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HCL Domino Designer Basic User Guide and Reference
This guide provides information on using HCL Domino Designer and programming language reference information.
Application Design
Welcome to the Application Design section of Domino® Designer Help.
Including XML in Designer applications
Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a standard for creating markup languages that describe the structure and meaning of data in a document. XML separates the content of a document from its presentation and provides a common format for transferring data across the World Wide Web (WWW) or company intranet. The result is a technology that makes data available regardless of the proprietary systems involved.
Viewing the XML in an application with DXL utilities

HCL Domino Designer Basic User Guide and Reference
This guide provides information on using HCL Domino Designer and programming language reference information.
- What's new in HCL Domino Designer 11 for developers?
  The following features are new for developers in HCL Domino® Designer 11.
- 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.
  - Introduction to Domino® Designer
    Welcome to Domino® Designer. Domino Designer is an integrated application development environment that lets developers and Web site designers create, manage, and deploy secure, interactive applications.
  - Planning an application
    Before you begin any design work, create a plan for how users will access and use your application. At the minimum, your application plan should address these questions:
  - Creating an application
    All Domino® applications begin with a Domino database. Domino databases are the containers for your application. Databases hold the data, logic, and design elements for your application. Your Domino application can be made up of one or more Domino databases.
  - Designing pages
    Pages and forms are similar in certain ways. A page is a database design element that displays information. Pages can be used anywhere in your application that you have text, graphics, or an embedded control, such as an outline, to present to the user. A page or form can contain the following:
  - Designing forms
    Forms, like pages, display information. Everything that can be done with a page can be done with a form. What sets forms apart from pages is that forms can be used to collect information. A form provides the structure for creating and displaying documents, and documents are the design elements that store data in the database. When a user fills out the information in a form and saves it, the information is saved as a document. When a user opens the document, the document uses the form as a template to provide the structure for displaying the data.
  - Designing fields
    A field is the part of an application that collects data. You create fields on forms, subforms, or in layout regions. Each field stores a single type of information. A field's field type defines the kind of information a field accepts, such as text, numbers, dates, or names. When a user, either in a Notes® client or a Web browser, creates a form, fills out the information in the fields, and saves the form, the data in the fields is stored in an individual document. The contents of the fields can then be displayed in documents and views or can be retrieved for use in formulas. A field can be used on a single form, or you can create shared fields for use in multiple forms in a database.
  - Designing framesets
    A frameset is a collection of frames and can add structure to your Web site or Notes® database. A frame is one section, or pane, of the larger frameset window and is independently scrollable.
  - Designing views
  - Designing navigation for an application
    You can use the following navigational tools in your application:
  - Adding automation to applications
    Automation in an application speeds up repetitive tasks, handles workflow, updates information, performs calculations, runs programs, and checks for errors.
  - Developing applications using third-party tools and WebDAV
    As you are developing an application, you may want to supplement the tools provided with Domino® Designer with tools of your own choosing. For example, you may have a favorite graphics editor you use to design images for your application, or you may have a favorite HTML editor that you want to use to design pages. You launch and use third-party tools from within Designer.
  - Connecting to enterprise data
    Incorporating back-end data into everyday business processes maximizes the value of a Domino® Designer application. Designer includes a range of technologies for the security and control of business processes, forms routing, and approvals management. With enterprise integration technologies, you can incorporate traditionally difficult-to-reach data into your business applications.
  - Including Java™ applets in applications
    Applets are self-contained Java™ programs that can run in your Domino® application. Java applets are often used to add animation to Web applications. Although Java applets are mostly used for Web applications, you can also include them in the following elements of a Domino application:
  - Including Java™ servlets in Web applications
    A servlet is a Java™ program that is run by the Domino® Web server in response to a browser request. Servlets provide a convenient way to add powerful functionality to your Web application. In some ways, servlets act like CGI programs, but they are more tightly integrated with the server and can take advantage of special Java classes. For example, a servlet may connect to a relational database or enterprise system and get data in response to a Web browser request.
  - Including XML in Designer applications
    Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a standard for creating markup languages that describe the structure and meaning of data in a document. XML separates the content of a document from its presentation and provides a common format for transferring data across the World Wide Web (WWW) or company intranet. The result is a technology that makes data available regardless of the proprietary systems involved.
    - Domino® applications and XML
      One of the clearest benefits of XML is that because this emerging technology builds on the standards of HTML and SGML, it represents an evolution of data sharing rather than a revolution that requires new hardware and software. XML marries perfectly with Domino® applications. Where XML gives the power to describe data and share it across a network, Domino provides all of the other tools you need to make that data sharing secure, reliable, and efficient. In addition to providing a medium for writing and serving XML data to an XML parser, Domino Designer also provides:
    - XML terminology
      The following is a list of important XML-related terms and definitions.
    - Putting XML in a form or page
    - Using a view to generate XML
    - Using an agent to generate XML
      One of the biggest advantages of using an agent to generate XML is flexibility. Agents can be set to run on a schedule, based on an event, or in response to a URL command. This kind of flexibility is necessary to create automated XML applications. For example, the Web site for a bookstore contains a database where customers contribute articles to the monthly newsletter. There is an editing and approval workflow process that moves the articles through the system until they have been approved. An agent runs each hour to collect the articles that are ready for publication and converts them into XML. The agent then places the articles into another database as static XML documents where they are collected by subscribers.
    - Using a Java™ servlet to generate XML
      Servlets are Java™ programs that run in response to a request from a Web browser. Unlike agents, servlets load when the Web server starts up and stay resident on a server. They are commonly used for generating and updating Web pages dynamically and for exchanging data between different applications. You can extend the power of servlets to bridge applications by using XML as a common language between applications. Not only can a Java servlet produce and deliver XML tags to the server for processing, a servlet can also interact with the LotusXSL processor to format the data described by the XML tags. XML in conjunction with XSL provides you with a powerful tool for customizing the transfer of data.
    - Viewing the XML in an application with DXL utilities
    - Extended WSDL XML Schema Support
      Web service interfaces are described in a structured way by Web Services Description Language (WSDL) documents, using XML. Domino® Designer supports both import from and export to WSDL. WSDL documents can be imported into skeletal Java™ or LotusScript® implementations, and can be generated from LotusScript or Java Web service implementations. Domino also provides runtime SOAP message-to-implementation de/serialization, based on mappings between Web service implementation objects and their associated WSDL constructs.
  - Including OLE objects in applications
    Using Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) and OLE tools lets you extend the capability of Domino® Designer. OLE technology lets you integrate data from other applications, such as spreadsheets, graphics tools, and other data sources, into your application.
  - Creating a workflow application
    Workflow applications let you automate tasks. These tasks most often involve automatically sending mail messages or automatically routing documents, such as tracking orders and project plans to be reviewed. All projects need one or more people to complete a series of tasks and can benefit from workflow applications because they guide the project through these tasks automatically. Workflow applications reduce overhead and errors, speed processes, and track the status of a project. For example, a workflow application might automatically send a document in a publishing company from writer to editor to proofreader to production. At each stage, an individual is responsible for specific tasks related to that document. Once the task is complete, the workflow application ensures that the individuals responsible for the next task are notified and receive the data they need to execute their part of the project.
  - Domino® Designer templates
    The templates described in the following table are available with Domino® Designer and are specifically intended for use by application developers.
  - Importing to and exporting from views
  - Developing applications using MAPI
    Domino® Designer Release 6 and later supports the messaging application program interface (MAPI), which allows mail integration between Domino and a MAPI-compliant messaging application, such as Microsoft™ Outlook, Microsoft Office applications, or user-written C++ programs.
  - Features to avoid using in Web applications
    Developers creating applications specifically for the Web, or for the dual purpose of serving Notes® and Web clients, should review the following tables for features that are not supported on the Web.
  - URL commands for Web applications
    You have a variety of options for programming a Web site. You can directly manipulate objects such as documents or views in an application using Domino® URL commands. Adding Domino URL commands as HTML in forms gives users shortcuts for navigating databases and performing other tasks quickly.
- Application Management
  Welcome to the Application Management section of Domino® Designer Help.
- Domino® Query Language
  Domino® Query Language (DQL) is a facility running on a Domino server that provides a terse, shorthand syntax for finding documents. It supports a wide variety and complexity of search terms. It leverages existing design elements, avoiding the need to write detailed code to access them. DQL consolidates all methods in Domino for searching document contents.
- 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.
- Connectors
  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.

Viewing the XML in an application with DXL utilities

About this task

In addition to including XML in an Domino® Designer application, you can view all of the design elements represented in XML using Domino® XML (DXL). You can either view the XML in Designer, or you can export the XML to a text file, where you can view it or edit it using your favorite editor.

For detailed information about DXL, refer to the Programming Guide.

Accessing design elements in XML provides you with the means of accessing the data in your application and comparing it to or integrating it with other data sources that support XML. The DXL utilities can be a very flexible alternative to generating reports on application elements using the Design Synopsis. You can examine the DXL for a collection of elements, or you can transform it using an XSL file to apply styles and formats that make your data more meaningful to you.

In order to transform DXL, you must construct an XSL file which processes the tags that make up a design element. For example, the sample XSL file "Report--AllLSinForm.xsl" selects certain parts of the DXL document and ignores others. The selected pieces (all relating to LotusScript®) are reformatted to make the output more readable.

To view the XML for a design element

About this task

Procedure

Select one or more design element in the design pane.
Choose Tools - DXL Utilities - Viewer.

Designer displays the XML for the design elements in the Notes® client.

To export the XML for one or more design elements to a text file

Procedure

Select one or more design elements in the design pane.
Choose Tools - DXL Utilities - Exporter.
Enter a file name and path for the XML file and click Save.

Results

You can open the file in your favorite text editor and view or edit the XML source.

To transform the XML for one or more design elements using an XSL

Procedure

Select one or more design element sin the design pane.
Choose Tools - DXL Utilities - Transformer.
Select the name of an XSL file to use for transforming the XML.

Designer ships with some sample XSL files that you can select or you can browse the file system to select another XSL file.
Choose a type of output. Either select screen for a screen display, or specify an output file name.