Notes URLs – easier than I thought

I needed to create a link from an html document to a Lotus Notes document. It’s years since I had to do that and I immediately ran into issues choosing syntax – such as should I use the fully qualified domain name of the server etc.

I decided instead to open the document in Notes – and choose ‘Edit’/’Copy As’/’Document Link’ from the menu. Pasting that into a document editor gave a result such as..

<NDL>
<REPLICA 81256A76:0076FB83>
<VIEW OF39D46BF5:E8F08834-ON852564B5:00139B2C>
<NOTE OFEC4650AB:44EC5B7B-ON802576C4:0067E5A9>
<HINT>CN=SERVERNAME/OU=A6/OU=M/O=TEST</HINT>
</NDL>

I was trying too hard. I started to converted this to an href – however It was easier just to paste the url into a Sametime chat which converted it into the perfect format Notes://SERVERNAME/80256A760076FB83/38D46BF5E8F08834852564B500129B2C/EC4650AB44EC5B7B802576C40067E5A9

Then I wrapped that into an href tag and the job was done.