How to Reference $ Fields

Fields that start with a dollar sign are special Domino design elements that store values related to the management of the Lotus Notes documents. For example, the following are just a few of the dollar-sign fields that may be referenced.

• $KeepPrivate Disables the ability to copy, print, or forward a document
• $Moods Displays a mood graphic in an email
• $PublicAccess Sets access permissions
• $Readers Determines who can read the document
• $File Displays an entry for all file attachments
• $Link Shows an entry for all links
• $Revisions Shows the date and time for each document update
• $UpdatedBy Shows the list of users that have updated the document

How It Works

The tilde symbol is used to indicate that the following character is a special character.

ImplementationExample 1

This first example illustrates how to reference a dollar field using the tilde character. Without this prefix, you will receive a LotusScript error message at compile time.

Dim s As NotesSession
Dim w As NotesUIWorkspace
Dim uidoc As NotesUIDocument
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Set s = New NotesSession
Set db = s.CurrentDatabase
Set w = New NotesUIWorkspace
Set uidoc = w.CurrentDocument
Set doc = uidoc.Document

'----------------------------------------------
' Example statement using the tilde
' to reference a "$" field
'----------------------------------------------
Msgbox doc.~$UpdatedBy(0)

 

ImplementationExample 2

This second example illustrates how to reference a dollar field using the GetFirstItem method from the NotesItem class to retrieve the item value (see Figure 13.12).

Dim s As NotesSession
Dim w As NotesUIWorkspace
Dim uidoc As NotesUIDocument
Dim doc As NotesDocument
Dim db As NotesDatabase
Dim item As NotesItem
Set s = New NotesSession
Set db = s.CurrentDatabase
Set w = New NotesUIWorkspace
Set uidoc = w.CurrentDocument
Set doc = uidoc.Document

'----------------------------------------------
' Example statement using the
' GetFirstItem method to reference
' a "$" field
'----------------------------------------------
Set item = doc.GetFirstItem ("$UpdatedBy")
Msgbox item.Text

Figure 13.12. Using GetFirstItem to return the value of the $UpdatedBy field

Note

Many of the dollar-sign objects are managed by Domino and cannot be modified.