The Start of Tips Week: Giving your design more structure
As promised, I am going to try and pass on a tip for each day of this week. Starting today with a way to help keep database resources in order.
In conventional web design, where you use many different files, folders are used to organise and structure things like images. For example, you might have a folder called images that contains subfolders called things like "icons", "buttons" and "photos". If you add images as Image Resources to a Domino database you lose this structure and it can become a real mess. Well, there's a nice and simple way to add structure. All you have to do is add the image and then rename it. As below, where I've added an image called folder.gif and renamed it "images/icons/folder.gif":
This helps keep all the images ordered in a logical manner and makes them easier to find. To use them in your HTML you simply add this pseudo-folder-name to that of the image. E.g:
<img src="images/icons/folder.gif" />Note that we are missing the database name from the URL. That's because I always use this time-saving method.
You're not restricted to Image Resources! You can do this to just about all the areas of a Domino DB's design where you deal with "files"; CSS Resources, JavaScript Libraries and other files for example. All in all, it makes for a much more organised working environment.
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I do like Lotus Notes because you can almost always create a workaround to mimic a funtionality which is not implemented.
I really hate Lotus Notes because you always have to mimic functions which everybody misses in Notes.
P.S. A question to the native english readers: Is it correct to say 'I do like' to stress the meaning of the sentence or should I just say 'I like...' ???
Jake - glad you had a good trip. And this is a great tip - simple but so effective.
Thanks tq.
mt. Both "I like" and "I do like" work ok. The "do" is probably not needed but, when it's there, tends to add some more weight to it. Almost like it would be in italics and would be read with some emphasis on the "do".
Great tip. Just another method that could also work:
What I usually do is create a Page called "img" where I place all my image files upon. On this Page, I may create some tables or paragraph headers to which I attach the image files. The urls to files on this page are simple to remember:
<img src="img/$file/folder.gif" />
Click the link to check out such a Page where the page is also used for non image files.
{Link}
Advantage: simple in Notes and simple in Webbrowser.
I do something similar with JavaScript and CSS pages. If I have a JavaScript page called global.js, I name it js.global and give it an alias of global.js. Likewise, project.css would get stored as css.project|project.css That way, all of my JavaScript pages and all of my Stylesheets are grouped together in the designer but the normal html calls to import these pages still work.
That's exactly what I used to do Steve. Doesn't seem right somehow though. Makes much more sense to call the pages names like "stylesheets/project.css" which has the same effect and looks more design-like.
Ok heres a little trick I was saving up for myself and my template.
View names can have a / character in them as well. So you could create a view called e.g.
blog/archives
for your documents.
Now referencing the documents in the view can be achieved by categorising the first column of the view with the UNIQUE name of the document. e.g.
blog0001.html
So the URL becomes
{Link}
Now you can have a folder structure for your Domino web documents. No more view or document UNIDs and a nice structural URL to boot.
It seems to work although I have only tested on R5.
regards john marshall
Before everyone chips in. The technique does not work if you wish to edit the document with ?OpenForm. I use a pure HTML method for editing forms not a notes form so this is not limitation for myself.
regards john marshall
They say that "great minds think alike"... (and I'm being presumptious calling myself a "great mind"), but this is damned scary:
{Link}
{Link}
This just tells me that we're starting to think like a group ;-)
-Chris
Great minds do think alike Chris. The greatest minds don't bother thinking though. They just steal ideas ;o)
Joking! I didn't know you'd done that. Honest.
This tip isn't really something I can claim to have "come up with". It's just something that a lot of us do that I wanted to pass on to those that don't...
Hey Jake
Just wanted to mention that in reference to your "time saving method" there is a new @ function in R6. "@WebDbName"....It returns the URL encoded name of the database.
Hey Jake,
Like you said before, it'll get a larger audience here and, IMHO, if we all start developing our applications in this way (did someone say something about a Domino Development Standards movement?!?) it'll ease the "picking-up-someone-else's-work"-type development and maintenance.
Looking forward to tomorrow's tip...
-Chris ;-)
Tips week !!! Because things like this, I DO love codestore !
Thanks Jake
Looking forward to the next tip!
cheerz
Karel
Webdav do this, automatically.
Hi Jake and all !
Simple but it was to think it!
Thanks,
Thierry
luca,
Webdav however requires a windows-based server (YUK)!
-Chris
Is that right Chris? That would explain why I am having problems with it on my Linux server. It lets me run it but all I get is errors from clients that connect. I remember one did have some success though. Strange.
Note: WebDav also adds a directory/folder object to your notes database resources when your create a resource in a subfolder from the WebDav client.
Always fancied writing a WebDav agent for a documents in a Notes database. Should be easy enough hmm another project.
John Z
That's right Jake... as far as I can tell. That's why we can't/don't use it for our hosting company - I'd love to give people native FTP access, but webdav requires M$ to get the job done from what we've seen, and we're just not willing to go that route.
Hopefully... someday...
-Chris
I just find this article.Oh,it's 2006.But this bolg gives me some suggest.
But I want to know how to carry out with NOTES 5.
Just like the method laurens says?
Please give me an answer!!
Thanks!!