Design Enhancements Using LotusScript

Chapter Overview

This chapter provides a number of LotusScript functions and subroutines that can be incorporated into a Lotus Notes database. Each module is for the most part self-contained and designed to run with minimal modifications. This enables you to copy the code into any existing application and implement it.

The intent of this chapter is to provide common customizations that can be added to any database application. Each customization includes a functional summary, an explanation regarding how the code works, and detailed instructions for installing the code. This means that each code section will run with no additional code required.

However, when adding code to an existing application, you may need to replace field names, search strings, or remove duplicate code linessuch as declaration (or DIM) statementswhen implementing a LotusScript customization. It's also important to note that these functions and subroutines are intended to illustrate one way to solve a particular problem. As with all programming, there may be other ways to achieve the same result. In short, these modules are intended to be framework models to be incorporated into applications. Customizations include the following:

• Compare two dates
• Check for an element in an array
• Replace an element in an array
• Remove a character from a string
• Remove an element from an array
• Compare two arrays
• Define a dynamic array
• Create a custom popup dialog box
• Refresh a document from the user interface
• Search for a document
• Format dates and times
• Compute the day of the week
• Reference "$" variables
• Set the "Return Receipt" for an application generated email
• Add field validation to a form
• Display an "Are you sure?" message
• Disable the ability to create documents in a local database
• Format a user's name
• Automatically update a history field when documents are changed
• Prompt the user to describe changes and log to history field
• Create a unique document identifier
• Pad a text number with zeros
• Add text information to a Rich Text object
• Attach a file to a Rich Text object
• Format text strings in a Rich Text object
• Change a document to edit mode
• Obtain the current roles assigned to a user
• Create a document in another database
• Generate a new document based on an existing document
• Prompt in LotusScript
• Generate and send email to multiple recipients
• Add a view icon and mood stamp to an email
• Update the NOTES.INI file
• Copy one Rich Text object to another Rich Text object
• Add a database and document link to a Rich Text field
• Create a button to add a calendar event

Note to readers: This chapter does not describe the various LotusScript classes (e.g., NotesDocument, NotesSession, NotesUIWorkspace, etc.). Readers should review Chapter 6, "An Introduction to LotusScript," for an introduction to the language and refer to the Designer help manual, which is included with the Lotus Domino Designer install package, for additional information pertaining to classes.

A working example of all customizations can be found in the developer's toolbox in the BookCodeLibrary.NSF database. See Appendix A for additional information.