WHAT'S NEW IN DOMINO DESIGNER 8.5?
Domino Designer moves to Eclipse
Domino Designer moves to the Eclipse platform for Notes 8.5. This move carries the application development aspects of Notes Domino to the same Eclipse platform that is supported starting with the Notes 8.0 client. You can consolidate application development onto the Eclipse platform - an open source, pluggable environment that helps you reduce training expenses while promoting reuse and sharing of IT artifacts for more efficient development. Lotus software embraces and builds upon many open standards and this direction for Domino Designer 8.5 helps you combine collaboration tools and business applications for a more productive end user experience.
XPages
An XPage is a new Domino Designer design element that lets you create Web 2.0 enabled pages based on the JSF technology. Specific features of XPages include:
XPages are one of the design elements available from the Applications Navigator (the left hand tab of the user interface).
Refer to the Lotus Domino Designer XPages User Guide online help for more complete information on this feature and how to use it. To access this information, select Help-Help Contents from the Domino Designer menu to launch the Eclipse Help System. Plugins are accessed from the left-hand Contents pane.
Themes in XPages
Themes are avaiable for XPages for server-side customization of HTML generation that can be used to define the look and feel of an application. A theme can be set globally, to apply to all applications run on that server, or applied to a single application. Different themes can also be applied depending on context.
Themes are different from Style Sheets in that they are not restricted to CSS styles. A theme can assign values to any XML property, including such functional properties as the number of rows displayed by a view. Themes can assign values of JSF expressions, which will be interpreted as if that expression was in the source.
Themes can be used to control all XML properties of an XPage. Themes can also control all CSS style properties and the body style attribute for web pages served by Domino. The same theme can be customized to target the XPages and Domino Web environment with different properties.
Themes are one of the design elements available from the Applications Navigator (the left hand tab of the user interface). Themes are available under the Resources design element category.
Enhanced HTML generation
The Domino Web Engine supports XPages themes, XML compatible HTML, and auto classes. A web application developer will be able to create a CSS stylesheet that controls the styling of a Domino web page for a specific set of Domino objects. Also, a skilled JavaScript developer will be able to manipulate a set of Domino objects in the browser at runtime with JavaScript code.
To use the HTML features, open the Database Properties box and check "Enable enhanced HTML generation."
Domino Designer and Xpages online help via Eclipse plugins
The Lotus Domino Designer Basic User Guide and Reference is available as online help in the form of an Eclipse plugin.
Lotus Domino Designer XPages User Guide and Lotus Domino Designer XPages Reference online help has also been provided for more complete information on the XPages feature and how to use it.
To access this information, select Help-Help Contents from the Domino Designer menu to launch the Eclipse Help System. Plugins are accessed from the left-hand Contents pane
JavaScript controls
This release permits the display of rich text on the Web as a Dojo-based JavaScript control. Dojo is an Open Source DHTML toolkit written in JavaScript. See http://dojotoolkit.org.
Styling for JavaScript controls
The default styling for JavaScript controls is through the following Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) file on the Domino server:
You can modify rich text Web styling through the HTML tab of the properties box.
Displaying rich text in Web applications
When you are designing a Web application, the following options define how rich text displays in a browser:
1. Create a rich text field.
2. Choose Design - Field Properties.
3. On the Info tab, for "Web Access" select "Using HTML," "Using Java Applet," "Using Best Fit for OS," or "Using JavaScript Control."
Composite Applications
There have been new features, changes, and improvements made in the area of composite applications for this release. Refer to the Composite Applications - Design and Management topic in this help for a summary of these items and for assistance on where to find more information.
Composite Applications wiki
The IBM® Composite Applications wiki (http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/compappwiki.nsf) has been launched to provide an additional source of information on composite application development and deployment.