First look at the Genesis Catalog - the App Store for Domino software

During Collabsphere 2022, Prominic’s CTO Justin Hill presented a new tool we’ve made at Prominic that is not only very useful but also has a great potential: Genesis.

What is Genesis?

Genesis is a directory catalog, an App Store that can be used with Domino 9 and above. It’s free and open-source, it can manage private or public catalogs and the vendors retain all licensing and financial roles. It can be used for open source software distribution as well as commercial one. 

Genesis was born from the need of an end user application discovery for the Domino ecosystem. While security is one of Domino’s most important strengths it has been prioritized too much over the ease of install. 

Genesis can be used as a public repository as well as a private one for apps that you want to distribute only to your servers and want a scripted and easy install process.

Is Genesis new?

If we go back to 2000, when the Lotus Business Partner Catalog was in use, it helped the community learn about different solutions and that effect of getting to know what is new application wise is something that we need nowadays as well.

There have been some attempts of getting a catalog app up and running like Maysoft’s JustForDomino.com, but it did not distribute and automate software installation which is something Genesis is trying to achieve.

Why was Genesis created?

App Stores are a must these days especially since everybody uses a mobile phone now and not just for calls but to manage work and life issues. 

The use of mobile phones increased exponentially with the introduction of the App Store. One reason for that happening is that it became easier to install software on your devices, mobile or computer.

Needless to say, the Domino community needed an app catalog so Prominic has been working for the past year into making it happen. We needed it for our own purposes and it’s available for anyone because we would like to see this becoming a standard for Domino.

Last year during the CollabSphere conference we presented MFA for Domino, which has been the inspiration for a lot of the work we did with Genesis. 

It’s main features are:

• Compatible with Domino 9.01 FP9 and higher;

• SMS support with auto-population on Safari;

• “Remember Device” functionality

• Sign-in alerts via e-mail

• Report your geolocated IP address on sign-in

• Does not require the user to install a TOTP app

• Customize the logo and text shown to the user at each step

• Multiple language support

• Ideal for Software as a Service solutions built upon Domino

• Fully customizable login experience.

Here are the components of MFA for Domino

• iMessageSMS Java Add-in Task

• Twillio.com account for SMS gateway

• Prototype of SendBlue.co account for iMessage

• mfa.nsf on each HTTP server

• domcfg.nsf for custom login form

• Traveler – DSAPI filter to bypass MFA on it.

What are the specs / requirements for Genesis?

To start with, Genesis comes under the Apache 2.0 license, which basically comes down to you being able to do whatever you want with it. 

Some FlexNet access is required, as well as access to the Domino 12.01, potentially the fix app, but it’s not a requirement. 

The presentation came with a great demo to show you exactly how Genesis works and how it can save you a lot of trouble when deploying software on your Domino servers.

One great feature that we have integrated in Genesis is the option of exporting the app to Moonshine. So now, you can take an app from the App Catalog and view its code in the Moonshine IDE.

Now that Genesis has been presented to the world, we could use your help. You can:

• add your app to the genesis.directory

• provide translations from English baseline to Genesis

• review the solution to ensure we have properly hardened it

• look for things we might have missed

• add or refine features you may want to see.

Check out the source code on GitHub and let us know what you think.

We look forward to hearing from you!