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Looking ahead to Domino and Domino Designer 8.5
With Lotus Domino and Domino Designer 8.5, IBM provides new options for Web application development. Developers can leverage these options for new or existing Domino applications to provide modern interfaces that exploit Web 2.0 capabilities.
Domino Designer 8.5
Domino Domino 8.5 is re-parented into Eclipse to provide new developer capabilities while preserving the developer's and company's investment in applications and skills. Developers have new and refined navigation options, new editors for CSS, HTML, and XML, and additional capabilities and design elements.
New options for rich text fields on Notes forms
Developers can use Dojo control for rich text fields in Notes forms for Web applications. This new option is in addition to the Domino supplied applet, HTML or 'Best Fit for OS' option that is available in Domino Designer 8.0 and earlier. As a developer, you can select the new "Using JavaScript control" option in the rich text property box in Domino Designer 8.5, and the Domino-supplied Dojo control is provided for rich text fields in the Web application.
Well-formed XML
The HTML generated by the Domino 8.5 Web server can be valid XML that can be processed by XML-based processors. This does not include the following code:
- passthru HTML,
- Application-supplied HTML in HTML Head Content
- HTML in the templates in datadirectory/domino/templates
Auto-classing support
With Domino 8.5, class attributes are automatically added to certain HTML that is generated for Notes objects. Developers can apply style sheets to a larger set of Notes objects than in prior versions and use JavaScript on a larger set of Notes objects.
Theming support
Developers can exploit new Domino Designer 8.5 options to apply themes to all design elements in an NSF for use in Web browser applications running on Domino 8.5.
XPages and custom controls
An XPage is a new design element based on JavaServer Faces (JSF) technology that lets developers create Web 2.0 enabled pages for use in Web browser applications running on Domino 8.5. XPages remove the barrier of Web programming in Domino by providing advanced page design capabilities and complete control of the generated markup. They also allow access to any kind of data and provide an easy method for localizing applications. XPages includes the following features:
- AJAX enabled (for example, partial page refresh, type ahead capability, and so on)
- Advanced Web control library (tabbed panel, and so on)
- Full support for styling by using CSS
- Fully extensible by using custom controls (composite controls or Java-based controls) or JSF extensions
- Support for multiple clients (Web, rich client, and so on)
- JavaScript scripting language support for client-side and server-side action
- Pre-built simple actions provided for most common cases
- Direct access to Java libraries on the server
A custom control is a collection of controls that are stored as a single object. Similar to subforms in Domino Designer, custom controls are design elements that you can create once and add to multiple XPages. When you update a custom control, every XPage that uses that custom control gets updated with the changes, saving developer time and effort.
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What is really needed is Agent development incl. Debugging from within Eclipse, using proper Eclipse Java tooling and steppeing through the Agents in Debug mode.
The same applies to Web Service programming. We need to be able to programm Web Services on the Domino databases and be able to step through the service implementation using proper Java debugging tools.