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Ken commissioned me to research alternatives to SuperBase. One of the conditions was that it be useable on both Windows and Macintosh. The company ran the office on Windows, and the design studio on Macs. The short-list came down to 2 choices: Omnis 7 and 4D http://www.4d.com. Both were relatively unknown, but 4D clearly was the better choice. It has a "real" programming language, a robust back-end database, and easy upgrades. So I learned the basics and created a replacement for the old SuperBase system over Christmas somewhere around 1996-97. We migrated data and were in production on the new GraphicSystem within a few weeks. The only significant complaint was about performance. Most of the Windows machines were elderly, once a system-wide upgrade was done, performance became a non-issue. I supported the GraphicSystem for a number of years, including customer support to several external clients that the application was sold to.
While I was supporting the 4D-based GraphicSystem, there were a number of other projects using Notes. I wrote one of the first on-line job application sites using Notes 4.6. What started as a small attempt at reducing recruitment costs became the core of future development at Ken's company. After several years of use, Ken decided that the 4D GraphicSystem should be re-written again (and renamed to the PPS - Print Procurement System). By that time, Notes was up to version 5. So I had the task of shoe-horning a relational database into Lotus Notes. Some functionality was lost, but the essential core capabilities made the transition. Integration with Notes Calendaring/Scheduling and email was a major bonus. This version was so successful, that over the next few years I either wrote or was directly involved in a number of large Notes-based applications. They were all of a split personality: Notes and Browser. I like to think that I and my team broke a fair bit of ground in forcing Notes into a new environment. The applications included the Print Procurement System, a Marketing Management Centre, an on-line survey system, and others. Some of the techniques I created for those projects are still in use, both by me and others in that original team.
Some of the applications attracted outside attention. Ken's company managed to land a major European branch of a large hardware/software/IT company as a client. They required a web-based version of the PPS, so the decision was made to rewrite it yet again, this time using JSPs and DB2 as the back end. This was my only exposure to Java, and it led to my parting company with Ken and his company.
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