New Design Element Features

The change from R4.6 to R5 was much more dramatic than the change from R5 to Notes and Domino 6. However, many new features enable you to create more powerful and usable applications. The next several sections describe some of these new features.

New Database Properties

Some new properties improve database performance, and others improve server performance. Still others help reduce the size of a database. All these properties are covered in detail in Chapter 2. The new properties include the following:

• Allow Design Locking
• Inherit Design from Master Template
• Database File Is a Master Template

Framesets

Framesets, first introduced in R4, were not a separate design element until R5. Framesets are covered in detail in Chapter 10, "Adding Framesets to Domino Applications." New features have been added to framesets in Release 6, including these:

• Collapsible sections with border captions and arrows
• The ability to display a view's header
• The ability to include a view's Action bar

Page Designer

Pages were introduced in R5. Pages are covered in detail in Chapter 8, "Using the Page Designer." A few new features have been added to the Page Designer, including these:

• Layers (not to be confused with HTML layers ), which allow the designer to position text and graphics on a page
• The ability to use a view's Selection Margin property in an embedded view

Forms

Although there have been some changes to forms themselves , there also have been many changes to the objects that forms can use. You can read more about forms in Chapter 4, "Forms Design," and Chapter 5, "Advanced Form Design."

• A new setting, Include in Print, lets designers create special print forms, such as mailing labels.
• Layers (not to be confused with HTML layers) allow the designer to position text and graphics on pages and forms.
• New conflict-handling options are available.
• A Paragraph Borders tab has options similar to table borders.
• New Picture and Image border styles exist for images.
• Common JavaScript, a " dialect " that runs on both Notes and Web clients , has been added to the list of language choices.
• Three new types of fields have been added: Color , Time Zone, and Rich Text Lite.
• Forms can be created that hide documents.
• Many new JavaScript events exist for fields and forms.
• Several LotusScript field events have been deprecated in favor of their JavaScript equivalents. For example, onHelp is preferred over HelpRequest .
• Many new settings are available for customizing the display of dates, times, and numbers .

Views

Several new features for view design enhance the usability of views. This list highlights items new to Release 6 for views:

• Views that can be customized by users can be created.
• Formulas can be used to determine the image to use for twisties.
• Documents can be created and edited from the view itself.
• Many new settings exist for customizing the display of dates, times, and numbers.
• Formulas can be used to hide columns .
• Column formulas can be used to customize text and background colors.
• New ways are available for customizing the appearance of Calendar views.

Shared Code, Shared Resources, and Other

In Notes and Domino 6, the R5 Resources section has been broken up into Shared Code and Shared Resources sections. Some items are new and some have been relocated . Folders, navigators, outlines, synopses , and agents have been moved from the top tier of the Design pane underneath one of the shared sections or into the Other section.

The Shared Code section now includes the following:

• Agents
• Outlines
• Subforms
• Fields
• Actions
• Script libraries

The Shared Resources section in Release 6 now includes the following:

• Images
• Files
• Applets
• Style sheets
• Data connections

The Other section in Release 6 now includes the following:

• Database resources
• Navigators
• Synopsis

Items that are new for these three areas include the following:

• Formulas can be used to determine the image to use for twisties in outlines.
• JavaScript libraries can be created in Shared Code, Script Libraries.
• Files, such as HTML files, can be stored in Shared Resources, Files.
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) can be stored in Shared Resources, Style Sheets.
• Data connection resources (DCRs) are stored in Shared Resources, Data Connections.
• Enable, Disable, and Sign buttons are located in the Design Document properties box for agents.

Common Design Elements

Some design elements are common, in that they can be used in more than one design object. These include tables, action buttons, hotspots, and similar objects. For example, a table can be used in forms, subforms, pages, and documents. The following are some features new to Release 6 for some of the common elements:

• Captioned tables, which function similarly to tabbed tables.
• Computed labels for action buttons.
• New action button types, including check boxes and menu separators.
• Two new styles of hotspot buttons: square and rounded.
• Four types of preset hotspot buttons: Normal, OK, Cancel, and Help.
• The capability to recompile all LotusScript from the Tools, Recompile All LotusScript menu prompt.
• The capability to add embedded editors to forms (but not pages), either with or without an accompanying Embedded view.
• The capability to link embedded editors with an embedded view to enter, modify, and save information stored in documents in the view.
• Embedded schedulers (formerly called group schedulers ) that let you create group calendars. Many new features have been added to embedded schedulers.