How to export Rich Text fields as HTML from Notes

Question

I'm working on a data migration task, where I have to export a somewhat large Lotus Notes application into a blogging platform. My first task was to export the articles from Lotus Notes into CSV files.

I created a Agent in LotusScript to export the data into CSV files. I use a modified version of this IBM DeveloperWorks forum post. And it basically does the job. But the contents of the Rich Text field is stripped of any formatting. And this is not what I want, I want the Rich Text field rendered as HTML.

The documentation for the GetItemValue method explicitly states that the text is rendered into plain text. So I began to research for something that would retrieve the HTML. I found the NotesMIMEEntity class and some sample code in the IBM article How To Access HTML in a Rich Text Field Using LotusScript.

But for the technique described in the above article to work, the Rich Text field need to have the property "Store Contents as HTML and MIME". And this is not the case with my Lotus Notes database. I tried to set the property on the fields in question, but it didn't do the trick.

Is it possible to use the NotesMIMEEntity and set the "Store Contents as HTML and MIME" property after the content has been added, to export the field rendered as HTML?

Or what are my options for exporting the Notes database Rich Text fields as HTML?

Bonus information: I'm using IBM Lotus Domino Designer version 8.5

Answer 1

I know you mentioned using LotusScript, but if you don't mind writing a small Java agent (in the Notes client), this can be done fairly easily - and there is no need to modify the existing form design.

The basic idea is to have your Java code open a particular document through a localhost http request (which is simple in Java) and to have your code capture that html output and save it back to that document. You basically allow the Domino rendering engine to do the heavy lifting.

You would want do this:

1. Create a form which contains only the rich-text field you want to convert, and with Content Type of HTML
2. Create a view with a selection formula for all of the documents you want to convert, and with a form formula which computes to the new form
3. Create the Java agent which just walks your view, and for each document gets its docid, opens a URL in the form http://SERVER/your_database_path.nsf/NEW_VIEW/docid?openDocument, grabs the http response and saves it.

I put up some sample code in a similar SO post here:

How to convert text and rich text fields in a document to html using lotusscript?

Answer 2

Here is how I did it, using the OpenField command, see D.Bugger's post above

Function GetHtmlFromField(doc As NotesDocument, fieldname As String) As String
    Dim obj
    Set obj = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP")
    obj.open "GET", "http://www.metz.dk/shops/tilbud.nsf/0/" + doc.Universalid + "/" + fieldname + "?openfield&charset=utf-8", False, "", ""
    obj.send("")

    Dim html As String
    html = Trim$(obj.responseText)

    GetHtmlFromField = html
End Function

Answer 3

There is this fairly unknown command that does exactly what you want: retrieve the URL using the command OpenField.

Example that converts only the Body-field:

http://SERVER/your%5Fdatabase%5Fpath.nsf/NEW%5FVIEW/docid/Body?OpenField

Answer 4

Casper's recommendation above works well, but make sure the ACL is such to allow Anonymous Access otherwise your HTML will be the HTML from your login form

Answer 5

If you do not need to get the Richtext from the items specifically, you can use ?OpenDocument, which is documented (at least) here: https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/ls-Domino_URL_cheat_sheet/ https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSVRGU_9.0.1/com.ibm.designer.domino.main.doc/H_ABOUT_URL_COMMANDS_FOR_OPENING_DOCUMENTS_BY_KEY.html

OpenDocument also allows you to expand sections (I am unsure if OpenField does)

Syntax is: http://Host/Database/View/DocumentUniversalID?OpenDocument

But be sure to include the charset parameter as well - Japanese documents were unreadable without specifying utf-8 as the charset.

Here is the method I use that takes a NotesDocument and returns the HTML for the doc as a string.

    private string ConvertDocumentToHml(Domino.NotesDocument doc, string sectionList = null)
    {
        var server = doc.ParentDatabase.Server.Split('/')[0];
        var dbPath = doc.ParentDatabase.FilePath;
        string viewName = "0";
        string documentId = doc.UniversalID.ToUpper();

        var ub = new UriBuilder();
        ub.Host = server;
        ub.Path = dbPath.Replace("\\", "/") + "/" + viewName + "/" + documentId;

        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(sectionList))
        {
            ub.Query = "OpenDocument&charset=utf-8";
        }
        else
        {
            ub.Query = "OpenDocument&charset=utf-8&ExpandSection=" + sectionList;
        }

        var url = ub.ToString();

        var req = HttpWebRequest.CreateHttp(url);
        try
        {
            var resp = req.GetResponse();
            string respText = null;

            using (var sr = new StreamReader(resp.GetResponseStream()))
            {
                respText = sr.ReadToEnd();
            }
            return respText;
        }
        catch (WebException ex)
        {
            return "";
        }
    }

Answer 6

If you upgrade to Notes Domino 8.5.1 then you can use the new ConvertToMIME method of the NotesDocument class. See the docs. This should do what you want.

Alternativly the easiest way to get the Domino server to render the RichText will be to actually retrieve it via a url call. Set up a simple form that just has the RichText field and then use your favourite HTTP api to pull in the page. It should then be pretty straight forward to pull out the body.