About this task
Domino® Designer
allows you to set the color for a column programmatically to visually
differentiate documents in a view. You can use this functionality
to provide users with the means to set the color for documents in
a view. This feature can be extended to allow users to determine the
colors for a column by means of a generic profile -- a particular
type of form -- to set values in a database. For example, in the Domino Release 6 mail template
(mail6.ntf) you can choose Tools -- Preferences, click the Colors
tab and associate colors with different senders to customize how mail
displays in your Inbox.
Note: Because it relies on
a generic, rather than a user-specific profile form, the feature is
only useful for a database with only one user, such as a mail database
or a personal journal. You cannot use a personal profile document
to let users personalize their view column colors in a shared view.
That's because when you use @Username in a view column, it returns
the server's username, not the name of the user who's opening the
view.
Note: To have a different set of colors for
each user, you must use a Shared, Desktop Private on First Use view.
Since the view index is created by the user's workstation, it will
be able to use their personal profile.
Results
For information on creating a profile form, see "Creating
a profile form."
- Create two fields on the profile form. The first will be a color
field that users will use to select a color. The second field will
be a formula field set to hold either the value of the color field,
or a formula that evaluates to a color. The formula field must have
the same name as the programmatic name for the column in the view.
For example, if the column's programmatic name is "$3", then the
formula field on the profile form must also be "$3". The programmatic
name can be text, but user-defined column functionality will not work
unless the name begins with an "$."
Note: If you want the
user to be able to set both a text color and a highlight color, you
will need two color fields, and the $3 field will need to combine
the two colors.
For information on creating a color field, see Color fields. For information
on the programmatic name for a column, see Adding programming
to columns.
- Select the view column you want to make customizable and choose
Design - Column properties.
- On the Column Info tab, check "Use value as color" and "User defined."
- In the field next to "User defined," enter the name of the profile
form.
- In the programming pane, choose "Formula" as the column value
and enter a valid formula, such as @UserName, as the column formula.
This formula must return a non-constant, with no special text characters.