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IBM Domino Designer Basic User Guide and Reference
Basic product usage information and programming language reference information.
Application Management
Welcome to the Application Management section of Domino® Designer Help.
Completing an application and managing design changes
As you prepare to deploy an application, consider these finishing touches:
Creating context-sensitive Help for an application
You can make an application's Help documents or pages context-sensitive so that users can open them by pressing a key, such as F1, or by clicking a Help button. You can associate a Help document or page with each page, form, subform, view, and folder in an application.

IBM Domino Designer Basic User Guide and Reference
Basic product usage information and programming language reference information.
- Accessibility and keyboard shortcuts
  Accessibility features assist users who have a disability, such as restricted mobility or limited vision, to use information technology content successfully.
- Application Design
  Welcome to the Application Design section of Domino® Designer Help.
- Application Management
  Welcome to the Application Management section of Domino® Designer Help.
  - Security in an application
    Domino® offers a multi-layered approach to security. Server administrators can secure databases, servers, and domains. Database designers and managers control the following:
  - Completing an application and managing design changes
    As you prepare to deploy an application, consider these finishing touches:
    - Creating a database icon for a Notes® application
    - Providing online Help for an application
      Including Help with your application improves the chances that users will understand how to use it without asking for individual Help from you or a coworker. Database Help can be integrated throughout the application so that users have information as they need it.
    - Creating Using This Applicationand About This Application documents
    - Creating context-sensitive Help for an application
      You can make an application's Help documents or pages context-sensitive so that users can open them by pressing a key, such as F1, or by clicking a Help button. You can associate a Help document or page with each page, form, subform, view, and folder in an application.
    - Writing Help for fields
    - Creating and displaying more detailed application Help
    - Specifying a home page in the Web site document
      To make a design element the site home page, open the Web site document. Specify a URL that includes the design element in the "Home URL" field.
    - Restricting design changes
      Once an application is complete and available, you decide how to protect the design from changes. An application can have a totally open design, where users can update forms and views and pass along design changes. Or an application can have a totally closed design, where users use the application "as is" and have no access to design elements.
    - Checking the application design before release
      After you complete the design, test the application and correct problems before you release it.
    - Checking form design
      For each form you want to check, create two or three documents and enter a variety of information into the fields. Then use this check list to verify that the form is working as intended.
    - Checking field design
    - Checking view design
      Once the database is complete, make sure the design is working. For testing purposes create a view that uses @SELECTALL to select all documents. Follow these guidelines to check view design.
    - Making a design copy of a completed application
    - Pilot testing an application
    - Renaming a database
    - Renaming design elements
    - Design synopsis
    - Updating documents after redesigning a form
      When you redesign a form, be aware of the effect on existing documents. Some form changes, such as formatting changes, automatically display when users open an existing document. Other changes, such as adding a new field, do not affect the contents of existing documents until you update the documents manually or by running an agent.
    - Checking field values in a document
    - Using agents to update documents affected by form changes
      To update multiple documents affected by form changes, use an agent. To do so, it is best to create private agents and run them manually.
    - Changing database and design properties
    - Setting application launch properties
    - Templates
    - Making and distributing design changes
      When you need to redesign an application, make and distribute the changes in one of these ways:
    - Refreshing a design
    - Replacing a design
    - Design changes and replication
      Unless you distribute design changes through templates, design changes and any document updates made in one database replicate directly to replicas, as long as servers have Designer access or greater in the database ACL. To avoid replication conflicts and unexpected changes, only one person -- the database designer or manager -- should make design changes to only one database and maintain its design. Then let replication distribute the design changes to other replicas.
    - Preventing design changes
    - Modifying multiple design elements
    - Hiding the design of a database
    - Hiding design elements
    - Locking a design element
  - Deploying an application
    The tasks involved with application design, database design, database management, and DominoTMsystem administration may overlap, depending on the size of your organization and the structure of job responsibilities. In some organizations, an application developer may be responsible for both application and database design, while in others, a database manager may handle all database design and management tasks. In addition, database management overlaps with Domino® system administration.
  - Procedure for optimizing and troubleshooting databases
- Domino® Query Language
  Domino Query Language (DQL) is a facility running in Domino core allowing for a terse shorthand syntax for finding documents according to a wide variety of complexity of terms. It leverages existing design elements without the need to write detailed code to access them.
- Composite Applications - Design and Management
  Composite applications are a key element in a service-oriented architecture (SOA) and contextual collaboration strategy. The ability to create and edit composite applications lets you easily integrate different types of components and technologies.
- DB2® Access views
  Domino® Designer includes two types of design elements to assist you in managing data contained in DB2® enabled Notes® databases:
- Programming Overview and User Interface
  This section contains general guidelines and examples that show where to use Java, LotusScript, and the formula language.
- Formula Language
  This section documents the formula language.
- LotusScript® Language
  Welcome to the LotusScript® Language section of Domino® Designer Help.
- LotusScript/COM/OLE Classes
- Java/CORBA Classes
  This section documents the Java/CORBA classes.
- Lotus® Connectors
  Lotus® Connectors provide native access to a wide variety of DBMS products, ODBC, the platform File system, Enterprise Resource Planning systems, and Transaction Processing systems.
- Javadoc™ for Domino® Designer related APIs
  As part of providing additional Java™ reference documentation, Domino® Designer ships with a help plugin that contains Javadoc™ for additional Domino Designer related APIs.

Creating context-sensitive Help for an application

You can make an application's Help documents or pages context-sensitive so that users can open them by pressing a key, such as F1, or by clicking a Help button. You can associate a Help document or page with each page, form, subform, view, and folder in an application.

When you provide Help for an element, your formula overrides whatever context-sensitive Help already exists for that element. This feature is not intended for context-sensitive Help on dialog boxes or menu items.

To create context-sensitive Help for a Notes® application, you write a formula for the HelpRequest event for a page, form, subform, view, or folder. You can use the formula language command @Command([OpenHelpDocument]) to specify which Help document to open when a user requests Help while an element is active. You can also use @helpCommand([OpenPage]) to open a page instead of a document.

The HelpRequest event is not available for applications over Web servers; however, you can create a button for an element and program the button using a formula with @Command([OpenHelpDocument]) or@Command([OpenPage]). A user clicks the Help button to see the associated Help document or page.

Because the HelpRequest event accepts a formula, you can use the formula language in other ways to provide Help. For example, you can use an @If formula with @IsDocBeingEdited to provide different Help for a form depending on whether a document is being read or edited, or depending on other conditions specific to your application. You can present a dialog box to allow users to select among several Help documents or pages. You can place Help text directly onto a form or page, set the text with a hide-when formula, and use a formula on the HelpRequest event to reveal the text (by changing the value of a document field) when a user requests Help.

Note: To open documents in response to Help requests, there must be a view containing those documents sorted by a key field that you can use as parameters for @Command([OpenHelpDocument]). You can use @Command([OpenPage]) without requiring a specific view or key field.

For syntax and usage information on using @Command([OpenHelpDocument]) or @Command([OpenPage]) in a formula, see the Domino® Designer Programming Guide.