Oracle BPM: Change Application Title

As mentioned in a previous post, I've been using Oracle BPM in one of my major projects. It makes use of the WorkSpace component to form the user interface, and it offers a long list of ways to customise the WorkSpace to suit your corporate 'look and feel'.

So if you want to try changing your application title so that it doesn't say 'BEA AquaLogic BPM WorkSpace' or 'Oracle BPM WorkSpace', the recommendation is to follow this method:


1. Create a backup, then edit BEA_HOME/albpm6.0/enterprise/webapps/workspace/WEB-INF/workspace.properties
2. To enable the custom properties file, add the key-value pair to workspace.properties (I added it just underneath the # WorkSpace Settings label):
# Custom settings
fuego.workspace.customMessageBundle=workspaceCustom
3. Add the key and value: APPLICATION_TITLE=%(yourcompany) - %(yourAppName)
4. Restart the WorkSpace to see if the change has had the desired effect.

This didn't work for me. I listed the method above because you should try this first to see if it works in your deployment.

For me, the answer was in the core java jars which make up the Fuego components. So to change the application title, make a backup of Glossary.properties in fuego.core.jar, then edit it to change the company name and other attributes.

Once you restart the WorkSpace you should be cookin' with gas, so to speak.

Ahh, Outlook! DIE, LOTUS NOTES!

This is 2009 (gasp!). One of my biggest bugbears about working for a huge company is that we are often subjected to archaic technology.

To be fair, we also get to use some bleeding edge stuff, it's quite a mix.

Up until very recently we had been using Lotus Notes 6.5, which is software that seems like it has been designed by a monkey with learning difficulties. The interface is slow, clunky and ugly, its usability is close to zero and continually hangs and crashes. If you find Notes has hung and you kill off the process, you usually have to reboot your PC in order to successfully launch it again. Not only that, if you type an email in Lotus Notes in one font, there's no guarantee that it will look even remotely similar to the recipient.

We had been using it for email and to host databases (annual leave requests, some application workflow pieces etc).

Finally, it would seem that the powers that be finally decided to listen to the cries of 'BOLLOCKS, NOTES HAS CRASHED AGAIN' and 'HOW DO I LAUNCH ZAPNOTES?', and made the decision that we would migrate to Microsoft Outlook across the organisation. It's been a long process, but a well managed project.

Anyway, I think Outlook is a breath of fresh air. Now normally I'm no Microsoft proponent, and I believe that they are as guilty as IBM or Lotus of producing sub-standard software which belongs in the bin. But Outlook seems to be very stable, well designed and it has a nice sleek interface which makes it a pleasure to use. And for me, one of the best bits is that when you write an email in Outlook, that's how it will look to the other person! Woawhh!

The Outlook window stretches nicely across my two monitors, with one side containing the email list and the other a preview window for the selected email.

It saves you opening every email that arrives to see what it contains, to find that it's crud and to close it immediately. Having a to-do bar on the right hand side also helps me to be more organised, because there's an obvious indicator which is on screen for a significant portion of the day which highlights the upcoming meetings, appointments and to-do tasks. I never used to use the to-do list in Notes because I never opened it. But having something which is almost always visible means that I'm much more likely to note things I've to catch up on, and thus more likely to actually do them.

Finally, something from Microsoft which does the job it's designed to do, and does it well.