Automating Your Application with Agents

By Deborah Penny

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Working with Agents
• Creating an Agent
• Working in the Agent Builder Design Window
• Using @Commands in Agents
• Putting Your Agent to Work
• Creating a Complex Agent
• Using LotusScript in Agents
• Creating Web Agents Using Formulas and LotusScript
• Using Java in Agents
• Testing and Debugging Agents, the Agent Log, and Agent Properties
• Agent Properties via the Agent InfoBox

Agents automate tasks in a Domino database. Along with mail-enabling forms, agents are at the heart of the power of Domino applications. In Release 3, agents were called macros. In Release 4, the name was changed to agents, and these provided a dramatic improvement over macros. The design interface was significantly improved, and the power of agents was greatly expanded with the addition of simple actions, LotusScript, and, in Release 4.6, the ability to import Java. Release 5 continued to improve agents by providing expanded functionality, such as enabling the creation of Java agents in the IDE. Domino 6 proves to have evolved even further to allow for greater control and much needed flexibility.

This chapter assumes that you have basic knowledge of Designer 6, know how to invoke the agent's property box and access its properties, and have some knowledge of working with agents in Domino. If you aren't familiar with Designer 6 and how to navigate inside the Work pane, you may find it helpful to review Part I of this book.

NOTE

Throughout this chapter, reference is made to an agent's InfoBox properties. To access an agent's InfoBox properties, also called a properties box, open the agent from within Designer 6 and click the right mouse button to display the right-click menu. Select Agent Properties from the menu. Pressing Alt+Enter also invokes the agent's InfoBox, as does clicking the agent properties smart icon on the smart icon bar, as shown in Figure 11.1.

Figure 11.1. Accessing the Agent InfoBox properties.

 

Domino 6 boasts several great new features for agents, such as these:

• The agent user interface has been completely redesigned.
• More screen real estate is available in which to write code.
• New action buttons appear across the top of the display ”New Agent, Enable, Disable, Sign.
• Agents running amok can be easily stopped at the server.
• Agents can be remotely debugged via Domino Debugger 6.
• Agents are treated as a shared code resource in the IDE.
• View, Agents now displays all agents ”scheduled and private ”to the designer.