APPLICATION DESIGN

Extending access to applications
IBM® Lotus® Domino(TM) applications are easily accessible to outside tools both during the design process and after application completion and deployment.

With IBM® Lotus® Domino(TM) Designer, you can:


Using third-party design tools

With Lotus Domino Designer, you can launch third-party applications from within Designer. The Designer menu bar has a Tools menu option where you can save a link to a third-party application as a "tool." For example, you can add a Web-development application, such as Dreamweaver, to the Tools menu as a tool named "Web work." If you want to add HTML to your Designer application using Macromedia Dreamweaver, you can launch it by selecting "Web work" from the Tools menu.

For more information, see Customizing the Designer Tools menu.

Using WebDAV for remote development

WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a technology that allows users with Designer access to a database to work with file-based design elements such as HTML pages, images and style sheets, using WebDAV-enabled development tools on the Web.

By making Domino WebDAV compliant, the methods you can use to enhance file-based design elements are extended. Lotus Domino Designer lets you decide which tools to use to develop your applications.

For more information, see Editing and managing database resources using a WebDAV client.

Accessing external data sources from a field

With Designer, you can use data connection resources to set up a connection between a field in an NSF database document to a field in an external data source. The external data source can be a relational or transactional database, which means you can now access enterprise data using a Notes application.

For more information, see Creating a Database Connection Resource.

Bringing an application off-line

Web applications can be available to off-line browser users thanks to Domino Off-Line Services (DOLS). DOLS enables a user to take a Domino Web application off-line, make changes or additions, and then synchronize the off-line replica of the application with the original. The user does not even have to have Notes since the application can be accessed via a Web browser. This capability greatly increases the ways in which an application's audience can access it.

For more information, see Overview of DOLS developer tasks.

Instant messaging colleagues

The IBM® Lotus® Sametime® product is a powerful tool for enabling real-time communication between team members. With Lotus Domino Designer, you can integrate Lotus Sametime into your Domino applications.

For more information, see Adding instant messaging to an application.

Incorporate Notes components in composite applications

The capability to create and edit composite applications enables you to easily integrate different types of components and technologies. With Lotus Domino Designer 8, you can create Notes components to integrate with other Notes components, Eclipse based components, and portlets in context as part of one user experience.

For more information, see Composite applications in IBM Lotus Domino Designer application.

See Also