Palettes and views

Palettes and views provide the tools for working with the design elements.

Palettes

Palettes let you work with Controls and data sources. The following palettes are available:

Controls palette
Contains the UI controls and custom controls used for designing the layout of XPages and determining how data is entered and stored in the database. You can drag and drop controls from the palette onto XPages.

This palette is active only when the XPages editor is active, for example, if you are editing an XPage or a custom control. The palette contains drawers of UI controls: Core Controls and Container Controls. It also contains a drawer for custom controls, if you have added any to the current IBM® Domino® Designer application.

A drawer is an embedded pane that allows you to scroll through the options by using the Up and Down arrows at the beginning and end of each drawer.

You can also do the following with the palette and its drawers:
  • To hide the palette, close it.
  • To change palette properties, right-click and make a selection.
  • To expand or collapse a drawer, click it.
Data palette
Lets you view the data sources associated with the selected XPage or control in the XPages editor. To show the Data palette, click Window > Show Eclipse Views > Data Palette.

Keep in mind the following information, limitations, and guidelines when you drag and drop from the Control and Data palettes:

  • You can add controls to all container controls, except for view panels.
  • Except for the link control, you cannot add a control to a core control. This is because a link control can have children, so it acts like a container control in this respect. If you try to add a control to a core control, the new control is added to the page above the existing control.
  • On the Source tab, you can make a control the first or last child of a container control by dragging it to the start or end tag of the container, or by double-clicking or using the Create menu with focus on the start or end tag.
  • You can add controls only to cells in a table, not to rows or to the table container itself.
  • You can add controls to a column in a data table. Once you have created controls on the Source tab, you can add container controls that are defined as the data table (or data table column) header or footer. To define a control as a header or footer, add it to an xp:this.facets element in the data table or column.
  • You can add controls only to tabs in a tabbed panel, not to the panel itself.
  • If you drag a control to the end tag of a tabbed panel on the Source tab, or double-click or use the Create menu with focus on the end tag, the control will be added to the last tab in the tabbed panel.
  • You can add a control to a custom control that has been added to an XPage only if there is an editable area defined for the custom control. If the editable area has a facet name, you can add only one control; if you remove the facet name, you can add multiple controls.
  • You cannot add a control to a custom control nested within another custom control.
  • When you drag data sources from the Data palette to an age, you can reorder the sources before they are inserted on the page. At the top of the Data palette, click the Select Controls icon and then select the Select Data Bound Controls. Use the arrow keys to drag the data sources to the page.

You can create Control Palette profiles which let you select which controls appear in which order on the Control Palette. You can create multiple palette profiles, with varying control palette layouts that you can switch between. To access the palette profiles settings, go to File-Preferences-Domino Designer-Palette. The following list provides additional information on using Control Palette profiles:

  • By default, an initial profile named Profile1 is created. This is the profile which contains the current state of the palette when Designer is first launched. If you have modified the palette using the old Designer Palette Preferences page, those changes will be reflected in Profile1. You can rename and delete Profile1 from within the palette profiles user interface.
  • The user interface has a list of profiles and a tree showing the control drawers and controls in those drawers. The tree shows the layout of the palette for the selected profile in the list of profiles. You can check the controls/drawers that you want to see in the palette and uncheck those that you do not wish to see. You can also move individual controls within their parent drawer but you cannot move controls between drawers.
  • You can also reorder the drawers. The reordering of drawers of controls, however, is not supported by the Controls palette for this release. Custom Controls will never be shown in the tree, and will always be present in the controls palette.
  • When you click New to create a new profile, the new profiles palette layout will be based on the currently selected profile in the list of profiles. By default the active profile will be selected in the list of profiles. To switch profiles, simply select the profile you wish to activate and click "Apply" or "OK".
  • To restore the selected file to the default profile, click Restore Defaults. Restoring the default profile does not delete profiles that create.
  • If you delete all the profiles in the list of profiles, Profile1 is recreated, with a palette layout matching the default layout.

Views

Views are panels in Eclipse that let you look at and work with various aspects of your application. The following views are available:

Events view
Lets you create events for XPages, 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 XPages after events occur, including performing partial updates for a portion of XPage 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.

Outline view
Provides a hierarchical representation of the XML source code in XPages. You can click on the individual nodes in the Outline view to navigate through the XPage 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.
Problems view
Displays errors, warnings, and other information about IBM® Domino® Designer resources. These messages are generated when you build the Eclipse workspace. For example, if you save an XPage that contains syntax errors, the Problems view will display those errors.
Properties view
Lets you set properties for XPages and controls. The Properties view interacts with the editor that is currently open. For example, if you are designing an XPage, and you move focus to a specific UI control in the XPage, the properties for that UI control become available in the Properties view.

The Properties view is located at the bottom of the IBM® Domino® Designer window and contains individual tabs that you can click to display a set of options. Since each XPage 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 XPages, if you click the name of an individual XPage, the Properties view displays general information about the XPage, such as the name of the XPage, the author, and the date it was created. If you double-click the name of the XPage, the XPage opens in edit mode in the IBM® Domino® Designer XPages 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 XPage or an individual UI control.

You can minimize, maximize, and restore the view with the buttons on the Properties title bar. You can right-click on the Properties tab to do the following tasks:
  • hide the view
  • minimize and maximize the view
  • detach the view as a separate window
  • restore a minimized or maximized view