?

There is actually article from google about to slash or not to slash, where they explain that they handle similar URL with and without last trailing slash as 2 different URL, they also propose ways how to solve this. If you ask what is bad here, answer is quite simple: just image that each URL has it's power/score for google. In case if we have only 1 possible URL for our page all scrore go to it, otherwise we will split them (high score will go to URL which is more often used by people in web).

Now about solution we implemented on our website. We used DSAPI to solve it as it does not do affect speed so much as different solutions. If you want to read more deeply about technical staff, you may want to read this article: solution to the trailing slash problem.

Yes it works like it should, no impact to page load's speed which was "very-very" important to us. And I heared google start to love us a bit more after that.

Domino resolve URL with and without trailing as same URL, wrong?

We are faced with a problem (for us) with Domino. The problem is that Domino processes those 2 URL as similar same URL:

http://host/0/unid
http://host/0/unid/

the difference in 'trailing' (for those who thinks in same way as Domino :]). Well, it would be not a problem at all if you do internal staff, even very useful, problems start when we talk about SEO.

It actually affects our websites, as f.x. google 'eats' 2 URL (I mentioned above) as 2 different URL so their 'value' will be split on 2 part + 2 URL with same content also very bad as it is duplicate.

We should be able to either make 301's from the NOT CORRECT to the CORRECT URLs, or respond with a 404 (not found). Both options would be good.

Does anybody know ways how to do it?

[update from 28 October 2011] we've found solution with DSAPI filter, here you can read Solution to the trailing slash problem in Lotus Domino