This tutorial will showcase a simple NotesDocument auto-save engine for an example NotesDatabase using the Domino CRUD API. The desired user experience will have the user's non-submitted NotesDocument auto-save after an admin-defined interval. To ensure a seamless user experience, I will continually - via a JavaScript timer - submit the "uidoc" via HTTP POST through AJAX to the Domino CRUD API to create (or update) a "temp" NotesDocument. We will create a custom response message to the HTTP POST and return the "temp" NotesDocument Unique ID (UNID), which we will use to update the "uidoc" HTML Form Processing Agent.

What's this all about? This is my NotesDocument Auto-Save engine for Domino Web Applications, which is an online demo turned Lotus Domino Designer Wiki article turned downloadable example application. Check out a quick video I put together to showcase just how simple it is to provide your users with such a valued feature:

For those of you - like me - who prefer to download an example application:

And now you have no excuse! Go add this feature into your existing Lotus Domino Web Applications, and never again get a call from a frustrated user who just lost 6 hours of editing a NotesDocument via a Web Browser when your Domino session authentication times out after 30 minutes...

Just a quick video showing you the potential issues with NotesDocument UNID-based URLs and how you can easily create your own "permalink" functionality in your Lotus Notes/Domino Web Applications!

(Check out the HD version)

Feedback on the last video was awesome, so feel free to drop me a comment here or on the YouTube page with thoughts, suggestions, or requests!

Was going through YouTube this evening when I came across the following screencast - by Jo Grant - showing us how we can quickly add NotesData-driven XHTML via Repeat Controls

XPages are absolutely amazing and have converted this "roll your own and stay the hell away from Domino RAD" die-hard.

Need a more basic ramp-up on this amazing new technology available to Domino Web Application Developers using IBM Lotus Notes/Domino 8.5? Check out the absolute must-see Learning XPages series from Declan Sciolla-Lynch, who takes us from hello world-style baby steps to some pretty quick RAD techniques that you can use today to build richer user experiences for your Domino Web Applications.

Here's a 52 second Jing videocast showing how you can add a Lotus Notes Form as a Sidebar Widget. Once you check that out... you may be interested in what went into the design of said Form Design Element.

I'll use SOTU v0.2 as my example here, so if you haven't already, go download it so you can play along at home...

So first, I created a pretty simple Form Design Element named "sidebar_remotecommand":

Pretty simple stuff. SaveOptions prevents the Form from being saved back to the database, and my Process button looks like this:

Sub Click(Source As Button)

	

	Dim s As New NotesSession

	Dim w As New NotesUIWorkspace

	Dim db As NotesDatabase

	Dim doc As NotesDocument

	Dim uidoc As NotesUIDocument

	Dim vw As NotesView

	Dim scol As NotesDocumentCollection

	Dim sdoc As NotesDocument

	

	Set db = s.CurrentDatabase

	Set uidoc = w.CurrentDocument

	Set doc = uidoc.Document

	Set vw = db.GetView("servers")

	

	Forall server In doc.GetItemValue("servername")

		

		Set scol = vw.GetAllDocumentsByKey(server, True)

		Set sdoc = scol.GetFirstDocument

		

		Call genResponse(sdoc, Cstr(server), doc.GetItemValue("command")(0))

		

	End Forall

	

	Call uidoc.FieldSetText("servername", "")

	Call uidoc.FieldSetText("command", "")

	Call uidoc.Refresh

	

End Sub

... yeah, that's about it. I blank out the fields and refresh the UI so that the "reports" from the processed remote console requests are displayed directly in the widget.

This is an EXTREMELY powerful combination of current subject expertise and this new entry-point into our applications - I'm now running around like a madman creating RAD widgets for all of our applications without the need to ramp-up on Java Sidebar Application development.

So here it is - my surrender challenge to the community: Get this database to show a subset of the documents it can load in it's "embedded view". The real challenge - even if you get this working - do it so there are no modifications to the target views in question.

A given user should be able to simply point the database to a view and let their configuration handle the rest. You'll see what I mean when you take a look at the database. The database, you'll see, uses an embedded frameset hack that I, Chris Toohey, soley came up with - work of genius ain't it?!

Using Nathan's hack-foolery, I'm able to load a frameset into my form and feed it values - in a way. In order for this to work, you need to create environment variables and tell the frameset to calculate the frame contents based on that. I've made this one pretty flexible actually, done by only slightly modifying the code logic (see below) to build this example that Nathan first discussed on his blog. At the very least, you'll get a pretty slick (clean up the UI by ALL means...) representation of just how cool and flexible Nathan's solution is... but that's only one of the reasons I am publishing it...

Back to that challenge, get a categorized view to load just a single category in this framework. Sounds simple enough. Just so you don't go all half-cocked trying to implement the @SetViewInfo, both Nathan, Derik, and I have tried just about everything that we can think of with it - from putting it in the PostOpen event of the view to trying to send an F6 to focus the call in the "target frame" back when I was trying to accomplish this soley with a frameset refresh... but don't let that throw you off from trying.

The person who gets this will have bragging rights and the first round on me down at Lotusphere this year.

I should note that Tommy Valand got it with the frameset-only implementation - by basically closing/opening a frameset wherein you've passed the computed parameters and using the PostOpen event of the target View elements. Seeing what he's done, I'm not surprised he was able to do it, but I both don't want that "chattiness" on the UI client and the requirement to modify the target Views - this solution, which I'll post out to everyone for download once we get the kinks worked out, will act as a Dashboard application (keepin' the CIOs happy!) that you can allow your users to configure personalized to their needs. It should be pretty slick once it's done, and it'll be Open Source under the Creative Commons licensing... whatever that means - you'll be able to download it - rip it apart - and use the hell out of it!