I tried to use the Custom Forms myself and had to do some pokin'around before
having a working solution for the infamous error 404.
Context:
R5.0.10
Session-based authentication (turn that on, do yourself and your intranet a
favor)
Here is what I did:
- Create a blank database with default as author (not tried yet with lower
privileges) like glbalerr.nsf.
- Create blank form, name "CustomAuthenticationFailureForm", available to
public access users. We will never use it but Domino seams to be wanting
"something" with that name...
- Same with name "CustomAuthorizationFailureForm".
- Same with "CustomGeneralErrorForm" but this time you want to add the
"MessageString" field along with whatever niceties Jack provided in his
article. This form *will* be used.
- Same with "CustomDocumentDeletedForm". This form will be used as a default
response if you don't provide a custom delete response form in your databases
(but why would you not do that if you plan on managing deletions, hum?)
- In DOMCFG create a "Mapping For Error Messages" form.
- Replace all references to domcfg.nsf with whatever database name you used in
the first step above.
Now this is one of those silly things when we all go "What do they think at
Lotus?", but the truth is that Domino will not handle the same way urls like
http://someserver/nonexistentdb.nsf and
http://someserver/nonexistentthing.otherextension. The former will be handled
by the Custom Form but not the later... and here comes HTTPD.CNF:
*** This is unsuppored by Lotus - Use at your own risk ***
- Stop the HTTP task
- Edit HTTPD.CNF and add (spacing matters, no quotes!) "ErrorPage multifail
/error404.html" at the end.
- Create a HTML file in your Domino directory with the response you want users
to get when they mistype a URL, name it ... error404.html (note that this is
plain HTML and will not know of any Notes formula so keep it simple).
- Restart HTTP (this is where the *unsupported* comes into play: it may crash
so don't try this with your boss' intranet!)
Now whenever Notes will encounter an error which can't be treated by a local
custom error ($$ReturnGeneralError form), it will display the form
"CustomGeneralErrorForm". If the error is generated by a link which Domino does
not recognize as a valid NSF file (ie the extension is not .nsf) then it will
display whatever is in error404.html.
Note that if you use session-based authentication it will not use the
Authorization or Authentication global forms since it's redirecting you each
time to a login page (see article 183854).
Details on the HTTPD.CNF hack can be found in article 149634 (apply to R4.6 but
it works the same with R5).
Also I found two very useful resources in the Sandbox if you're interested in
SSL and custom logins for your intranet users:
-Trust Yourself: Become your own Certification Authority (old but works like a
charm)
-iNotes Webmail Login
I tried to use the Custom Forms myself and had to do some pokin'around before having a working solution for the infamous error 404.
Context: R5.0.10 Session-based authentication (turn that on, do yourself and your intranet a favor)
Here is what I did:
- Create a blank database with default as author (not tried yet with lower privileges) like glbalerr.nsf. - Create blank form, name "CustomAuthenticationFailureForm", available to public access users. We will never use it but Domino seams to be wanting "something" with that name... - Same with name "CustomAuthorizationFailureForm". - Same with "CustomGeneralErrorForm" but this time you want to add the "MessageString" field along with whatever niceties Jack provided in his article. This form *will* be used. - Same with "CustomDocumentDeletedForm". This form will be used as a default response if you don't provide a custom delete response form in your databases (but why would you not do that if you plan on managing deletions, hum?)
- In DOMCFG create a "Mapping For Error Messages" form. - Replace all references to domcfg.nsf with whatever database name you used in the first step above.
Now this is one of those silly things when we all go "What do they think at Lotus?", but the truth is that Domino will not handle the same way urls like http://someserver/nonexistentdb.nsf and http://someserver/nonexistentthing.otherextension. The former will be handled by the Custom Form but not the later... and here comes HTTPD.CNF:
*** This is unsuppored by Lotus - Use at your own risk *** - Stop the HTTP task - Edit HTTPD.CNF and add (spacing matters, no quotes!) "ErrorPage multifail /error404.html" at the end. - Create a HTML file in your Domino directory with the response you want users to get when they mistype a URL, name it ... error404.html (note that this is plain HTML and will not know of any Notes formula so keep it simple). - Restart HTTP (this is where the *unsupported* comes into play: it may crash so don't try this with your boss' intranet!)
Now whenever Notes will encounter an error which can't be treated by a local custom error ($$ReturnGeneralError form), it will display the form "CustomGeneralErrorForm". If the error is generated by a link which Domino does not recognize as a valid NSF file (ie the extension is not .nsf) then it will display whatever is in error404.html.
Note that if you use session-based authentication it will not use the Authorization or Authentication global forms since it's redirecting you each time to a login page (see article 183854).
Details on the HTTPD.CNF hack can be found in article 149634 (apply to R4.6 but it works the same with R5).
Also I found two very useful resources in the Sandbox if you're interested in SSL and custom logins for your intranet users: -Trust Yourself: Become your own Certification Authority (old but works like a charm) -iNotes Webmail Login
~C