APPLICATION DESIGN


Exploring Lotus Domino Designer
Building a great application requires the right tools. You can think of IBM® Lotus® Domino(TM) Designer as your workshop -- it contains all the tools you need to build a powerful application. Before you start building, examine the work area.
ItemPurpose
Applications Navigator

(called the Design pane in previous releases)

Displays the design elements and resource types that an application can contain. If you click an element, such as Pages for example, a list of the pages stored in the current database displays in a Design list on the Work pane. The Design action button at the top of the Design list for Pages enables you to create a new page.

By default, the Applications Navigator is located on the left side of the IBM Lotus Domino Designer window. You can also create new applications, expand or collapse the list of applications by clicking the top bar, expand or collapse individual applications by clicking the application’s top bar, and expand and collapse design element categories by clicking on the plus and minus signs. You can also organize your applications into working sets for easy access.

If you right-click the Navigator, you can open and create appliciations and refresh views and elements you are working on.

Design action buttonsThese convenient buttons trigger common tasks, such as creating new design elements. These generally appear when you double cliock a design element in the Applications Navigator. Examples include the New Xpage button, New Frameset button. These buttons appear in the design element list/Work pane area in the middle of the interface.
Design element listDisplays a list of the design elements or resources that are stored in the current application. This list displays in the Work pane. When you click a list item, the Work pane changes to display the work area for the selected element or resource.
Application bookmarksListed on the Applications Navigator, bookmarks help you to quickly access and organize your applications. You can expand or collapse the application bookmark by clicking the top bar of the bookmark
Menu barPresents context-sensitive menus of Designer commands.
Preview design element buttonLaunches Notes or a browser to preview your work.
Window tabsLet you navigate among the open windows in your workspace.
Work pane or canvasWhen a design element or resource type is selected in the Applications Navigator, displays the Design list. When an element or resource is selected from the Design list, displays two sections. The upper section contains the Work area for the element or resource. The lower section contains the Programmer's pane and Properties view
Controls paletteContains the UI controls, custom controls, and user added controls used for designing the layout of pages and determining how data will be entered and stored in the database. You can drag and drop controls from the Controls palette onto pages. This is launched on the right-hand side of the user interface

It is active only when the editor is active, for example, if you are editing a page or a custom control. The Controls palette contains two drawers of controls:Core Controls and Container Controls. It also contains drawers for custom controls and user added controls, if you have added any to the current IBM Lotus Domino Designer application. A drawer is an embedded pane that allows you to scroll through the options by using the up and down arrows located at the top and bottom of each drawer. Using the drop-down menu from the palette header, you can expand or collapse each drawer, change the layout of the palette, change the size of the palette icons, configure drawer options, and hide the palette altogether.

Outline viewProvides a hierarchical representation of the XML source code in pages. You can click on the individual nodes in the Outline view to navigate through the page and update properties in the Properties view. You can also drag and drop elements in order to rearrange sections and change the sequence of elements.
Properties viewLets you set properties for pages and controls. The Properties view interacts with the editor that is currently open. For example, if you are designing a page, and you move focus to a specific control in the page, the properties for that control become available in the Properties view.

The Properties view is located at the bottom of the IBM Lotus Domino Designer window and contains individual tabs that you can click to display a set of options. Since each page and UI control has it own unique set of properties, the tabs and options within those tabs change according to what is currently selected. For example, when viewing a list of pages, if you click the name of an individual page, the Properties view displays general information about the page, such as the name of the page, the author, and the date it was created. If you double-click the name of the page, the page opens in edit mode in the IBM Lotus Domino Designer editor, and a new set of tabs appear in the Properties view. These tabs change depending on what is currently selected in the editor, for example, the entire page or an individual UI control.

Right-click the title bar of the Properties view to do the following tasks:

  • display the properties tabs for other available page objects
  • hide the view
  • detach the view as a separate window
  • restore the view to its default settings
  • Events viewThe Events view is where you create events for components, pages, and controls. You can use the Events view to attach simple actions or scripts to events. Events are organized into categories for easy access.

    When writing scripts, you can create server-side or client-side events. You can specify options for updating pages after events occur, including performing partial updates for a portion of page elements based on Asynchronous JavaScript™ and XML (AJAX) technology. When writing simple actions, you can write actions that perform a pre-programmed activity that can be modified by arguments. You can also create groups of simple actions.

    Problems viewDisplays errors, warnings, and other information about IBM Lotus Domino Designer resources. These messages are generated when you build the Eclipse workspace. For example, if you save a page that contains syntax errors, the Problems view will display those errors.
    Data paletteLets you view data sources associated with the selected page or panel in the editor, and create controls by dragging elements into the page. To display the Data palette, click Window > Show View > Data Palette.
    The next section descibes the Programmers pane
    ItemPurpose
    Info ListScrollable window that displays the objects and coding reference information for the design element currently displayed in the Work area.
    Objects tabLets you navigate between objects and events in the Programmer's pane. To work on an object, select it to expand its list of properties and events. If you select a property or event, the script area of the Programmer's pane changes to show the code that describes it. Events and properties that are already programmed appear in a darker color.
    Reference tabThe Reference tab of the Info List is language sensitive; the contents of the Reference tab change depending on the language selected. If you are editing in the Formula language, the window contains @commands, @functions and fields. If you are editing in LotusScript, the window contains LotusScript information. If you are editing in JavaScript, the window contains information about the Document Object Model. If you are editing in Java, the window contains Java-related information.
    Script areaLets you enter formulas in the Script area. Formulas can be written in Formula language, LotusScript, JavaScript, or simple actions.

    Note that you can print source code by selecting File - Print when you are in the Programmer's pane. You can print any code you can view in the Programmer's pane.


    Properties boxes

    Properties boxes are tools you use to select or modify settings for a design element. Properties boxes have tabs and each tab presents different attributes or options. If you hold the cursor over the icon on a tab, the name of the tab appears. In most windows, right clicking opens the Properties box for the active design element. You can also choose Design -- <element> Properties from the menu.

    Properties boxes are context-sensitive so you can leave them open on your workspace and they will change to reflect the element that you are working with. If you do not have the ability to change items in the Properties box, those items will be either grayed out or hidden.

    Tip You can also collapse some Properties boxes into context-sensitive tool bars by double-clicking the top of the box.

    See Also