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If you use Other Views in Outlines, you might want to read this...

One of the quirks -- at least that I've found -- with IBM Domino Designer in Eclipse (8.5.n) is the validation of Design Element naming. Those of us that have relied on hacks to create pseudo-folder hierarchies for our Design Elements to (for example) support 3rd-party Script and Stylesheet Libraries found out really quickly that naming a Design Element "images/home.png" just wouldn't work the way it did in previous releases of Domino Designer.

Not a big deal, as you can still name a Design Element alias anything you'd like, resulting in something like this: home.png|images/home.png.

... but this causes an issue for View and Folder Design Elements if you're using a little known hack for creating expandable/collapsable menus from an Outline via the Other Views entry.

Domino Designer - Outlines - Other Views

Once you Generate Default Outline from the new Outline Design Element, you simply leave the rest to your Design Element naming:

Top Level Category\Folder Name|Folder Name

(Note the use of a backslash in the Design Element's primary name.)

This would allow you to name a new View Design Element Products\by Product Code|products_bycode and another Products\by Reference Code|products_byreferencecode, and have a single top-level category-style entry in your Outline named Products which -- when expanded -- would show the two Views.

DDE's Design Element naming validation however won't allow you to create and thus use hierarchal naming schema.

... but I don't think that's a bad thing.

Sure, if you use this technique, it really sucks having to either create individual entries in an Outline to support the Top/Sub-level navigation structure afforded via Outlines... but as XPages are becoming the standard for both Web, Mobile, and now Lotus Notes Client application development, Outlines are deprecated Design Elements.

And after talking with 3 people who I consider top-level developers using the platform and discovering that they didn't know about this hack, I'm thinking it's a total non-issue.

For those of you who are not only aware of this hack but employing it in your applications, be aware, and I'd suggest a VM that runs Domino Designer 7.n or breaking down and re-creating your Outlines... or just plan for the eventual upgrade to XPages and the evolution of the navigation structure of your app.


About the author: Chris Toohey

Thought Leadership, Web & Mobile Application Development, Solutions Integration, Technical Writing & Mentoring

A published developer and webmaster of dominoGuru.com, Chris Toohey specializes in platform application development, solutions integration, and evangelism of platform capabilities and best practices.



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