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It is indeed an understatement to say that the creation of a book is a team effort...it gets a little better to admit that it is a Herculean team effort, and no author stands alone. I’ve had the pleasure of working with, learning from, and leaning on a very professional group of wonderful Sybexers. Thank you for all the hard work! Additionally, Mark Sayewich contributed foundation material for the 511 chapters of the book and Susan Bulloch started the ball rolling in the very early goings. Last but not least, my family and friends deserve acknowledgment for always standing by me as I live my dreams.
Hello! In the following pages, you’ll find everything you need to know not only to pass the Certified Lotus Professional Domino Application Developer certification exams but also to build good Notes and Web applications. This study guide has been designed from the ground up to teach you, then test you on the essential concepts of Notes, as well as the nuances that distinguish the beginners from the advanced Notes programmers. We hope that this book will be both a test preparation guide as well as one of the most useful Lotus Notes Domino reference guides on your shelf. When you complete your exam track, you will be an advanced Domino programmer. Good luck with your goals!
Lotus Certifications Lotus offers a series of certifications for power users, programmers, and system administrators. This book will help prepare you for two Lotus certifications in the application developer track:
Certified Lotus Specialist
Certified Lotus Professional Domino Application Developer
By acquiring the Certified Lotus Specialist certification, you demonstrate the fundamental skills required to build and maintain Lotus Notes Domino applications. When you continue on and pursue the Certified Lotus Professional certification, your skills advance to the level of demonstrating in-depth knowledge of Lotus Notes Domino application architecture and security.
Certified Lotus Specialist To receive your Certified Lotus Specialist (CLS) certification, you must pass the 191-510 Domino R5 Designer Fundamentals exam. The criteria for this exam are as follows: Exam
To become a CLS, you need to pass the 510 exam. To accomplish this goal, you should study this book as test preparation and work with the Domino Designer for a few months. It is recommended that you design and build at least one comprehensive Domino application prior to taking the 510 exam.
Certified Lotus Professional Domino Application Developer You can receive your Certified Lotus Professional (CLP) certification by passing three exams:
191-510 Domino R5 Designer Fundamentals
191-511 Domino R5 Application Security and Workflow
191-512 Domino R5 Application Architecture
In addition to the CLS certification 510 exam criteria outlined in the preceding section, the exam requirements are as follows: Exam
191-511 Domino R5 Application Security and Workflow
–Designing –Implementing and Maintaining –Planning
To reach CLP status, you need to be a CLS and then pass the 511 and 512 exams. You will benefit in your preparation for these exams by using this book as a study guide. In addition, you should have six months of experience using Domino Designer with the creation of several solid applications to your credit. It is essential that you have a hands-on working knowledge of Domino Designer to be successful with the 511 and 512 exams.
What Does This Book Cover? This book covers everything you need to know to pass the Lotus application developer CLS and CLP Domino Application Developer series of exams: 191-510, 191-511, and 191-512. You will learn how to plan, design, develop, and secure Lotus Notes Domino applications.
The chapters in the book are organized to sequentially cover the 510, 511, and 512 exams, with four chapters devoted to each exam. Since Lotus tests similar material on each of the exams but to different technical depth, there is overlapping coverage in the chapters. Each chapter covers the content to the depth tested on the exam. The 510 exam is broad and expansive, while the 511 exam is targeted and specific, and the 512 exam deep and comprehensive. Studying all the chapters will not only position you to pass the exams, it will push your skills to the next level. The individual competencies measured in a chapter are listed at the beginning of each chapter. Please read them before working through the material. These competencies will appear on your test results when you take the actual exam. This book’s chapters are outlined in the following sections, and they split the material covered into modules that focus on an overall learning concept.
Exam 510: Domino Designer Fundamentals The 191-510 exam covers all the foundation concepts needed to start building Domino applications. Chapter 1: Notes Databases: Core Concepts A Domino application is built as a Notes database. This chapter provides an introduction to the container that is a Notes database including how to create, configure, and maintain one. Chapter 2: Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data Interactive database applications are geared toward managing user data. This chapter focuses on how to build forms, configure fields, and create views as the essential design elements required to capture and present data to users. Chapter 3: Presenting, Navigating, and Processing Notes Data With data captured from users, an application becomes user friendly through the strategic use of outlines, pages, navigators, and framesets. This chapter presents information on the design elements that make an application come together for users. Agents that process data are also covered. Chapter 4: Formulas: Adding Code to an Application Lotus Formula Language is a core programming skill required to build successful Domino applications. This chapter shows you how and where to write formula code for your applications.
Exam 511: Domino Application Security and Workflow The 191-511 exam focuses on building a secure application and on the components needed to add workflow capabilities. Chapter 5: Server and Database Security The Domino approach to security starts at the server level and gets more specific within a database. This chapter teaches you the essential settings needed for a secure application server and a secure database. Chapter 6: Client Security As a product that can be used to build both Web client and Notes client applications, security needs to be considered from both perspectives. This chapter explains the options available, and in some cases, unavailable, for securing both Web and Notes applications. Chapter 7: Design Element Security The design elements in a database are the building blocks of the application. This chapter looks at the security options that can be added to forms, form contents, views, and agents to protect the data stored in an application. Chapter 8: Workflow Applications The Notes product is a workflow tool that lets you build applications that support distribution, routing, and collaboration. This chapter explains all the pieces you need to build workflow applications and highlights how to make them work in applications.
Exam 512: Domino Application Architecture The 191-512 is an advanced exam that tests your knowledge of the internal requirements necessary for building robust Lotus Notes Domino applications. Chapter 9: Application Planning Planning a Notes application is ground zero for building a good application. In this chapter, you’ll learn the thought process you need to apply to tailor a Domino solution to a business problem. Chapter 10: Application Design Designing the structure of an application involves making design element choices and fitting the problem at hand to the tool you’ve chosen. This chapter teaches you how to design a successful Notes application. Chapter 11: Application Coding The Domino Designer integrated development environment supports the use of Simple Actions, Formula Language, JavaScript, LotusScript, and Java as coding vehicles. This chapter examines how to make a good coding choice and where to write the appropriate types of code.
Chapter 12: Application Security Securing an application involves several levels of protection from server and database down to the field level. In this chapter, you’ll consider an application from top to bottom and learn about the security options available for protecting your application. Each chapter ends with review questions that are specifically designed to help you retain the knowledge presented. To really nail down your skills, read each question carefully and, without looking at the options provided, try to answer the question in your own words. Then, review the answer options one at a time, ruling out any obviously wrong answers and matching the potential correct answers to your own thoughts. Be sure to choose the most correct and complete answer, keeping in mind that a given answer may provide only a partial solution. In addition to the chapters, we’ve provided practice exams in Appendices A, B, and C so you can test yourself on the concepts presented in the chapters. And the glossary is a great resource for understanding key terms introduced throughout the book.
Where Do You Take the Exam? Lotus offers its exams through two independent testing organizations:
To register for a Lotus exam, do the following: 1. Determine the number of the exam you want to take. This book pre-
pares you for the application developer series: 191-510, 191-511, and 191-512. 2. Register with a test center. At this point, you will be asked to pay in
advance for the exam. At the time of this writing, the exams are $100 each and must be taken within one year of payment. You can schedule exams up to six weeks in advance or as soon as one working day prior
to the day you wish to take one. If something comes up and you need to cancel or reschedule your exam appointment, you must do so at least 24 hours in advance. 3. When you schedule the exam, you’ll get instructions regarding all
appointment and cancellation procedures, the ID requirements, and information about the testing-center location.
Tips for Taking the Application Developer Exams The standard exams are timed, multiple-choice tests. You must schedule a test in advance, and depending on the testing-center location requirements, up to 24 hours advance registration may be necessary. Many questions on the exam have answer choices that at first glance look identical—especially the syntax questions! Remember to read through the choices carefully because close doesn’t cut it. If you get commands in the wrong order or forget one character, you’ll get the question wrong. So, the best approach is to combine this study guide with a hands-on approach to building an application. Unlike Microsoft or Novell tests, the exam has answer choices that are very close to one another syntactically, and although some syntax is dead wrong, it is usually just subtly wrong. Some other syntax parameter choices may be right, but they’re shown in the wrong order. Some of the questions do split hairs, and Lotus is not at all averse to giving you classic trick questions. Also, never forget that the right answer is the Lotus answer. In many cases, more than one appropriate answer is presented, but the correct answer is the one that Lotus recommends. Here are some general tips for exam success:
Arrive early at the exam center, so you can relax and review your study materials.
Read the questions and all the answers carefully. Don’t jump to conclusions; instead, read and digest the material being presented. Make sure that you’re clear about exactly what each question asks.
Don’t leave any questions unanswered. They count against you.
When answering multiple-choice questions that you’re not sure about, use the process of elimination to get rid of the obviously incorrect answers first. Doing this greatly improves your odds if you need to make an educated guess.
If you are unsure about a question, choose the best answer and mark the question for review at the end of the exam so that you make it through all the exam questions in the time allotted. Then, review the marked questions when you have completed all the questions.
After you complete an exam, you’ll get immediate, online notification of your pass or fail status, a printed Examination Score Report that indicates your pass or fail status, and your exam results by section. (The test administrator will give you the printed score report.) Test scores are automatically forwarded to Lotus, so you don’t need to personally send your score to them. File your passing result sheet, given to you by the test administrator, in a safe place.
How to Use This Book This book can provide a solid foundation for the serious effort of preparing for the CLS and CLP Domino Application Developer series of exams. To best benefit from this book, use the following study method: 1. Take the assessment test immediately following this introduction. (The
answers are at the end of the test.) Carefully read over the explanations for any question you get wrong, and note which chapters the material comes from. This information should help you plan your study strategy. 2. Study each chapter carefully, making sure that you fully understand
the information and the test competencies listed at the beginning of each chapter. Pay extra close attention to any chapter where you missed questions in the assessment test. 3. Answer the review questions related to that chapter. (The answers appear
at the end of the chapter, after the review questions.) Note the questions that confuse you, and study those sections of the book again. 4. Take the practice exams in this book. You’ll find one for each exam
(510, 511, and 512) in Appendices A, B, and C, respectively. The answers appear at the end of the exam. 5. Before taking the exam at a testing center, try your hand at the bonus
practice exam that is included on this book’s CD. The questions in this exam appear only on the CD. This will give you a complete overview of what you can expect to see on the real thing. 6. Remember to use the products on the CD included with this book. The
electronic flashcards and the EdgeTest exam preparation software have been specifically picked to help you study for and pass your
exam. Study on the road with the electronic book in PDF, and be sure to test yourself with the electronic flashcards.
The electronic flashcards can be used on your Windows computer or on your Palm device.
7. Make sure to review the Key Terms list at the end of each chapter.
To learn all the material covered in this book, you’ll have to apply yourself regularly and with discipline. Try to set aside the same time period every day to study, and select a comfortable and quiet place to do so. If you work hard, you will be surprised at how quickly you learn this material. All the best!
What’s on the CD? The CD included with this book contains all the complete text of the book in PDF as well as bonus material designed to help you pass the Lotus suite of exams.
The EdgeTest Test Preparation Software The test preparation software, provided by EdgeTek Learning Systems, prepares you to successfully pass the 191-510, 191-511, and 191-512 exams. The test engine includes all the questions from the book, plus an additional bonus practice exam that appears exclusively on the CD. You can take the assessment test, test yourself by chapter or competency, take the practice exam that appears in the book or on the CD, or take an exam randomly generated from any of the questions.
Electronic Flashcards for PC and Palm Devices We extracted 20 key concepts from each chapter to create true/false electronic flashcard questions that can be downloaded to your PC or a handheld computer such as a Palm device so you can study anywhere you find a spare minute. With 80 questions for each exam, these flashcards are great for solidifying facts that were presented in the chapters and that are tested on the exams. With 12 chapters, that’s 240 questions covering a wide range of essential Lotus Notes Domino information.
CLP: Application Development Study Guide in PDF You can read this book as a PDF file, which is great for working offline or even in an airplane (which is where I’m writing this… this technology stuff is great!). For your convenience, the Adobe Acrobat Reader is included on this book’s supplemental CD.
Sample Chapter from Notes and Domino R5 Developer’s Guide to Building Applications We’ve included a sample chapter in PDF from Matt Riggsby’s book Notes and Domino R5 Developer’s Guide to Building Applications (Sybex, 2001) for you to check out. This chapter discusses the structure and placement of scripts, fundamental LotusScript syntax, debugging and error handling, and the Domino object model.
How to Contact the Author I’d love to hear about your progress on your Lotus exam goals and about the business projects that you are solving using Lotus Notes Domino. You can reach me at [email protected] or through AlphaPoint’s R5 Web site at www.alphapointsys.com. Happy computing!
Assessment Test 1. An application you’re writing interacts with Microsoft Excel on a field
level, exchanging sales forecast figures for the budget. A named range of cells interacts with a field on your form. What field type is the field on your form? A. Text B. Number C. Rich text D. Editable 2. You’ve encrypted a local replica of your mail file. Which of the following
will be used to decrypt the database when you access it? A. Your public key B. Your private key C. The server’s public key D. The server’s private key 3. You’ve created four fields on your form that are enabled for
encryption. You’ve also created four separate secret encryption keys. How many keys are needed to encrypt the document? A. One B. Two C. Three D. Four
4. You’re in the process of creating a set of actions that can be reused on
multiple pages and forms. Where should you create these? A. Resources B. Subforms C. Navigators D. Pages 5. You’re creating a page that will be used as the home page for your
Web site. Which of the following kinds of content should you avoid adding to the page? A. Horizontal rules B. Graphics C. Hotspot links D. Fields 6. You’ve decided to use the Generate Default Outline button to create
a new outline. Which of the following will not be automatically added to the outline that is created? A. Views B. Forms C. Pages D. Placeholders for future data-design elements added to the database 7. You’re designing an interface that will allow a user to navigate through it
using clickable links. When the user clicks a link on one area of the screen, you want data to automatically appear on another area of the same screen. Which design element can be used to achieve this effect? A. Tables B. Views C. Framesets D. Embedded forms
8. You’re developing a database that will be used by Web clients and
Notes clients. Which of the following database settings forces you as a programmer to add a Submit button to every input form? A. Allow Soft Deletions B. When Opened In A Browser: Launch Designated Doclink C. Web Access: Require SSL Connection D. Web Access: Use JavaScript When Generating Pages 9. You’ve written an agent in a Mail-In database that will send users a
document to edit. When they’re done editing, they’ll click a button on the document that will automatically mail it back to the Mail-In database. Each user who receives the document needs only to modify their own portion of the document, and when the document is back in the Mail-In database, everyone will be able to read the entire document. What kind of security can be put in place to best support this selective editing? A. Hide When attributes on the portions of the document B. Controlled access sections for each user’s information C. Form access list security D. Encryption of the Mail-In database 10. You’ve added several signable fields to a controlled access section in a
form. At what point will a digital signature be added to the document? A. When the document is created B. When the document is edited C. When the document is saved D. When the document is mailed
11. You’re using an Author field named DocAuthors that has the value
“CN=Cate McCoy/OU=HR/O=AlphaPoint/C=US”. If you code an input translation event using @Name([OU1]; DocAuthors), what value will be stored in the DocAuthors field? A. Cate McCoy B. HR C. AlphaPoint D. US 12. You’re coding an input validation event formula to limit the length of
the ProdCode field to 1–3 characters. Which formula should you use? A. @If(@Length(@Trim(ProdCode))=3;@Success;@Failure
(“Error!”)) B. @If(@Length(@Trim(ProdCode))<4;@Success;@Failure
(“Error!”)) C. @If(@Length(@Trim(ProdCode))=>4;@Success;@Failure
(“Error!”)) D. @If(@Length(@Trim(ProdCode))<>4;@Success;@Failure
(“Error!”)) 13. You’ve created an application that implements parallel distribution to
the marketing, sales, and accounting groups. In what order will the information be distributed to the groups? A. Marketing, sales, and accounting B. Accounting, marketing, and sales C. Sales, marketing, and accounting D. None of the above
14. You’re building a view that will show standing orders that need to be
filled five days before the promised FillDate, which is a field on the Order form. Which of the following view selection formulas will display Order forms meeting this criteria? A. SELECT form = “Order” & @Now >=
@Adjust(FillDate;0;0;5;0;0;0) B. SELECT form = “Order” & @Now >= @Adjust(FillDate;0;
-5;0;0;0;0) C. SELECT form = “Order” & @Now >= @Adjust(FillDate;0;0;
-5;0;0;0) D. SELECT form = “Order” & @Now >= @Adjust(FillDate;0;0;-5) 15. You’ve created a shopping cart form in your Web application that col-
lects user credit card information. To heighten security on the database, you want to use SSL. How should you go about doing this? A. Place the database in the SSL directory on the Domino server. B. Place the database in the HTML directory on the Domino server. C. Enable the database property Web Access: Require SSL Connection. D. Create the shopping cart form using hidden fields for the credit
card numbers. 16. You’re designing a database that contains two forms and will list all users
and groups in the ACL with Author access. People who create documents using one type of form should not be allowed to create documents using the other type of form. Which of the following can help you accomplish this? A. Readers field B. Authors field C. Readers and Authors fields used together D. Encryption
17. You’ve created an invoice application that sends a copy of invoices to
managers for approval. After the invoice has been approved, an e-mail is sent to the application’s creator with a document link to the original invoice, stating the results. Which workflow model is being used? A. The send model B. The share model C. The hybrid model D. None of the above 18. You’ve created an application that requires certain users to be grouped
together and referred to by a single name for security purposes. You do not have appropriate privileges on the Domino Directory to create groups. Which of the following can you create instead? A. Person groups B. Server groups C. New users D. Roles 19. You’ve enabled SSL for your database, and the system administrator
has enabled SSL on the server. The Web users log in with x.509 client certificates. All the Web users are part of the WebUsers group in the Domino Directory, and this group has Editor access to your database. The advanced ACL setting for maximum Internet access is set to Author. The database’s default ACL setting is Reader. What access do users in the WebUsers group have to the database? A. No Access B. Editor C. Author D. Reader
20. You’ve accessed a database to which you have Editor rights. The data-
base contains documents that contain encrypted fields of data, but you don’t have the encryption key. Which statement best describes your ability to work with the encrypted documents? A. You can read the documents but not edit them. B. You can edit the documents. C. You cannot read or edit the documents. D. You cannot open the documents. 21. You’re constructing a view that will include documents in either the
Product Profile form or the Vineyard Profile and that contain a field called Region that has a value of “France.” Which of the following view selection formulas will accomplish this task? A. SELECT (Form = “Product Profile” | Form = “Vineyard
Profile”) & Region = “France” B. SELECT (Form = “Product Profile” OR Form = “Vineyard
Profile”) AND Region = “France” C. SELECT (Form = (“Product Profile” | “Vineyard
Profile”)) & (Region = “France”) D. SELECT (Form = Product Profile & Region = France) |
(Form = Vineyard Profile & Region = France) 22. You’ve added an Authors field to the form you’ve designed and cre-
ated a formula that will set the field’s value with the name of the user who creates the document. What effect will this have on the document after it is saved? A. The document can only be read by the user who created it. B. The document can only be deleted by the user who created it. C. The document can only be edited by the user who created it. D. The document can only be mailed by the user who created it.
23. You’re designing a main document and response document that will
share the same value for the CompanyName field. At a minimum, which two things must you do in order for the field to be inherited into the response document from the main document? A. Mark the field property to allow inherited values, and use a Com-
puted When Composed field value type for the CompanyName field on the response document. B. Mark the database property to allow inheritance. C. Enable field exchange between the two documents. D. Mark the form property to allow inherited values, and use a Com-
puted When Composed field value type for the CompanyName field on the response document. 24. You’re building a series of 15 forms, which can be grouped into three
sets. In order for these forms to appear in an organized manner in the Notes client Create Document menu, which of the following can you do? A. Precede the name of each form with a special character to group
the views into three major categories B. Name the forms using a backslash ( \ ) in the name to create three
major categories C. Add a keyboard shortcut to each of the form names D. Build a floating pop-up menu to show one set of forms at a time 25. You’ve noticed that the setting Run Restricted LotusScript Agents in
the ORG2741 server document is blank. What effect does this have on users when they run agents on the server? A. No users can run restricted LotusScript agents on the server. B. Only users with Designer access can run restricted LotusScript
agents on the server. C. Anyone can run restricted LotusScript agents on the server. D. Only the system administrator can run LotusScript agents on the
26. You’ve created a custom template from a very heavily used database so
that you can separate where the programmer coding takes place from where the user interaction with data takes place. You put everything in place to make this happen; however, your production database does not seem to be inheriting automatically from your template database. What is a likely cause of this problem? A. The template alias name is exactly the same in the template prop-
erties as it is in the production database properties. B. The template does not have an NTF file extension. C. One of the databases is stored locally while the other is stored on
the Domino server. D. The production database does not have an NSF file extension. 27. You’re having trouble getting the Product view to categorize correctly
based on the value contained in the InventoryCount field. InventoryCount is defined as a Computed For Display number field. The column in the view is also set to display totals. What is the likely cause of your problem? A. Columns using totals cannot be categorized. B. The InventoryCount field contains the wrong data type. C. Computed For Display fields cannot be used to categorize a view. D. Number fields cannot be used to categorize a view. 28. You’ve developed a workflow application that will be used by remote
users. The documents will be mailed to remote users, and then they will act on them. Which of the following is an advantage to the information distribution method you’ve chosen? A. Users only need to access one database: their mail database. B. Users can use a Web client to access the information. C. Server disk space is reduced. D. Forms do not need to be stored in the document.
29. You have just taken over an application that contains a lot of LotusScript
code. The prior programmer had been working on the following code, which is intended to create new Product Profile documents. It does not currently work. Which of the following code lines needs to be added to create a valid db reference variable? Dim session As New NotesSession Dim db As NotesDatabase Dim doc As NotesDocument Set doc = New NotesDocument ( db ) doc.Form = "Product Profile" doc.Save(True, True) A. db = session.CurrentDatabase B. Set db = session.CurrentDatabase C. db := session.CurrentDatabase D. Set db = New session.CurrentDatabase 30. You’ve decided to create a Mail-In database to use in a workflow
application. In order to receive mail, what has to be done? A. A Mail-In database document must be created in the Domino
Directory. B. A Mail-In database document must be created in the Mail-In database. C. A Person document must be created in the Domino Directory. D. A Person document must be created in the Mail-In database. 31. You’re coding an application that will need to guarantee that all data
entered by the user is examined and validated before it is stored in the NSF file. Both Notes clients and Web clients will use the application. Which of the following events would allow execution of JavaScript validation code in both types of clients? A. Exiting B. onBlur C. onClick D. onReset
32. Your organization has decided to use Domino as an application plat-
form and Microsoft Exchange as its mail platform. You have several applications currently in development that require the ability to send documents to people as an e-mail. Which of the following can be used to provide seamless messaging between the two software platforms? A. Domino Enterprise Connection Services B. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol C. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol D. Hypertext Transfer Protocol 33. You’ve built an application that is very graphic-intensive. Before rolling it
out to the production server, you want to tweak the performance with database settings. Which of the following will improve the performance for Notes users? A. Web access: Use JavaScript when generating pages. B. Don’t overwrite free space. C. Display images after loading. D. Disable transaction logging. 34. You’ve coded an application that will be used from a Web client, and
you want to force the server to authenticate the Web user. Which of the following URL command formats should be used for this purpose? A. http://Host?OpenDatabase&login B. http://Host/DatabaseDirectory/
DatabaseFileName?Open&login C. http://Host/DatabaseDirectory?OpenServer&login D. http://Host?OpenServer&login
35. You’re planning a database that will be used by approximately 10 end
users with Web browser clients who will be updating customer profiles while making telemarketing calls. The users will need to have secure access to the application, so you want them to log in to identify themselves, which means they need to be added to your server’s Domino Directory. Which of the following license types makes sense? A. Lotus Notes for Collaboration. B. Domino per-user Client Access License (CAL). C. Domino per-server Client Access License (CAL). D. No license is needed for Web browsers. 36. You’ve made a change to the ACL on a database on one server and
notice that the ACL changes are not propagating to the replicas located on remote servers. What is the likely cause of this problem? A. The originating server is not listed in the ACL of the replicating
database with Manager access. B. The originating server is not listed in the ACL of the replicating
database with Designer access. C. The servers are not configured to allow replication of ACLs. D. The option to prohibit Design Refresh for the ACL is enabled for
37. You’re planning to roll out changes to a database that is used by Lotus
Notes clients on a server in Anquila and a server in San Juan. You’ve made your change in the San Juan database template. The servers replicate with one another once a day. You’ve set up a design environment that includes databases that inherit from templates, and all the necessary components are replicating. To guarantee that changes are available to users immediately, you copy and paste the design elements from the templates on each of the servers to the production databases on each of the servers. What is the net effect 24 hours after you do the copy and paste? A. Duplicate copies of the design elements that were copied and
pasted exist in the production database and in the template. B. Duplicate copies of the design elements that were copied and
pasted exist in the template but not in the production database. C. Single copies of the design elements that were copied and pasted
exist in the production database and in the template. D. The changes you copied into the production database were over-
written by the Design task and no longer exist. 38. You’re troubleshooting a view in a database that is used from the
Web. For some reason, not all the action buttons you programmed are displaying. What is a likely cause of this problem? A. Action buttons are not supported on the Web. B. These particular action buttons are coded with JavaScript. C. Hide When attributes are marked to hide when reading. D. The action buttons are coded with System Actions.
39. You’ve set up default replication on your manager’s local mail file with
the server, and you’ve explained replication several times to your manager. This afternoon your manager did a demo for a colleague to show off the awesome capabilities of Domino’s replication facility. During the demo, your manager selected all the e-mails in the local mail file’s Inbox (25 of them) and deleted them, saying out loud, “Watch as I replicate my mail database with the server and retrieve those Inbox messages again.” When the replication finished, both the manager and the colleague were astonished. What did they see in the Inbox? A. All 25 of the Inbox messages were back, as intact as they were
before the replication. B. All 25 of the Inbox messages were back but had today’s date as the
new received date. C. Of the 25 Inbox messages, only the ones that the manager had not
yet read reappeared in the Inbox. D. No messages appeared in the Inbox. 40. You have Editor access to a database that contains the Accounting
Approval form. The form contains an Authors field that contains the group name AccountingAP. You are not a member of the AccountingAP group. Which of the following is true regarding the AccountingApproval form? A. You cannot create or edit documents based on the form. B. You can create but not edit documents based on the form. C. You cannot delete documents based on the form. D. You can create and edit documents based on the form.
41. You’ve placed a $PublicAccess field on a form, given it a value of “1,”
and granted Reader access to the default entry in your database’s ACL. You’ve also enabled the privilege to write public documents for the default entry. What effect does the $PublicAccess field have on documents created with the form? A. The documents will be able to be read by users with No Access. B. The documents will be able to be edited by users with Depositor
access. C. The documents will be able to be edited by users with Reader
access. D. The documents will be able to be read by users with Reader access. 42. You’re designing an application that will be used over the Internet
through Web browsers. You would like to guarantee that application performance will be optimized, given that most of your users will be connecting from their homes using a modem. Since you’ve made heavy use of graphics in the application, you have turned on the database property to display images after loading. Will this setting improve Web browser performance? A. Yes B. No C. Only when a modem is used D. Only when TCP/IP connection is used 43. You’re building a calendar view to track the delivery vehicles for
WineMaster Distributed Ltd., and you want to include a button on the calendar to show one day at a time. Choose the correct way to code this from the options provided here: A. @Command([CalendarFormat] ; “1” ) B. @Formula[CalendarFormat ;1] C. @Command([Calendar] ; “1” ) D. @CalendarFormat( “1” )
44. The workflow application you’re designing will contain forms that
will trigger events based on field state transitions. Which of the following workflow models is most appropriate given that you do not plan to give users access to the database that stores the documents? A. Push B. Pull C. Combination of push and pull D. None of the above 45. You’re coding an application that requires a connection between a
Web browser and relational data stored on a server that is separate from the Domino server but available over a network connection. Which of the following can be used to achieve this? A. Agents B. CGI script C. Java code D. LotusScript 46. You need to code a custom message on a Web form to present a nice
message to the user after form submission and take the user to a specific document after they’ve submitted the current document. Which of the following languages can help you do this? A. HTML B. Formula Language C. LotusScript D. JavaScript
47. Your user ID is listed directly in the ACL on a database, given the
access level of Author, and assigned to the [ProductCreators] role. You also are a member of the MarketingManagers group, which has Editor access and is associated with the [ProductEditors] role. Which of the following rights do you have in the database? A. Author access and the [ProductCreators] role B. Author access and the [ProductEditors] role C. Editor access and the [ProductCreators] role D. Editor access and the [ProductEditors] role 48. Your application will be replicating between two servers. Only certain
users should be allowed to read some of the documents in the database, so you’ve added Readers fields to the appropriate forms and populated them with the group names for the appropriate users. With the help of your system administrator, the database replicates between the two servers once a day. Unfortunately, none of the documents seem to be showing up on the target server from the source server. What might explain this? A. Replication is not enabled in both directions. B. The target server is not listed in the Readers field of the documents. C. The source server is not listed in the Readers field of the documents. D. The target server is not in the database’s ACL.
Answers to Assessment Test 1. C. External interactions with OLE applications require that the Notes
field doing the data exchange is of the rich text data type. Although number data is an attractive option and may well be what the data is in Excel, Notes needs the field on the form to be rich text. The field may be either Editable or Computed. See Chapter 10 for more information. 2. B. A database is encrypted with a user’s public key and decrypted with
the same user’s private key. See Chapter 5 for more information. 3. A. One key can be used to encrypt all the fields that have been enabled
for encryption; however, you can apply as many as you like. To decrypt the data, a user only needs one of the four keys. See Chapter 7 for more information. 4. A. Actions created in the Shared Resource area of the Design Panel can be
stored once and reused over and over by linking to them. This reduces maintenance and storage space in a database. See Chapter 3 for more information. 5. D. Fields cannot be added to pages; fields are valid only on forms. Since
pages do not collect or present user data, fields are not allowed in the page design element. See Chapter 3 for more information. 6. C. Pages are not automatically added to a default outline. However,
forms and views are added since they both contain or display user data. Likewise, placeholders for future views and forms and folders added to the database are added to the bottom of the outline. See Chapter 3 for more information. 7. C. The content for each frame in a frameset can be controlled indepen-
dently of the other frames. Indeed, the concept behind a frame is that when you click a link in one frame, the content is displayed in a target frame. See Chapter 3 for more information.
8. D. The database property to use JavaScript when generating pages
allows multiple buttons to appear on a form and requires that the programmer provide a Submit button. With this option disabled, Notes generates a Submit button automatically but does not show any of your programmed buttons. See Chapter 1 for more information. 9. B. Controlled access sections with security specific to each user will do the
trick of allowing the specified users to edit the information but allow everyone to see the information. Hide When attributes may actually work, but controlled access sections are better since they apply a user’s name to an editable area on the form. Form access lists will not limit security on parts of a document, only on an entire document. Finally, encrypting the Mail-In database will not help in Edit mode because at that point the form is in their mail file. See Chapter 12 for more information. 10. C. When a document contains signable fields in a controlled access
section, the digital signature is attached to the document when the document is saved. See Chapter 6 for more information. 11. B. Using the OU, or organizational unit, keyword on the @Name function
suppresses the component label and returns just the organization unit. There is only one organization unit in this hierarchical name, and OU1 returns the first one found. See Chapter 4 for more information. 12. B. First, the ProdCode field is stripped of extraneous blanks. Then, the
length is checked with @Length and is compared to a number. The comparison operator for “less than” is <, and you need to check that the length is fewer than four characters since one, two, and three characters are all allowed. See Chapter 4 for more information. 13. D. Parallel distribution distributes all messages at the same time to all the
participants in a workflow process. See Chapter 8 for more information. 14. C. To compare today’s date with a field on a form, functions like @Now
and @Today will work. To compare with a date in the fill window, the FillDate is adjusted to subtract five days. Note that this formula will reevaluate for every document meeting the form = “Order” criteria, which will impact performance. See Chapter 4 for more information.
15. C. To require that an SSL connection is used to access a Web appli-
cation on a Domino server, the database property Web Access: Require SSL Connection must be enabled. Without this option enabled, users can access the database with either an SSL connection or a TCP/IP connection. See Chapter 5 for more information. 16. B. The value of Authors fields can limit a user’s ability to create doc-
uments of a particular form type. Readers fields limit the ability to see documents, not create them. Encrypting a database would protect the data stored in it from people not listed in the ACL, which is not the case here. See Chapter 1 for more information. 17. C. The hybrid model is being used since this application sends a copy of
the application followed by a simple document with a link. This is a simple example of a hybrid model. See Chapter 8 for more information. 18. D. Roles are collections of users that are created and maintained at the
database level rather than the server level like groups. See Chapter 5 for more information. 19. B. When SSL is in use, the maximum Internet access setting has no
effect. Therefore, the access granted to the group in the database’s ACL is in effect. See Chapter 6 for more information. 20. A. If a user has edit rights to an encrypted document but does not have the
encryption key to see the encrypted fields, the user cannot edit and save the encrypted document. The user can, however, open and read the documents with the exception of not being able to see the values in the encrypted fields. See Chapter 6 for more information. 21. A. The vertical bar is the OR symbol in a SELECT statement, and the
special variable Form needs to be tested in an equality statement for each possible value. The & is the AND symbol, which is used to combine the form selection with the presence of the Region field with the value “France.” See Chapter 2 for more information. 22. C. An Authors field determines which users are able to edit a document
after it has been saved. See Chapter 7 for more information.
23. D. Inheritance is set as a form property so documents can share values
on creation. Since the response document only needs the value at create time, the CompanyName field on the response form should be set to use a Computed When Composed field value type. See Chapter 2 for more information. 24. B. Cascading form names in a Notes client menu is done by adding a back-
slash character as part of the name and will create submenus of everything after the backslash. See Chapter 2 for more information. 25. A. When this setting is left blank, which is the default, no users are
allowed to run restricted agents on the server. A restricted agent is a LotusScript or Java agent that has restricted capabilities; for instance, these types of agents do not have access to the external file system. See Chapter 7 for more information. 26. C. The Design Refresh task automatically pushes programming
updates from a template to a database when both are located on a server. Otherwise, the changes have to be manually pulled into the production database using the File Database Refresh Design menu options. While it might have been tempting to suspect that templates need NTF extensions and production databases need NSF extensions, this is more of a convention than a hard-and-fast rule. See Chapter 1 for more information. 27. C. Fields that derive their values from Computed For Display value
types do not have a value stored in the database. These fields act like memory variables, never storing a value. This means that the value is unavailable for calculations. Categorizing a view involves a calculation on the column, therefore Computed For Display fields cannot be used. See Chapter 2 for more information. 28. A. Remote users often replicate over a dial-up connection. By using their
mail file as the delivery point for information instead of a centrally stored database on the server, users only have to replicate or access one database. The form needs to be stored (encapsulated) in the document for this method to work. See Chapter 8 for more information.
29. B. The Set keyword is used to initialize an object that was declared
using a class. In this case, db was declared as data type class NotesDatabase but was never given a value. Since the session reference object has been declared and initialized, the CurrentDatabase property of the session is used to initialize the db reference to the currently open database. See Chapter 11 for more information. 30. A. Mail-In database documents are created in the Domino Directory
and assist the router in routing mail to the database. See Chapter 8 for more information. 31. B. The onBlur event will fire for both Notes clients and Web clients, so
code placed here will serve a dual purpose. onReset and onClick do not support the Notes environment. While the Exiting event does support the Notes client, it does not support the Web client since it is LotusScript specific. See Chapter 11 for more information. 32. C. A Domino server can transmit mail to non-Domino servers
using the SMTP task. If the Microsoft Exchange server is configured to use SMTP, the two software platforms will be able to seamlessly send messages. LDAP is an attractive answer as well; however, its primary use is lookups into x.500 directories, not the sending and receiving of messages. HTTP is used for Web browsers to communicate, so it is not a factor in mail messaging. DECS is used to exchange field-level information between relational and Notes applications, so it also is not a factor in mail messaging. See Chapter 9 for more information.
33. C. The option to display images after loading will allow the Notes client to
display non-graphic elements on a page while the graphic elements are loading into memory. Once loaded, the Notes client will display the entire image. The alternative is that the image displays a piece at a time as it is being loaded, slowing down the loading of all elements on the page. This setting has no effect on Web browsers since a browser setting controls how the images load. The Notes options to use JavaScript when generating pages will affect how buttons and formulas behave in a Web browser. The choice to not overwrite free space will store data in a more optimized way and may also improve performance, but the key to this question is the focus on loading graphics. Transaction logging is a mechanism for writing before-and-after image logs in a way that transactions can be recovered if a failure occurs; while this is a terrific feature, it is not related to graphic performance. See Chapter 10 for more information. 34. D. The host name is followed by the question mark command
prompt, then the OpenServer command, and finally, the parameter keyword “login” after the & parameter marker. See Chapter 6 for more information. 35. B. Since the number of users is relatively low (10), the Domino per-
user Client Access License makes the most sense. Purchasing a server Client Access License makes sense with hundreds of users, not tens of users. None of the Lotus Notes licenses applies since each of them is for use only in the Lotus environment, not the Web environment. While it is true that no license is needed for Web browsers connecting to read-only Domino databases, in this instance, the users will be updating and modifying data, so read-only access is unacceptable. See Chapter 9 for more information. 36. A. To replicate ACL changes, a server must be listed in the ACL for the
database with Manager access. See Chapter 5 for more information. 37. A. Since the Replication task runs once a day and the Design task runs
once a day, 24 hours later the changes you made in the San Juan template appear in the Anquila template. However, they already exist in the template due to your copy-and-paste activity. So, the template will have duplicate copies of the design elements. The product database, however, inherits from the design template based on design object name, so it will have only one copy of the design object since it will inherit from the first named object it sees in the template. See Chapter 9 for more information.
38. D. System and Simple Actions are not available from a Web browser
since they require the Lotus Notes environment, which is not available in a browser. Action buttons are supported on the Web when coded with languages that are supported on the Web, mainly JavaScript and many of the @ functions. See Chapter 1 for more information. 39. D. Default replication is a pull-push scheme, which includes replica-
tion of deletion stubs. When the local mail file replicated with the server’s mail file, it contained deletion stubs for the 25 documents in the Inbox. Deletion stubs replicate, so the 25 mail documents were deleted from the server since the server did a pull-push replication. The pull brought over the deletion stubs and deleted the 25 messages from the server. The push had no new messages to add, so the net effect of the replication process was the deletion of the documents from the Inbox on the server. See Chapter 9 for more information. 40. D. Authors fields apply only to users with Author access. Since you have
Editor access, the field does not prevent you from creating and editing documents with the form. The ability to delete documents is not controlled by Authors fields; instead, it is controlled by the optional privilege in the ACL. See Chapter 12 for more information. 41. C. The $PublicAccess field is used to mark a document as public. Since
the optional privilege to write public documents has been enabled for the default access of Reader, this means that users not listed in the ACL will be able to edit documents created with this public document form. See Chapter 7 for more information. 42. B. The database setting for displaying images after loading applies
only to Notes clients and it lets Notes users read text on a document while the images load. Web browsers have their own setting to control whether images display as they’re being loaded or after they’re completely loaded into memory. See Chapter 10 for more information. 43. A. The CalendarFormat formula is an @ Command that displays a
calendar view with a specified number of days—in this case, 1. See Chapter 4 for more information.
44. A. For workflow applications where you don’t want to give access
to the NSF, the push model must be used. The information will be pushed out to users and delivered to the mail databases. See Chapter 10 for more information. 45. C. Java can be used to access network resources as well as Domino
resources, making it a good choice for use in a browser and over a network. CGI scripts might also work, but network resources are not as easily available. Agents are built into Domino, and since relational data access is required, an external Java program or applet would work better than an agent. LotusScript will not work at all since it does not execute in a Web browser. See Chapter 11 for more information. 46. A. HTML can be coded in the $$Return field’s value to move the user
to a specific location or to format a nicer message than the default message. See Chapter 11 for more information. 47. A. An individual listed directly in the ACL receives that exact access
level and any roles directly associated with the individual. If the individual is not in the ACL but is a member of a group listed in the ACL, the access level of the group applies, as well as any roles assigned to the group or groups of which the individual is a member. In this case, you are listed directly in the ACL and in a role, so you receive the exact privilege level and role associated with your ID. See Chapter 12 for more information. 48. C. If the server name doesn’t appear as one of the values for the Read-
ers field, the documents will not replicate. The reasoning for this is that if the server can read the documents, they can’t replicate. See Chapter 12 for more information.
Notes Databases: Core Concepts LOTUS EXAM COMPETENCIES COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER Creating, Modifying, Troubleshooting for Web Clients Creating, Modifying, Troubleshooting for Any Client Creating, Modifying, Troubleshooting for Notes Clients Creating Databases Reading ACLs on Databases Setting Database Properties Troubleshooting Databases
n April of 1999, Lotus introduced Domino Release 5 to the marketplace. This major product release consists of three separate products that make up the Domino product line:
Domino server
Lotus Notes client
Domino Designer
The Domino server is the heart of the technology, providing services such as access control, calendaring and scheduling, directory services, Web hosting, replication, secure transactions, and support of industry-standard messaging protocols. The Lotus Notes client is the end user’s entry point into the world of R5. Here, the user can interact with their mail as well as any applications that have been provided on the servers. Domino Designer is the programmer’s playground in R5. It is in this client that you create the flexible storage containers called databases. The focus of the 510 Designer Fundamentals exam is the basic skills required to build Lotus Notes databases. The design environment provides all the building blocks needed to build R5 applications.
Notes and Web Clients
T
he Lotus vision for R5 is that robustly coded applications are accessible from both Web and Notes clients. You know that “robustly coded” part? That’s where you come in! Using the Domino Designer and knowledge about the tool, you can code an application that works in both environments.
Throughout these chapters, you’ll get pointers on differences between the two environments and how to code to anticipate these differences. For instance, action buttons coded with System Actions do not work in a Web client. And yes, there are other things that don’t have a one-for-one functionality match between a Notes and Web client. Knowing little jewels of information like this will help you make coding choices based on the target environment and build a robust application.
HTML Conversion At the heart of why some things work in a Web client and others do not is the fact that all data rendered in a Web browser must be in HTML format. Everything that Domino displays in a Web browser has to go through a conversion process to HTML. This happens dynamically at runtime. Figure 1.1 depicts the process. FIGURE 1.1
A Web request is made by a browser and sent to a Domino server via HTTP. Domino finds the appropriate NSF containing the data and then retrieves it, converts it to HTML 4 format, transmits it back to the browser again using HTTP, and renders it in the Web environment. A Notes client and a Web client may achieve similar functionality for the same application; however, at times, the presentation of the information is different in the two types of clients. If there is not an HTML equivalent to the Notes client’s capability, the presentation of the information may look slightly different.
The Design Environment
T
he Design Panel is the heart of the Domino Designer programming environment. Here, you have access to all the design elements needed to create an application.
Design Elements Design elements are the structures programmers use to create a user interface, input and output mechanisms, and navigation techniques in a database. Design elements are used to create design notes in a database.
Named Elements The design notes represent named elements within the application. To help understand the relationship, think of design elements as cookie cutters of different shapes and the named design elements or design notes as the individual cookies created from the cutters. Named elements can be created from each of the design elements shown in Table 1.1 using the Design Panel. TABLE 1.1
Design Elements Design Element
Description
Outlines
A hierarchical way to organize forms, views, and folders
Framesets
A multiwindowed approach to display database contents
Pages
A rich text container for static text, images, and links
An input structure used to collect and display user data in fields
Views
A list of documents
Folders
A container into which users drag and drop documents
Navigators
A graphical way to move through a database application
Agents
A code module that carries out interactive or scheduled tasks
Figure 1.2 shows the Design Panel for the WineMaster database. FIGURE 1.2
Design Panel
Notes Databases
Design elements are used to create the structure for a Notes database. When complete and in use in a production environment, a typical database contains the following:
Creating Databases The first step in creating a production database is to create the physical container itself. This container is stored as an operating system file typically with the NSF extension, where NSF stands for Notes Storage Facility. You can create a database from scratch, as a copy of another database, as a replica of another database, or from a template.
Release 4 databases that have been migrated to a Domino R5 server may have an extension of NS4, which preserves their R4 format and protects them from being converted to R5 database format.
From Scratch When you create a database from scratch, you create an empty storage container using the menu commands File Database New. Along the way, you specify the title for the database, the operating system filename, and the server on which to store the database. The title is a descriptive name, maximum 32 characters, that displays in the Design Panel. Once the container is created, you add design elements to it one at a time. Replica ID Within Notes, every database is stamped with a unique number known as a Replica ID. You can examine a database’s Replica ID on the Info tab of the database Properties box as shown in Figure 1.3. The Properties box in Notes is where many attributes that affect look, feel, and behavior for objects is set and, in this case, where you can examine key object values.
New Copy One of the fastest ways to get a head start on a database is to copy an existing one that already has many of the design elements in it that you would like to reuse or modify. To do this, open the database you want to copy and then use the menu options File Database New Copy to create an exact snapshot of the database. In a similar manner to creating the database from scratch, you’ll have an opportunity to give the database a new title and operating system filename and to choose a server. Replica ID When you make a copy of a database, the new database is assigned a different Replica ID from the original. After the initial copying of data and design notes from the original database, there is no connection between the new database and the original database. You can think of a new copy of a database as a snapshot in time of the original database.
New Replica If you want to create a database that is related to another database and will exchange data with it, you make a replica copy of the original database using the menu sequence File Replication New Replica. A replica database will be allowed to synchronize data with its original when the server’s Replication task runs automatically or manually on demand. When you make a new replica, you’ll have an opportunity to set the server and operating system filename; however, you cannot change the title because the title of the original database will be used.
Replica ID Making a replica copy of a database stamps the new database with the same Replica ID as the original. When the Replication task runs on the server, Domino looks for databases with the same Replica ID to synchronize information between two databases. Databases that do not have the same Replica ID cannot replicate with one another.
From a Template Another great way to get a head start on an application is to use a database template as a starting point. A template typically contains design elements but no data, acting like a mold that you pour your own data into. Lotus ships many built-in templates with the product, including standard applications such as discussion databases, resource reservations, and document libraries. Databases created from templates will start with all the design elements found in the template. To create a database from a template, you use the same technique as creating a new database except that you choose a template from the list in the New Database dialog, which is demonstrated in Figure 1.4. Here, a discussion database template will be used to create a new database. FIGURE 1.4
Templates are typically stored in an operating system file with an NTF extension, Notes Template Facility, as opposed to the NSF extension commonly associated with other databases. While this is not a hard and fast rule, it is a convention in the Lotus world and many of the Domino Designer dialog windows are geared to look for NTF and NSF files.
Files with the NTF extension are not visible in a Web browser, so some templates may be stored with NSF extensions if they are being used for testing in a Web environment.
Replica ID Creating a database from a template creates a new Replica ID for the new database. This is similar to the situation of making a new copy because once the database is created, it will not support replication of database information since the Replica IDs for the two databases are different.
Database Inheritance Inheritance is the key concept involved with the use of templates to create and maintain Notes databases. A template is related to a database in a parent-child type of relationship. The template is the parent, while the production database is the child. The database properties for a production database and its related template are shown in the following two graphics. The Properties box on the top is for a template, while the Properties box on the bottom is for a database inheriting from the template on the top. The connection between the two is the template alias name. When the alias name matches exactly, a parent-child relationship exists.
The Properties box options to establish a parent-child relationship between a template and a production database can be set manually at any time. These options are set automatically when a database is created from a template if the default option to inherit future changes is marked, as shown in Figure 1.5. FIGURE 1.5
Inheritance option
With this option marked, incremental changes made to the template are pushed to the production database. To disable inheritance, you would uncheck the option to Inherit Design From Template as the new database is being created. Similarly, to disable inheritance after a database exists, you can manually uncheck the inheritance option in the database’s Properties box.
Database Properties Like the option to inherit from a template, a database has many properties that can be set to affect its overall behavior. Let’s examine the most important properties on each of the tabs. The Basics tab shown in Figure 1.6 contains a combination of read-only settings plus others that can be set directly by you, as the programmer. FIGURE 1.6
JavaScript and SSL For databases used by Web clients, special Web access options will be important settings. Many objects in Domino have a Web access setting. The setting is used whenever the database is opened from a Web client and will result in different behavior or look and feel of the object when accessed from the Web. At the database level, the two Web access property settings control whether JavaScript will be used in the database and whether Secure Socket Layers (SSL) will be used to provide secure HTTP communications over the Internet. The JavaScript option is turned on by default and allows Domino to render multiple buttons on a page, use a subset of @Commands like FileSave, and use JavaScript methods and events in the browser and in some areas of the Notes client. With JavaScript enabled, the programmer must make sure to include a Submit button on a Web input form since Notes will not automatically generate one.
On Disk Structure The Info tab of the database Properties box, shown in Figure 1.7, shows you the Replica ID mentioned earlier, as well as the size of the database. It also displays the On Disk Structure (ODS) version for this database. The ODS version refers to the physical structure of the Notes NSF file and how it is stored. The number 41 tells you this database was created with Domino R5; similarly, the number 20 indicates that the database was created with R4. FIGURE 1.7
Printing If you’ve ever wanted to print all the documents in a database, the Printing tab shown in Figure 1.8 is a must-visit before printing. Here, you can create a header and footer that can include a page number and date stamp. FIGURE 1.8
Database Properties—Printing tab
Design Settings Earlier we saw that the Design tab of a database’s Properties box, shown in Figure 1.9, determines whether a database is a template or inherits from one. The Design settings focus on attributes that affect the visibility of the database and its language options. By default, all databases are marked to show in the Open Database dialog and in the Database Catalog, which is a directory of all databases on the server. You may want to disable these options if you don’t want users to easily be able to see databases they don’t need to know about.
Opening a Database The settings on the Launch tab, shown in Figure 1.10, determine what should display first when a database is opened. You can set different database launch properties for Notes client access and Web client access.
About Document A popular launch attribute is opening a special document called the About database document, which can contain links, graphics, text, and even document links. One of the options associated with the About database document is the ability to automatically open the first document link found in it. For instance, if you designed an About database document that contained a document link to a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, then when the database opens, the Excel spreadsheet would open automatically and be displayed on the user’s screen. Named Elements Additional launch attributes include being able to automatically open a specific named element like a page, navigator, or frameset. The launch attribute you choose determines the user’s first impression of your database, making it an important setting.
Content Indexing The Full Text tab of a database’s Properties box controls whether the documents created by users are indexed with the built-in search and index engine. From this tab, shown in Figure 1.11, you can create, update, and delete an index.
Database Performance Options The Advanced tab, shown in Figure 1.12, contains many important settings, several of which affect the overall performance of a database. Let’s examine a few a bit closer. FIGURE 1.12
Unread Marks Maintaining unread marks is an example of a performance setting that you, as a programmer, can turn on or off. Each time a document is read by a user, a flag can be set to indicate that it has already been read. These flags are used to show icons in view margins to designate which documents have not yet been read. As you might imagine, a lot of overhead is associated with this type of document-level tracking. This setting is appropriate for discussion-type databases but may be unnecessary for other kinds of databases. Soft Deletes Soft deletes is a new feature in R5, and two of the settings on the Advanced tab will determine how this feature works. The concept of soft deletes is that a user can delete a document, making it disappear from the screens they see, but the document is actually hanging around in the background and is marked for deletion to be completely discarded on a timed basis. A useful analogy for explaining soft deletes is to think about how you handle garbage in your household. Most people have a kitchen garbage can into which things are discarded daily. When the bag of garbage actually gets taken away by the garbage collectors, it is gone for good. Up until that point, however, you can retrieve things that you unintentionally threw away. To enable soft deletions, the database property to allow soft deletes for the database needs to be marked. In addition, an integer value representing the number of hours to wait before completely discarding the document needs to be entered in the $Undelete Expire Time area. Each document marked for deletion has a timer associated with it, and the Domino server will do garbage collection to remove the documents when the expire time is reached. OVERRIDING SOFT DELETES
If you’ve turned on soft deletions for a database, there may be times when you need to override this without turning off soft deletes. To do this, a special @ function is available, @HardDeleteDocument, that can be used to permanently delete a document even if soft deletes are in effect for the database.
The Domino Security Model
D
omino implements the majority of its security based on two things: a user’s ID and a database’s Access Control List (ACL). Every database has an ACL that identifies the user IDs or groups of users that can access a database and what privilege level will be applied to the ID or group.
Web users can also appear individually in a database ACL even though they do not have user IDs. To do this, the user must be added as a person to the Domino Directory by the system administrator.
To set a database’s access control, use the menu options File Database Access Control to open the settings area shown in Figure 1.13. FIGURE 1.13
Database Access Control List
Entries in the ACL can be either individual users or groups. If an individual is listed in an ACL explicitly and is a member of a group in the ACL, the most specific entry associated with the user ID is applied. This means that the individual entry overrides the group entry. If, on the other hand, a user is a member of two groups, the user receives the highest privilege associated with the groups. Users who are not listed explicitly in the ACL and are not a member of any groups in the ACL will defer to the special group -Default-. This special group should be a part of every database’s ACL, and the bare minimum of access level privileges should be granted to it. Let’s examine the access levels in detail.
Access Levels Each user or group in an ACL is associated with one of seven privilege levels. This access privilege is assigned to a user and determines their rights to the database as a whole. The seven privilege levels, ordered from highest privilege level down to lowest privilege level, are as follows:
Manager
Designer
Editor
Author
Reader
Depositor
No Access
Manager Manager access is like having super-user rights in a database. With this privilege, you have the ability to create and edit documents created by you or by others, make design changes, and control the security on the database. Table 1.2 lists the explicit rights granted with Manager access. TABLE 1.2
Manager Privileges
Read Documents
Edit Documents
Create Documents
Delete Documents
Modify Design
Delete Database
Modify Replication
Modify ACL
The ability to modify the Access Control Level includes the ability encrypt a database, putting those with Manager access in complete control of databasewide security. Every database must have at least one user or group that has Manager access. Typically, system administrators and servers have this privilege level in a production environment. During the development stage of a project, a programmer may have this privilege as well.
Designer Designer access is almost as powerful as Manager access. It specifically excludes the rights to delete a database or modify the ACL for a database. Table 1.3 lists the explicit rights granted with Designer access. TABLE 1.3
Designer Privileges
Read Documents
Edit Documents
Create Documents
Delete Documents
Modify Design
Delete Database
Modify Replication
Modify ACL
Programmers usually have Designer privileges to a database and are generally the people responsible for making code changes to an application. In addition, designers implement and control security within a database, which is one level down from the ACL itself, which controls who can get into the database as a whole.
Editor Editor access is typically the highest privilege given to an end user of a database. It includes the rights to create and edit documents created by that person but also includes the rights to edit documents created by other people. An analogy is the writer who submits a column to a newspaper. The newspaper editor can make any changes to the original work. Think of Editor access as the ability to change documents created by other users. Table 1.4 lists the explicit rights granted with Editor access. TABLE 1.4
Author Author access denotes the ability to create and edit your own documents without the rights to edit documents created by other people. Table 1.5 lists the explicit rights granted with Author access. Note that it is the same as the privileges for Editor access, the distinction between the two being that users with Author access can only edit their own documents. TABLE 1.5
Author Privileges
Read Documents
Edit Documents
Create Documents
Delete Documents
Modify Design
Delete Database
Modify Replication
Modify ACL
Reader Reader access is a popular access level for Web site applications and contentheavy applications. A user with this privilege has the right to navigate the application using links and menus and to read all available documents. Reader access does not allow a user to create or edit information. Table 1.6 lists the explicit rights granted with Reader access. TABLE 1.6
Read Documents
Reader Privileges
Edit Documents
Create Documents
Delete Documents
Modify Design
Delete Database
Modify Replication
Modify ACL
Depositor Depositor access allows a user to create new documents. After a document is created and saved, the user does not have the ability to view, modify, or delete the document. This type of access is popular with opinion survey applications and time card submission programs that are designed for single
submission of information. Table 1.7 lists the explicit rights granted with Depositor access. TABLE 1.7
Read Documents
Editor Privileges
Edit Documents
Create Documents
Delete Documents
Modify Design
Delete Database
Modify Replication
Modify ACL
No Access The No Access privilege prevents the user or group that has this level from accessing the database. Table 1.8 lists the explicit rights granted (or the lack thereof!) with the No Access privilege…none! TABLE 1.8
Read Documents
No Access Privileges
Edit Documents
Create Documents
Delete Documents
Modify Design
Delete Database
Modify Replication
Modify ACL
No Access is traditionally a good access level to apply to the special -Defaultgroup in the ACL and to the special group Anonymous, which represents Web users without explicit usernames and passwords.
User Types In addition to the privilege level associated with each entry in the ACL, each entry is identified with a user type designation. The user type identifies what kind of ID file is required by that user to access the database, adding another layer of protection to the Access Control List. The user type designation prevents someone from logging into a Notes client with the server’s ID file. The user type choices are shown in Figure 1.14.
Person Individuals that are registered in a Domino Directory and issued an ID file should have the Person user type assigned to them. Users listed directly in the ACL are generally associated with the Person type.
Server Each Domino server has an ID file identifying it as a server. When servers replicate with one another, they access databases to synchronize and modify content. For this reason, servers involved in replication need to appear in a database’s ACL with a minimum of Editor access and with a user type of Server.
Server Group Servers can be treated as a group in the Domino Directory. These groups can then be used in an ACL and assigned a user type of Server Group. Two server groups are used regularly in an ACL, as described in Table 1.9 and depicted in Figure 1.15. TABLE 1.9
Person Group Individual user IDs can be treated as a group in the Domino Directory. These groups can be used in a database’s ACL and assigned a user type of Person Group. Group Rights versus Individual Rights A user may be listed individually in an ACL or in a group. An individual can also be a member of multiple groups. When a user is eligible to receive ACL privileges in multiple ways, apply the following guidelines to determine the effective access privilege: 1. Apply the most specific individual access level granted in the ACL. 2. If not listed individually, apply the highest applicable group ACL. 3. If a group has an ACL of No Access, all members of that group receive
No Access regardless of any other ACL entry.
Mixed Group A group that contains users, servers, or other groups is considered a mixed group and can be assigned the user type of Mixed Group.
Unspecified Unspecified is a user type that applies to any entry not associated with either person, server, server group, or person group designations. The special group -Default- should always have the Unspecified user type since it is used for any server or user that accesses a database but is not explicitly listed in the ACL. In addition, the Anonymous entry used for Web users should have a user type of Unspecified.
Design Element Security A database’s ACL specifies user privileges and the user type associated with the user. This protects the database as a whole and provides access to its contents as a whole. Once inside the database, you can apply security to individual design elements to protect database users from one another and to segment data within a database. Figure 1.16 depicts the security protections available from the very global level of the database ACL down to the very granular level of encrypting field data. FIGURE 1.16
Security protections
Database ACL
Global
View access list Form access list Author Names field Reader Names field Hide When paragraphs Controlled access sections Granular
Encrypted Edit fields
View Access List The typical database contains many views. Users love views! Views provide easy access to document data that has been filtered and sorted for users. You can choose which views a user can see by applying a view access list. As Figure 1.17 shows, the view access list is available from the Security tab of the view’s Properties box. A view access list defaults to allow all users with Reader database access and above to see the view. If the default is not used, you can select who will see the view by picking user, group, or role names from the database’s ACL or from the Domino Directory.
View access lists should be treated more like speed bumps than as absolute security controls. The reason is that users may have been granted ACL rights to create their own views, and if they were, they can create their own view that has the same criteria as the one you just prevented them from seeing. Hidden Views In similar speed bump fashion, programmers can hide views from all users of a database simply by using parentheses in the view name. For instance, naming a view (All Products) instead of All Products hides the view from users. Users of a database can display hidden views as they open a database by holding down the Ctrl+Shift keys while the database opens. Hidden views are most useful as programming tools for doing behind-the-scenes lookups of information. As shown in Figure 1.18, hidden views display in the Design Panel with the parentheses in the name and an arrow to the left of the view.
Form Access List In contrast to view access lists, form access lists are more than speed bumps. Form access lists are used to limit who can create documents using a particular form and who can read documents created with that form. This affects all the documents of that type of form in the database. Figure 1.19 shows that the form access list is set from the form’s Properties box using the Security tab.
Create Access The top third of the Properties box sets the default read access for documents created with this form. The create access list defaults to users with Reader access to the database and can be refined to users in the ACL or in the Domino Directory. Read Access The second third of the screen determines who can create documents with this form. The read access list defaults to users with Author access to the database and can be refined to users in the ACL or in the Domino Directory.
Author Names Field Author Names fields are special types of fields that can be placed on a form to create document-level security. A field of this type applies only to users and groups who already have Author access to the database.
Author Names fields are also referred to as Author fields or Authors fields.
Authors fields are useful in databases with multiple forms where you want to allow users with overall Author access to the database to edit documents from some forms but prevent them from editing documents from other forms. Figure 1.20 shows a field’s Properties box for an Authors field. FIGURE 1.20
Author Names field
Let’s explain Authors fields by way of an example using the following statements as a premise:
George is listed in the WineMaster database’s ACL with Author access.
The group WineTasters is listed in the WineMaster ACL with Author access.
Mark is a member of the WineTasters group in the WineMaster ACL.
A form called Products exists in the WineMaster database.
A form called WineReview exists in the WineMaster database.
The WineReview form contains a field called MySpecialAuthorsField.
MySpecialAuthorsField is of type Authors.
The value of the MySpecialAuthorsField is George’s user ID.
Since the WineReview form contains an Authors field with George’s user ID in it, Mark is not allowed to edit even his own documents using the WineReview form even though he has Author access to the database. In essence, you have refined Mark’s access to the database through document-level security.
Reader Names Field Reader Names fields, like Author fields, are fields that you can add to a form to create document-level security. While Authors fields focus on limiting edit ability for documents, Readers fields limit a user’s ability to read documents that have already been created.
Reader Names fields are also referred to as Reader fields or Readers fields.
Readers fields apply to anyone who has Reader access or above in the database. Figure 1.21 shows a field’s Properties box for a Readers field. FIGURE 1.21
Reader Names field
Let’s make use of our friends George and Mark again to explain Readers fields with the following statements as a premise, some of which remain the same from before:
George is listed in the WineMaster database’s ACL with Author access.
The group WineTasters is listed in the WineMaster ACL with Author access.
Mark is a member of the WineTasters group in the WineMaster ACL.
A form called Products exists in the WineMaster database.
A form called WineReview exists in the WineMaster database.
The WineReview form contains a field called MySpecialReadersField.
MySpecialReadersField is of type Readers.
The value of the MySpecialReadersField is George’s user ID.
Since a Readers field exists on the WineReview form and has a value, it is active. Its value is George’s user ID; therefore, no user except George can read documents created with the WineReview form. This effectively prevents everyone from seeing the documents except George, even if the person who created the document was someone else. The Readers field has affected Mark’s access to the database through document-level security; he is unable to read documents created with the WineReview form. Figure 1.22 depicts the scenario involving both an Authors field and a Readers field. FIGURE 1.22
WineReview form MySpecialAuthorsField AUTHORS field type, computed, value = "GMCGUIRE" MySpecialReadersField READERS field type, computed, value = "GMCGUIRE"
Hide When Paragraphs Authors and Readers fields are normally hidden from users even though they exist on a form. You can conditionally hide any design element, including any field, that has a Hide When tab in the object’s Properties box. An example of a Hide When tab hiding a field from users is shown in Figure 1.23. FIGURE 1.23
Hide When paragraphs
Hiding a paragraph means that the entire line is hidden until a carriage return linefeed character is encountered. In addition to hiding objects from users, you can trigger hiding based on the Edit or Read mode of a document as well as through the use of a formula.
Controlled Access Sections Sections are collapsible areas placed on forms and pages. A controlled access section goes the additional step of using a formula to control who can edit the fields of data contained in the section. Controlled access sections affect who can edit the data; however, the data is readable by anyone who has access to the document.
Encrypted Edit Fields The tightest security available for data is encryption. Individual fields of data can be encrypted so that their contents cannot be seen by anyone who doesn’t have the appropriate decryption key. Any field can be enabled for encryption using the field’s Properties box and the security options setting, as shown in Figure 1.24. FIGURE 1.24
Enabling a field for encryption
Web Access Encrypting field data does not work when accessed from a Web client since encryption relies on the presence of private keys in the Notes User ID file. Since a Web user doesn’t have an ID file, there are no encryption keys. This means that when the server returns data to the browser, the server’s ID was used to decrypt and was therefore successful, sending back clear text instead of encrypted text.
Summary
This chapter has focused on the container called a Notes database. You’ve explored how to create databases, examined the design elements used to create the structure of a database, and learned about the multilayered Domino security mode. Since databases contain the user interface, the code, the data, and the security settings, choosing appropriate database Properties settings is important to the overall behavior of the database.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: Access Control List (ACL) Anonymous Authors field Editor groups inheritance launch properties Manager No Access Properties box Reader Readers field soft deletes templates user type Web access
Review Questions 1. Abraham is listed in the ACL of the WineMaster database with
Author access. The WineReview form in the WineMaster database contains a field of type Authors, and Abraham is not listed in the Authors field. The WineReview form does not contain a field of type Readers. Which of the following is a true statement? A. Abraham will be able to create but not read documents using the
WineReview form. B. Abraham will be able to read but not edit documents using the
WineReview form. C. Without a Readers field, no one will be able to read documents
created with the WineReview form. D. The Authors field acts as a Readers field when one is not present. 2. Bailey and Beckett are members of the WineReviewers group listed in
the ACL of the WineMaster database with Author access. The Vineyard Profile form contains an Authors field and a Readers field. The value for the Authors field is Bailey’s user ID; the value for the Readers field is Beckett’s user ID. What effect does this have on Bailey and Beckett’s access to Vineyard Profile documents? A. Bailey and Beckett can both edit documents created with the
Vineyard Profile form. B. Bailey and Beckett can both read documents created with the
Vineyard Profile form. C. Bailey can read while Beckett can read and edit documents created
with the Vineyard Profile form. D. Bailey can create and edit documents while Beckett can read
3. The Vineyard Profile form contains a Readers field that does not include
Caleb. What ACL does Caleb need on the WineMaster database in order to read documents created with the Vineyard Profile form? A. Reader. B. Depositor. C. Author. D. Caleb will not be able to read documents even if he’s in the ACL. 4. Dagny has Author access to the WineMaster database. She’s created
several Vineyard Profile documents but is unable to edit any of them. What is the likely problem? A. Dagny’s userID needs to be added to the Authors field on the form. B. Dagny’s user ID needs to be added to the Readers field on the form. C. Dagny’s userID needs to be added to the Hide When formula for
the form. D. Dagny’s user ID needs to be added to the Vineyard Profile form
access list. 5. Earl is about to create a database using one of the company’s standard
templates. While this will give him a good start, he does not want to inherit future changes made to the template into his application. What can Earl do at this point to accomplish this new goal? A. Nothing, since using a template forces inheritance. B. Prohibit Design Refresh on each of the design elements in the database. C. Disable the option to Inherit Design From Template as he is creating
the new database. D. After creating his database, rename it to use a file extension that is
6. When users open Fae’s database, they see a blank screen when they use
a Web client but not when they use a Notes client. This is not what Fae intended. What is the likely cause of Fae’s problem? A. The database launch property for Web access is not set correctly. B. The users do not have the appropriate Web ACL privileges. C. The special group Anonymous has Manager access. D. Internet Explorer does not work with Domino R5. 7. Gabriel is trying to make sense out of Readers and Authors fields.
Which of the following is a true statement regarding these special fields? A. Readers fields override a database’s ACL. B. Authors fields override a database’s ACL. C. Readers and Authors fields refine and further restrict a database’s ACL. D. Readers and Authors fields replace a database’s ACL. 8. Harriet has enabled soft deletes in her database but realizes that one type of
document should be allowed to be immediately deleted regardless of soft delete settings. Which of the following @ functions will let her do this? A. @HardDeleteDocument. B. @OverrideSoftDelete. C. @DeleteDoc. D. None. Once soft deletes are enabled for a database, they cannot be
overridden. 9. Irving intends to encrypt his database to prevent tampering while he e-mails
it to another Notes user. What access control level does he need to encrypt the database? A. Manager B. Designer C. Editor D. Author
10. Jacinta has applied field-level encryption to a form in her database. A
particular Notes client user can see other data on the document but is unable to see the encrypted data. Jacinta has told her that she should be able to see the encrypted data. What is a likely cause of the problem? A. Notes clients are unable to decrypt data. B. The user does not have access to the database. C. Web clients see encrypted field data as clear text. D. Jacinta has not sent the user the encryption key. 11. Kareem just installed Domino Designer on his machine and is ready to
create his first database from scratch. There are many steps to building a good database, but what is the first thing Kareem should do? A. Assign the database ACL. B. Design forms for user input. C. Create a Lotus template. D. Create a blank database container. 12. Lacey wants to create several new pages in the WineMaster database.
What minimum ACL does she need in order to do this? A. Manager B. Designer C. Editor D. Author 13. Mack wants to protect a database from unauthorized users. Which of
the following techniques should he use? A. Apply form access lists inside the database. B. Apply an ACL to the database. C. Apply Readers and Authors fields to his forms. D. Apply view access lists inside the database.
14. Nadia is setting the ACL for her database. She wants everyone who
has access to the database to be able to see the information in the views she’s created. What minimum access level is appropriate? A. Manager B. Editor C. Depositor D. Reader 15. Ollie has set the database property on the Advanced tab to 48 hours for
$Undelete Expire Time. What other option should he set in conjunction with this one? A. Enable soft deletes. B. Enable hard deletes. C. Enable transaction logging. D. Enable unread mark tracking. 16. Pam wants to build something in her database that will act as a con-
tainer for static text, images, and links. Which of the following named elements is a good choice? A. Outline B. Page C. Form D. View 17. Quintin is confused about Authors fields and their relationship to the
Author-level access privilege in a database. Which of the following best describes the relationship? A. Authors fields override Author privilege in the database. B. Authors fields override Reader privilege in the database. C. Authors fields only apply to users with Author privilege in the
database. D. Authors fields only apply to users with Author privilege or higher
18. Regina is setting up the ACL for a database she’s about to put into
production. She has several groups that contain users and servers. Which of the following user types should she assign to these groups? A. Person B. Server C. Server group D. Mixed group 19. Sal wants the template he’s creating in R5 to be viewable in a Web cli-
ent for testing purposes. Which of the following file extensions should he use? A. NSF B. NTF C. NS4 D. WEB 20. Tabitha wants to apply a view access list to the All Products view in
the WineMaster database. Her goal is to allow all users with Reader access to the database to read the view. What does she need to do to accomplish this? A. Override the default setting to assign Reader access to the view. B. Add the view to the ACL with Reader access. C. Assign individual users to the view access list. D. Nothing, since a view access list defaults to allow all users with
21. Umberto has added a controlled access section to his form to prevent
certain groups of users from seeing sensitive information. What has Umberto forgotten? A. Controlled access sections cannot be used with groups. B. Controlled access sections apply only to users with Editor access
and above. C. Controlled access sections prevent specified users from editing
data but do not prevent them from seeing the data. D. Controlled access sections should be used with Hide When
attributes. 22. Val has decided to create a full-text index on her database. How can
she go about doing this? A. Run an indexing service on the database. B. Mark a database setting to allow indexing. C. Use the database Properties box to create an index. D. Create documents with keywords that are searchable. 23. Wally has created a replica copy of the WineMaster database. Which
of the following is a true statement about the new database? A. It has a different Replica ID than the original database. B. It has the same Replica ID as the original database. C. It has a different title than the original database. D. It must be created on the same server as the original database. 24. Xena has created a new copy of the WineMaster database. Which of
the following is a true statement about the new database? A. It has a different Replica ID than the original database. B. It has the same Replica ID as the original database. C. It has a different title than the original database. D. It must be created on the same server as the original database.
25. Yasuko does not want his database to appear in the Open Database
dialog once he moves it to the production server. What can he do to accomplish this goal? A. Disable the database property that automatically includes a database in
the Open Database dialog. B. Apply a Hide When attribute to the database title. C. Place the database in a subdirectory off the Data directory. D. Nothing; all databases on a server always appear in the Open
Database dialog. 26. Zandra’s user ID appears explicitly in the ACL for the WineMaster
database with Reader access. However, she is included in the WineTasters group for the database, which has Manager access, and in the WineMakers group, which has No Access. What is Zandra’s actual access privilege? A. Manager B. Editor C. Reader D. No Access
Answers to Review Questions 1. B. Since Abraham has Author access to the database as a whole, he
implicitly has Reader access to all documents in the database unless a Reader field exists that explicitly limits his access. Since he is not listed in the Authors field in the WineReview form, he cannot edit documents from this form but can read documents created with the form. 2. D. The Readers field prevents anyone but Beckett from reading Vine-
yard Profile documents. The Authors field prevents anyone but Bailey from editing Vineyard Profile documents. 3. D. Regardless of Caleb’s ACL access, he will not be able to read doc-
uments since he is not listed in the Readers field. 4. A. Since Dagny can create but not edit Vineyard Profile documents, an
Authors field on the form probably does not contain her user ID, which is preventing her from editing documents. Readers fields would prevent her from seeing, not editing, the documents, while the form access list would prevent her from creating or reading documents. Hide When formulas do not apply to forms. 5. C. The option to Inherit Design From Template can be deselected as the
database is being created. After creation of a database, inheritance can also be disabled using the Design tab of the database Properties box. While prohibiting Design Refresh on each individual element will certainly work, this would become your full-time job and is more than you want to sign up for. The file extension has nothing to do with inheritance. 6. A. A database property controls what launches for Web clients and Notes
clients, and whatever is launching for a Web client is invalid. If the user Anonymous had Manager access, they would have full rights to the database, so this is not a candidate solution. Internet Explorer works fine with R5. There is no such thing as Web ACL privileges. 7. C. Readers and Authors fields work within the existing ACL on a
database and are used to separate users in the ACL from one another, applying additional security within a database. At no point does either a Readers or Authors field override the database’s ACL.
8. A. Using @HardDeleteDocument will override soft deletes for any
document the formula is used to delete. @DeleteDoc removes a document but will follow the soft delete rules in effect, if any. There is no function called @OverrideSoftDelete. 9. A. Manager access is required to encrypt a database as a whole. 10. D. To see encrypted field data, the user must be using a Notes client
and have the appropriate key to decrypt the data. 11. D. Kareem needs to start with a container for a database, and since
he’s elected to start from scratch with an empty container, the menu options File Database New should be done before he assigns an ACL or input forms. Creating a Lotus template is only an option if Kareem actually works for Lotus! 12. B. Designer access is required to add named elements to a database. In
addition, you need the Domino Designer client. 13. B. The ACL is the front door to the application and is the first thing that
should be set to control unauthorized access. All the other techniques are valid; however, additional protections are applied inside the database and apply to users who are in the database’s ACL. 14. D. Reader access will let folks see the data, while Depositor would
only allow them to create new data. Manager and Editor access would both work, but they do not represent the minimum access needed. 15. A. $Undelete works with the option for soft deletes, setting the time in
hours when a document is actually removed from a database after a user deletes it from the user interface. 16. B. A page is a rich text container for static text, images, and links. A
navigator would also be a good choice, but thankfully it wasn’t in the list of options! 17. C. Authors fields are applicable only to users who already have
exactly Author access in a database. 18. D. Mixed group is the most appropriate user type since the groups
19. A. The traditional template extension, NTF, is not a file type that is
viewable with a Web client, so the NSF extension should be used in this case. NS4 would also work; however, it implies a database in R4 format. 20. D. The default setting will do the trick here since any user with Reader
access or above automatically can see any view in the database that has the default setting in place. 21. C. Controlled access sections affect who can edit the data; however, the
data is readable by anyone who has access to the document. 22. C. The Full Text database properties tab controls whether the docu-
ments created by users are indexed. There are buttons to create, update, and delete indexes. 23. B. Making a replica copy of a database stamps the new database with the
same Replica ID as the original. 24. A. When you make a copy of a database, the new database is assigned
a different Replica ID than the original. 25. A. By default, all databases are marked to show in the Open Database
dialog. Database titles do not have Hide When attributes associated with them. 26. D. Since Zandra’s user ID appears directly in the ACL, she is normally
given the most explicit privilege assigned, which is Reader. However, since one of the groups in which she appears has been limited to No Access, this overrides everything else.
he heart of a good database system is its ability to collect, organize, store, retrieve, and display data entered by users. That makes forms and views the heart of the Domino system; with good forms and good views, you have a solid database. In this chapter, you’ll take a close look at the form design element and the fields that store data, and then you’ll examine the view design element and the columns that display data.
The Form Design Element
I
f you’ve ever used a pattern to make a dress or an injection mold to create a plastics part (or even if you just know someone who did these cool things), you have an idea of at least one of the purposes of a form. In Notes, forms act as both patterns to create data as well as looking glasses to view existing data.
Forms and Documents Programmers create forms by intelligently combining elements like fields, static text labels, tables, images, clickable links, and buttons, to name a few of the most popular items. From forms, users create documents that store their data. The form is a structure that defines the presentation of information and the data types of items to be stored. Form properties determine the type of document created as well as what gets stored in the document. Many documents can be created from one form. The relationship between forms and documents is visualized in Figure 2.1, where the number 1 and the letter M represent the ability to create many (M) documents from a single (1) form.
Forms versus documents Document #3 Document #2 Document #1
Keyword Basics
Form = Keyword 1
M
Key:
Key
Red
Value:
Value
Merlot
Document
Form
When a user opens an existing document, Notes retrieves the form to display the data and the document that contains the data. By default, forms are stored separately from documents. This reduces the potential size of a database since only one form is needed to display any number of documents that were created with that particular form. This separation of structure from content also means that the state of the form is dynamic. You can add or delete fields whenever you want. If you delete a field, documents that were created prior to deleting the field still contain the data item but the form no longer provides a way to see the data.
Form Properties The Properties boxes in Notes are where attributes that control the look, feel, and sometimes behavior of a document, form, or other element can be set. Let’s examine each of the tabs in the form Properties box and discuss some of the most important features. Each of the tabs is labeled with a graphic to describe its function, and by moving your mouse slowly over the graphic, a text pop-up will describe the focus of the tab.
Basic Form Information The Form Info tab of a form’s Properties box, shown in Figure 2.2, contains basic information that needs to be set for any form you create, including its name and document type.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
FIGURE 2.2
Form Properties—Form Info tab
Form Names Form names identify the form to the users and to the programmer. The name can be a very robust alphanumeric name supporting up to 32 bytes. FORM VARIABLE
The name of the form is stored in a special variable called Form that gets stored with the data. This special variable is one of the ways Notes has of determining which form to use to display a document’s data. If the variable Form exists and the form itself exists, that specific form is used to display the data. SORT ORDER
By default, documents can be created from the Notes client’s Create Document menu. If this option is left enabled, form names appear alphabetically in the menu for the user.
To create a keyboard shortcut to the form, precede the letter to be used as the shortcut in the form name with an underscore.
You can change the order in which form names appear by including a number at the beginning of a form name. The number is used as a sorting mechanism to display the names in an order you impose, as shown in Figure 2.3. The value of the special document variable called Form includes the number. FIGURE 2.3
The Create menu
CASCADED MENU NAMES
In a database that contains a large number of forms, the Create menu can quickly become cluttered, long, and confusing to your users. To help alleviate this problem, Notes provides a way for you to create cascaded names, which appear as submenus. To cascade a form name, simply include a backslash (as in, it looks like it’s falling backwards) as part of the name as follows:
Product Profile\Vineyard Profile
Product Profile\Grape Information
Product Profile\Pricing Data
These three form names would appear in the Notes client menu as shown in Figure 2.4. The value of the special document variable called Form would include the entire name including the backslash.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
FIGURE 2.4
Cascaded forms
ALIAS NAME
For programming purposes, you can give a form an alias name for use in formulas and code. This flexibility allows users to see one form name while you code against another. The advantage of employing this technique is that if the users change their mind and want a form name to be slightly different, any code you’ve written will be unaffected by their, um, fickleness. Figure 2.5 shows a form that will appear on the Create menu as Product Profile but that can be referenced in formulas as Product. FIGURE 2.5
Naming a form
A form alias is created using a vertical bar ( | ) in the name. Whatever name appears to the left of the vertical bar is what the user will see; the name(s) appearing to the right of the vertical bar is a programming alias name. The value of the special document variable called Form is the form’s alias name. Form Types The Type area in a form’s Properties box is where you determine the relationship documents created with this form will have to other documents in the database.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Form Options The last part of the Form Info tab contains several check-box options that modify the behavior of the form or how it stores values. Figure 2.7 shows what options look like when they are enabled in the form’s Properties box. FIGURE 2.7
Form options
Each option, described in Table 2.2, can be set independently. TABLE 2.2
Setting Form Options Option
What the Option Does
Default database form
A database has one default form that Notes tries to use to display a document if it cannot be opened with any other form.
Store form in document
Overrides the default and stores the form structure with each document created from the form. No Form variable is then created; a $Title variable contains the form name instead.
Disable Field Exchange
By default, an application can use OLE and Notes/FX to do field-level data exchange; this option prevents this.
Automatically refresh fields
Recalculates field values while a user edits a document.
Anonymous Form
Prevents the Notes user ID of the current document editor from being added to the special variable $Updated, which tracks all editors of a document.
Merge replication conflicts
On replication or save, if two different fields in a document have been modified, Notes will merge the data so that one document is the result and no conflict is created.
Form Defaults The Defaults tab of a form’s Properties box can be used to trigger behavior in a document when it is first created, when it is accessed from a Web browser, or when the document is opened or closed. The options for these settings are shown in Figure 2.8. FIGURE 2.8
Form Properties—Defaults tab
Of particular interest is the On Create option, which enables inheritance of values from a selected document. This option is typically enabled on Response and Response to Response documents. Enabling this setting allows a parent document to pass values to a child document as the child document is created. For example, if the parent document contains the CompanyName field, the child document can inherit the value of the CompanyName field as the value of one of its fields.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Launching a Form When a document is opened, the form’s Launch property will determine if any automatic activity takes place. For instance, if the document includes a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet as an embedded attachment, the form’s Launch property can automatically open the attachment when the document opens. Figure 2.9 shows the default for the Launch property. There are many choices in the Auto Launch drop-down menu; the most popular options are:
Controlling Form Background The background of a form can be a single color or a graphic; the graphic can be tiled or appear as a single image. GIF and JPEG images are valid as form backgrounds. Figure 2.10 shows the Form Background tab, where these settings can be made. FIGURE 2.10
Form Properties—Form Background tab
Creating a Form Header Documents that display in the Notes client can benefit from an R5 feature called the form header. The header is an optional area about five lines tall located at the top of the form. The header area remains fixed and visible at all times when the document is displayed. Since the header area is on-screen at all times, this is a convenient place to put content that you do not want to scroll off the screen as users move through a document. Figure 2.11 illustrates the Header tab of a form’s Properties box.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
FIGURE 2.11
Form Properties—Header tab
Printing a Form When a document is printed, you can predetermine information that will appear automatically at the top and bottom of a document using form properties. Figure 2.12 shows the printing area of a form’s Properties box. FIGURE 2.12
In addition to any standard text phrases or words that you would like to display, simple document properties such as page numbers and the date can be included, as well.
Form Security The last tab of a form’s Properties box is one that deals with setting form security through the form access list for creating and reading. These settings determine who will be able to create documents using this form as well as who will be able to read documents created with the form. Figure 2.13 shows the settings available to you. For more information on this topic, refer to Chapter 1, “Notes Databases: Core Concepts.” FIGURE 2.13
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Form Events A document goes through several transition states during the cycle of creation, save, and retrieval. The Domino Object Model, or DOM, provides a set of events that are triggered by changes from one transitory state to another. At each point, the programmer can force some action to take place by writing code. The code for events is written by selecting the appropriate event in the Object viewer in the Programmer’s Pane and writing an executable statement or block of statements in the Edit window. Figure 2.14 shows the Object viewer with the basic set of formula events that apply to a form. FIGURE 2.14
Object viewer
As you can see, the Window Title event is highlighted, and the literal string value “Product Profile” is the value of the code that has been written. When a document created using this form is opened for reading or for editing, the title bar for the window will display the value “Product Profile.” In addition to hardcoding values using literal strings, variables and formulas can also be written. The power of formulas will be examined in great detail in Chapter 4, “Formulas: Adding Code to an Application.”
Special Areas on a Form A very basic form acts as a container for static text and fields. Yet a more sophisticated form can include Action Bars, sections, subforms, and layout regions to provide greater functionality and flexibility in documents.
Action Bars An Action Bar (see Figure 2.15) can be added to forms to hold task-specific action buttons for the document. The Action Bar, as well as the action buttons it hosts (also known as form actions), appears at the top of the document.
To display the Action Bar, you need to create an action. Creating an action can be done with a SmartIcon or using the menu options Create Action. Figure 2.16 shows a form with the Action Pane visible. FIGURE 2.16
Action Pane
The attributes for an action button are set using the Properties box for the action button while the code is written in the Click or the onClick event (depending on the coding language used) in the Programmer’s Pane. The Action Bar stays anchored to the top of the Notes client, always showing the buttons, while the user can scroll the information below.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
The Action Bar is fixed to the top of the Notes client. However, in the Web client, it scrolls off the screen when a user scrolls down.
Sections Sections are collapsible and expandable areas on a form that can greatly improve the sense of organization of a document. By grouping related fields together and placing them in sections, the information becomes more manageable for the users. Figure 2.17 shows the Properties box for a section. FIGURE 2.17
Section’s Properties box
Subforms Subforms are very similar to forms except that they cannot be viewed unless they are embedded in forms. Forms act as the host vehicle for subforms. Once a subform is embedded in a form, it becomes a part of the form’s data collection and viewing mechanism. Each time a document is retrieved that uses the subform, the subform is used to view the data.
If a subform is deleted from a database, the host form cannot display the data items created from the subform. The error message “Subform: X not loaded” will appear, where X is the name of the subform.
The field names on a subform must not duplicate the field names on the host form; Notes does not allow two fields of the same name on a single form. When the subform embeds in the host form, Notes checks the field names for duplicates. One of the best reasons to use subforms is to create a single point of maintenance for common text or fields that need to appear on multiple forms in your database (for instance, a common footer or corporate disclaimer). Subforms can also be dynamically determined at runtime based on a formula. Resources Subforms are created in the Resources area of the Design Panel, as shown in Figure 2.18. FIGURE 2.18
Shared resources
You can think of this area as the shared resource area. Elements created here, like subforms, can be reused in other design elements in the database. The other design elements link to or point from their location to the shared resource area
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
to incorporate the shared elements. The shared resources available in Notes are described in Table 2.3. TABLE 2.3
Types of Shared Resources Shared Resource Label
Description
Images
Graphics that will be reused in multiple places
Applets
Java applets that are imported and can be reused
Subforms
Areas that are stored as a unit and embedded in a form
Shared Fields
Fields that can be reused in multiple forms
Script Libraries
LotusScript code modules that can be reused
Other
Miscellaneous elements plus shared actions
Prior to Release 5 of Notes, the Other area contained design notes that were available to the entire database but were not embeddable inside other elements like pages and forms. This included the database icon, the About database document, the Using database document, and the database script area. With Release 5, shared actions were tucked into the Other category, as shown in Figure 2.19. Shared actions are centralized action buttons that can be embedded in forms, pages, and views. This makes them the only design note in the Other category that behaves like a true shared resource that is linked to from other named elements. The major benefit of shared actions is that you can write the code just once for an action button and then reuse it in multiple forms. FIGURE 2.19
Layout Regions Prior to Release 5, layout regions were used to create controls that more closely resembled those found in Microsoft software development products. For instance, listboxes and comboboxes were possible in Notes only if a layout region was used. In Release 5 of Domino Designer, controls like listboxes and comboboxes are types of fields that can be placed anywhere in a form. Since layout regions are not supported in the Web environment, consider this type of area on a form to be in place for backward compatibility with prior releases of Notes.
The Field Design Element
J
ust as programmers create forms, programmers also create fields to place on a form, thereby creating the structure to store and view user data. When a user fills in a field and saves a document, the data in the field is saved as a Notes item of information. So fields exist in forms, while items exist in documents. This relationship between a field and an item is shown in Figure 2.20. FIGURE 2.20
Fields versus items
Form
Document
Creates Value:
Value
Red
Field
Item
Creating Fields Fields can be created as either single-use elements or shared elements. Single-use fields are created in a specific form and are used only on that form. Shared fields, on the other hand, are created in the Resources area of the Design Panel and can be reused on multiple forms.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Shared fields can be converted to single-use fields by cutting the field from the form in design mode and pasting it directly back into place.
Field names can be up to 32 bytes long and can include letters, digits, and some special characters like the dollar sign ($). The field name cannot include any spaces.
To avoid confusion, don’t use the same field name for two fields on different forms unless the meaning and usage of the fields are the same.
The Field Info tab of a field Properties box, shown in Figure 2.21, is used to set several properties, including the field’s name, its type, the type of value allowed for the field, and the input field’s style and size. FIGURE 2.21
Types of Fields Each field is predetermined by the programmer building the form to hold a certain type of data. The field type is selected on the Field Info tab of a field’s Properties box (it’s the first drop-down list in the Type field in Figure 2.21). Notes field types provide for a wide (some might say eclectic) assortment of data. Careful, though: These types are only loosely related to data types of other programming languages and relational databases as well as to how the data is actually stored. The Notes field types and their data storage formats are shown in Table 2.4. TABLE 2.4
Notes Field Types Field Type
Storage Format
Text
Character
Varying length field that adjusts size to users’ input.
Date/ Time
64-bit float
Display as date, time, timestamp, and combinations.
Number
64-bit float
Display as decimal, percent, scientific, or currency.
Dialog list
Character
In-place picklist from values in a list.
Check box
Character
Single- or multiselection choices for user to choose a value.
Radio button
Character
Single-selection choices for user to choose a value.
Listbox
Character
Single- or multiselection choices for user to choose a value; choice box is always one line with clickable up and down arrows.
Combo box
Character
Single-selection choices for user to choose a value; choice box is one line that drops down to show all choices.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
TABLE 2.4
Notes Field Types (continued) Field Type
Storage Format
Rich Text
Rich Text
Formatted text (fonts, colors, and so on), images, audio, video, tables, attachments, applets, animated gifs, etc.
Authors
Character
Document-level security field; applies to Author access only.
Names
Character
Values of the field must be Notes usernames.
Readers
Character
Document-level security field; applies to Reader and above access.
Password
Character
Text field that can be encrypted; displays value to users as asterisks.
Formula
Character
Used to select documents in a subscriptionenabled database.
Description
Fields are containers for data items. When a form is being discussed, the appropriate term to use is field. When a document is being discussed, the appropriate term to use is data item.
Formatting Date Fields The Properties box for fields of the Date/Time type controls how the data appears on screen including whether to show just the date, just the time, four-digit years, etc. Figure 2.22 shows some of the options available for controlling how date and time data are displayed.
Date/Time fields that are created as editable input areas can also be configured to pop up a small month calendar in the Notes client so the user can click a date rather than typing into the field. This style option is called the Calendar/Time control and is selected using a radio button in the field’s Properties box, as shown in Figure 2.23. The default is Notes style, which consists of a left- and right-corner bracket as seen on other edit fields.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
FIGURE 2.23
Calendar/Time control
Regardless of what displays on screen, the stored value for Date/Time fields is the 64-bit float value representing the complete date timestamp.
Types of Values In addition to the type of data allowed for a field, a field’s Properties box lets you specify how the value for the field will be derived. The option for setting a field’s value type is the second of two drop-down menus in the Type field, (to the right of the field’s data presentation type), as shown in Figure 2.24. A field’s data type determines which value types are valid, so the available value types change based on the selected data type. FIGURE 2.24
Depending on the type of value, calculations take place either when the document is created, refreshed, and/or saved. There are four basic ways that a field can create a value, as described in Table 2.5. TABLE 2.5
Field Value Types Value Type
Description
Editable
An input area for user typing is provided.
Computed
A value is placed in the field based on a calculation; calculated when the document is created, refreshed, or saved.
Computed For Display
An on-screen–only value is placed in the field based on a calculation and is not stored in the database; calculated when the document is created, refreshed, or saved.
Computed When Composed
A value is placed in the field based on a calculation; calculated only when the document is first created.
Since a Computed For Display field’s value is not stored in the database at any point, fields using this value type cannot be used in calculations.
Inherited Values If the form property to allow inheritance of values from another document is enabled, as shown earlier in Figure 2.8, a field can derive its value from a field on another document. In this case, the value type for the field should be set to Computed When Composed since it needs only to be set when the document is first created. In addition, the default value for the field doing the inheriting must be the field name from which the field is inheriting. Let’s do an example. Suppose you have a Customer form that contains a CompanyName field. Additionally, you have a second form called Contact that contains a field called CName. The Contact form property to inherit values is enabled. To complete the inheritance cycle between the CompanyName field and the CName field, the CName field has as its value the variable name CompanyName. With these settings in place, when a Contact document is created with a Customer
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
form open or selected, the value in the CompanyName field will be copied into the CName field on the Contact form.
Multivalued Fields Notes allows a field to have multiple values if the appropriate Properties box option is set (see Figure 2.25). A field with multiple values stores its data in list format rather than as a discrete value.
If you’re integrating Notes data with relational data, remember that Codd and Date, the fathers of relational databases, don’t allow multiple value fields, so you’ll have to do some data massage between the two.
FIGURE 2.25
Multiple value fields
Lists are used in many places in Notes. The default list separator character is a colon (:) when you’re operating on list data.
Exception: If you’re working with a Date/Time field and you choose a comma (,) as a custom separator for the month, day, and year components, the multivalued list separator must be a semicolon (;).
For instance, a list that contains the colors of wines might be stored in a variable called WineColors with a value of “Red”:“White”:“Blush”. This would be a list consisting of three text elements, where each text element is surrounded by double quotes. The base index for a list is the number 1, so if you refer to the third element, the value “Blush” would be returned.
Style and Size The style and size of how an input field appears to a user is determined on the Field Info tab of the field’s Properties box. Figure 2.26 shows these Properties box settings.
Two style types are possible, as described in Table 2.6. TABLE 2.6
Field Styles Style
Description
Notes style
An input field appears with a left- and right-corner bracket; the field size expands on screen as the user inputs data.
Native OS style
An input field appears as a rectangle; the field size is either fixed or dynamic depending on the Properties box setting.
The option for setting the size of an input field is only enabled with the Native OS style. While it defaults to a size of 1" by .25", it can be set either to be a percentage of the window size or to expand dynamically as the user enters data. When dynamic height is chosen, the starting size of the input box is determined by the width and height settings.
Dynamic height changes the height of the input box, adding vertical scroll bars for large amounts of user data. The width does not change.
The Native OS setting enables a Notes’ client input box to look more like a Web input box; however, the Native OS style itself has no effect in a browser. The browser manufacturer and a user’s individual browser settings determine how input fields are displayed.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Keyword Fields Fields on a form can be coded in a way that makes them dependent on one another for values; these are called keyword fields. The value of a field is examined when a document is first loaded into memory. The next time a field is reevaluated is when a document is either refreshed or saved. This can make it difficult to have fields determine other field values while a user is editing a document, because the new field values are not actually evaluated until save or refresh. Consider a field called WineColor that is implemented as a radio button with the choices of Red, White, and Blush. In addition, consider a second field called WineType that is a dialog list. When the WineColor choice is Red, the list of wines in the WineType field should only include red wines. Likewise, when WineColor is White, the list for WineType should only include white wines. To create this type of dynamic behavior in Notes while a document is being edited and before it has been saved, you need to enable the field property Refresh Fields On Keyword Change. This refresh for keyword fields is found on the Control tab of a field’s Properties box, as shown in Figure 2.27. FIGURE 2.27
“Keyword” was used in Notes R4 as a field type to refer to dialog lists, radio buttons, and check boxes. R5 has these as individual field types.
Keyword Field Alias Values In a similar manner to how a form alias works, as discussed earlier in this chapter, a field that acts as a keyword can use an alias as well. This is useful for presenting on-screen values to a user for clarity while storing a different value in the database. For instance, you may want Yes, No, and Sometimes to be the choices available to a user in a radio button field. However, you need to store the integers 1, 0, and -1 as the values in the database. Figure 2.28 shows an example of how to create these values for a radio button field using the Control tab of a field’s Properties box. FIGURE 2.28
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
As with the form alias, the user will see whatever is on the left of the vertical bar while Notes will store whatever is on the right of the vertical bar.
Hiding Fields As mentioned in Chapter 1, many design elements can be hidden using the Hide When paragraph options. Figure 2.29 demonstrates a field’s Hide When tab. FIGURE 2.29
Hide When options
Fields are among the design elements that can be hidden dynamically. The options for hiding fields include
Hiding based on a formula often uses the value of a field on a form to determine a condition to hide or show a field. For instance, you may want to hide the WineDescription field if the value of the BeverageType field is Beer. Makes sense! Fields that programmers use for internal calculations are not intended to be seen by users. These fields are generally marked to Hide From Notes 4.6 Or Later and Hide From Web Browsers. In addition, your organization may have a convention that locates all programmer-hidden fields at the top of the form and sets them to a standard color. This convention helps programmers quickly identify hidden fields on the form.
To use hidden programmatic fields in a Web browser, they need to be able to be converted to HTML by Domino. To do this, specify the form property Generate HTML For All Fields; otherwise the hidden fields will be hidden from everyone— even the programmer!
Field Events Like forms, a field goes through transitions from state to state during its creation and life. These states are associated with field events in which you write code. Figure 2.30 shows the Object viewer displaying the standard events for an editable field. FIGURE 2.30
Field events
Let’s look closer at three of the events associated with editable fields:
Default value sets a starting value.
Input translation massages the data before saving it.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Default Value The default value event fires when a document is loaded into memory and displayed on-screen—in essence, when the document first opens. A hardcoded value or a calculation is coded in the event. The resulting value is placed in the field as the starting value for the user. The user can then modify the value in the field before saving the document.
Input Translation The input translation event fires when a document is refreshed or saved and before the field is validated. At this transition point, you can write code to do things like translate the data to uppercase or lowercase and take off leading and trailing spaces. The point of this event is to take whatever the user typed into the editable field and make it conform to the business rules of how similar data is already stored. This is an event that helps you improve the quality of the data stored in the database.
Input Validation Like the input translation event, the input validation event fires when a document is refreshed or saved. At the validation transition point, the data can be checked to see if the field was left blank, whether it contains correctly formatted values, and whether it contains valid values given the context of the field.
The View Design Element
V
iews are the fundamental output mechanism for stored data in a Notes database. They are dynamic, constantly updated indexes, or pointers, to stored documents. Simply put, a view is a collection of documents presented on-screen as rows and columns of data; each row is a document, and each column is a field or a calculation. There are two styles of views that can be created: standard and calendar. By far, the majority of views created for user applications are standard row-and-column views. Calendar views are found in mail databases, but can be implemented in any database. Additionally, there are many options regarding view types, selection criteria, properties, and columns.
View Types There are six types of views that can be created in a database, as shown in Figure 2.31. In some cases, the type of view describes who can access the view, while in other cases it determines what documents to include in the view. FIGURE 2.31
Types of views
Shared The most popular view type is a shared view. To create a shared view, you need Designer access to the database. Shared views are accessible by all users with Reader access and above to the database. Shared, Contains Documents Not In Any Folders This type of view displays documents that have not been stored in any of the folders in the database. Since it is shared, all users have access to the view. Shared, Contains Deleted Documents This type of view displays documents that have been marked for deletion. Documents can be marked for deletion using a combination of two database properties: Allow Soft Deletions and $Undelete Expire Time. Since this view is shared, all users of the database have access to it. Shared, Private On First Use This type of view is initially created as shared; when a user first opens and saves the view, it becomes a personal view for the user. One of the ways these views are used is to create tailored personal views for many users with the same initial design. Shared, Desktop Private On First Use Like the private on first use shared view, the desktop private view is initially created as shared and then saved by the user as personal. This version of the view is stored in the user’s DESKTOP5.DSK file, not in the database. Private Private views are visible only to the user who created the view.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
View Selection Criteria The job of a view is to sift through the data in a database and show the user a collection of documents that meet the criteria specified by the programmer. In this sense, the view selection criteria filter out documents that don’t meet the criteria and show the ones that do. View selection is an event associated with a view. In the event, you write a formula to determine which documents to display in the view. Figure 2.32 shows a simple view selection formula. FIGURE 2.32
A simple view selection formula
The Selection Formula The selection formula can be simple or complex. The most straightforward selection formula makes use of the special variable called Form that is stored with the data in a document. The keyword SELECT is used to choose the documents that satisfy a true condition.
The default view selection formula for a database is SELECT @All, which returns all documents in the database.
In Figure 2.32, for example, the true condition that has to be met is whether a document contains the special variable Form, and if it does, whether the value of the variable is exactly equal to the string “Reseller Application”. Similar selection formulas can be built using the logical NOT EQUAL TO symbol.
Table 2.7 summarizes some of the logical operators that are valid in view formulas. TABLE 2.7
Logical Operators Operator
Text Meaning
=
EQUAL TO
!=
NOT EQUAL TO
<>
NOT EQUAL TO
Viewing Multiple Forms The view selection formula shown in Figure 2.33 selects documents created with the Product Profile form or the Reseller Application form. The single vertical bar is the OR symbol. FIGURE 2.33
Multiple forms in a view
To use multiple forms in a view selection formula, Boolean logic is used. For instance, the following formula selects all documents created with the Reseller Application form or the Reseller Status form. SELECT Form = “Reseller Application” | Form = “Reseller Status” View selection criteria often use field values, as well. The formula shown here selects documents created with the Reseller Application form if the value of the CompanyName field is “ABC”. SELECT Form = “Reseller Application” & CompanyName = “ABC”
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
@ Functions Two special functions, @AllChildren and @AllDescendants, can be used in view selection formulas to include response documents related to a subset of documents. As an example, consider the following view selection formula: SELECT Form = “Reseller Application” | @AllChildren First, the selection formula builds a subset of all the documents that contain the variable Form that have the value “Reseller Application”. That subset of documents is then operated on by the @AllChildren function to build a second subset of documents, which is the direct children, or immediate responses, to the Reseller Applications. These two subsets are then combined to return all the Reseller Applications plus their immediate responses. @AllDescendants works in a similar way except that it returns not only immediate children or responses, but also any children of children (Response to Response) documents.
The Form Formula A view can specify the form to use to present the data from the documents contained in the view. The form formula event, shown in Figure 2.34, demonstrates how to code the name of a form to use to open documents. FIGURE 2.34
Form formula event
The form formula overrides the special Form variable stored with a document and is the first form Notes looks for in order to display a document.
View Properties The look, feel, and behavior of a view as a whole can be set using the view’s Properties box. Let’s examine the most important settings on each tab in turn.
View Info The View Info tab is actually rather boring! You can set the name of the view, give it an alias, give it a comment, and choose its style (calendar or standard). The standard format refers to row-and-column presentation of document data. Figure 2.35 shows the View Info tab. FIGURE 2.35
View Properties—View Info tab
Options The Options tab determines how the view initially appears in the database, whether it is the default used to create new views, and how the view should be refreshed. Figure 2.36 shows the Options tab, and each option is discussed as follows. FIGURE 2.36
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Default When Database Is First Opened One view in a database can be marked as the default view. If no other database launch properties have been set, the view that is marked will be what the user sees when a database is opened. Default Design For New Folders And Views When this property is enabled, new views and folders will inherit their initial column structure from the marked view. Collapse All When Database Is First Opened If a view contains expandable categories, this option forces all categories to be closed (collapsed) when the view is opened. Show Response Documents In A Hierarchy With this property enabled, Response documents are displayed indented immediately below the parent document. When this property is not enabled, Response documents do not display indented. Additionally, the Response documents will be sorted based on whatever Sort criteria was used for the view; as a result, the parent document and Response documents may not appear visually close to one another. Show In View Menu If this option is enabled, the view name will appear in the Notes client menu under the View menu. On Open Options The On Open settings let you specify which document to jump to when the view opens. You have the option to go to the last (most recently) opened document, to the top (first) document in the view, or to the bottom (last) document in a view. On Refresh Options The concept of refreshing the view is that documents are being added and deleted constantly in a database, and the on-screen presentation of the data
becomes quickly out of date. Refreshing it re-reads the document index from disk and updates the screen. The refresh choices are shown in Table 2.8. TABLE 2.8
On Refresh Options Option
Description
Display Indicator
Shows an icon the user can click to refresh the screen.
Refresh Display
Automatically refreshes the screen.
Refresh Display From Top Row
Updates the view from the top row down to the bottom.
Refresh Display From Bottom Row
Updates the view from the bottom row up to the top.
Style The Style tab is the best place to come to make your view look pretty. Here, you can set background and alternate row colors, change the heading styles, give more space to the data itself, enable or disable the view margin and the column headings, and more. Figure 2.37 shows the Style settings. FIGURE 2.37
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Launch When a view is opened, a launch property can determine in which frame of a frameset it displays. Figure 2.38 shows the Launch tab. FIGURE 2.38
View Properties—Launch tab
Advanced The Advanced tab controls several important settings including how the view index is refreshed and how the view should behave when accessed by a Web client. Figure 2.39 shows the Advanced properties; each is discussed as follows. FIGURE 2.39
Refresh Index Refreshing the index rebuilds the stored view index structure. The choices for when this should happen include:
Auto, after first use
Automatic
Manual
Auto, at most every X hours
Discard Index You can choose to discard an existing index after each use of the view, if the view hasn’t been used for a specified number of days, or never. If you choose to discard a view after each use, the view index will be rebuilt each time it is opened, which will be a performance hit to the user opening the view. Unread Marks Documents in a view that have not yet been opened are flagged with a red star in the view margin. Tracking this information adds to the storage space required for a view. Your options for unread marks are to not track them at all, track them for documents but not for categories of documents, or track them from documents and categories using the standard Compute In Hierarchy option. For ODBC Access Relational databases require a unique primary key for efficient data access. When a Notes view is used as an ODBC data source and accessed from an external program (such as Crystal Reports), the view retrieval is optimized if a unique key exists in Notes. Enabling the Generate Unique Keys In Index option for ODBC access accomplishes the task of creating unique keys. For Web Access By default, a view is displayed in a browser using HTML. A built-in Java applet is available that provides better use of color, shading, and scroll bars than the HTML version. To select this Java applet, choose the Use Applet In The Browser check box on the Advanced tab of the view Properties box.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Restrict Initial Index Build To Designer Or Manager Use this option to allow the new indexes to be built only by users who have Manager access. Don’t Show Categories Having Zero Demands If a categorized view contains a category that has no documents, the category can be suppressed (hidden) if this option is enabled.
Security View security can be added to restrict who can see this particular view. Figure 2.40 displays the view access list. FIGURE 2.40
View Properties—Security tab
View Columns Just as the rows in a view represent a document, the columns in a view represent fields or calculations based on fields in that row’s document. The values for a column are chosen or coded in the Programmer’s Pane.
Column Values Values for a column can be made up of simple functions, a single field value, or a formula calculation consisting of a combination of field and other values. Figure 2.41 shows the different types of values used to create a value for a column. FIGURE 2.41
Column values
Let’s examine the three Display options. Simple Function Simple functions are built-in values that are calculated for you by Notes. The first column in a new view automatically shows the simple function “# in View” as its value, which is the document’s position relative to other documents in the view. Field You can set a column to a field value simply by selecting one of the fields from the list of all fields in the database. This places the field value in the column. Formula Calculations based on fields of like data types can be performed to provide a column’s value. Data type conversions will be necessary when combining text fields with numbers or dates.
Data that requires converting may display an error message similar to “Error: Incorrect data type for operator or @Function: Text expected.”
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
The @ functions shown in Table 2.9 can be used to convert data as part of a formula. TABLE 2.9
Converting Data Function
Description
@Text
Converts a non-text value to a text string
@TextToTime
Converts a text value to date/time value
@TextToNumber
Converts a text value to a number value
As mentioned earlier, formulas are explored in greater depth in Chapter 4.
Column Properties In addition to setting the value of a column, you can configure the look and feel of the column using its Properties box. Let’s look at each of the tabs in turn. Column Info The title that shows in the column of a view is set in the Column Info tab. In addition, you can decide whether to hide the column completely, whether to show an icon in the column, and whether to show a twistie for collapsible categories. Figure 2.42 shows the Column Info tab. FIGURE 2.42
Sorting Data can be sorted in ascending or descending order. By default, a column is not sorted. If the Click On Column Header To Sort option is enabled, the user can interactively sort the data by clicking the heading, toggling back and forth between ascending and descending sort order. Figure 2.43 shows the Sorting tab. FIGURE 2.43
Column Properties—Sorting tab
CATEGORIZING
A column can be grouped, or categorized, based on the value in a field. To use this option, the column must also be sorted. Columns that contain field values based on the Computed For Display value type cannot be used to categorize a view, since the value exists only in memory and not on disk. TOTALING
Columns that contain numbers can be summed with the total appearing at the bottom of a column. Categorizing and totaling are often combined to count the number of documents in a category.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Font The color, size, and style of the font used for the data in columns can be configured on the Font tab. The Apply To All button gives the same settings to all the columns in the view. Figure 2.44 shows the Font tab. FIGURE 2.44
Column Properties—Font tab
Numbers The Numbers tab lets you determine how to display numbers in a column. Recall that the number itself is stored as a 64-bit floating point value, so you can modify the presentation to meet your exact need without affecting the stored data. Figure 2.45 shows the Numbers tab.
Date And Time Format Like the Numbers tab, the Date And Time Format tab allows you to decide how dates and times should display in the view. Again, the stored 64-bit float value for the field is not modified. Figure 2.46 shows the Date And Time Format tab. FIGURE 2.46
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Title In a similar manner to the Font tab, the Title tab controls the color, size, and style of the font used to display the column heading. Figure 2.47 shows the Title tab. FIGURE 2.47
Column Properties—Title tab
Advanced The Advanced tab (shown in Figure 2.48) includes a For Web Access option, which allows the column to show its values as hotspot links when displayed in a Web client. FIGURE 2.48
View Action Bar Like a form, a view can have action buttons that appear on an Action Bar at the top of a view. The tasks coded in the Click events of the action buttons act on the unopened documents selected in the view’s margin area. The kinds of tasks that are valid in view action buttons are ones that act on selected documents, like moving documents to a folder, changing a field value, or deleting documents. A view action does not require the document to be opened on-screen; instead it will process the unopened document. Shared actions are also valid in a view. You may recall that shared actions are created in the Other category in the Design Panel and may be reused in multiple views.
Embedding Views Views can be embedded in a form or in a page. In either case, only one embedded view is allowed. The benefit of embedding views inside a form is that you can place fields, graphics, and tables on the form with the view to improve both functionality and appearance. Views embedded in forms have their own set of events where code can be written to further customize the behavior of the embedded view. Figure 2.49 shows the embedded view events in the Object viewer in the Programmer’s Pane. FIGURE 2.49
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Embedded Selection The Embedded Selection event determines which view is embedded in the page or the form. This event is actually set automatically when you embed a specific view; however, it can be changed after the view has been embedded.
Show Single Category The Show Single Category event allows you to show a single category, or branch, of a view that has been categorized based on the first column. For instance, a categorized view based on the field WineColor might have three categories: Red, White, and Blush. The value of the Show Single Category event can be set to the string value “Red” to limit the embedded view to showing only that one category in the view, hiding the other two categories.
Summary
F
orms, fields, and views are the basis of a solid Notes application that collects, stores, and presents user data. Making an application that’s valuable to users relies on the effective use of these three design elements. In this chapter, you’ve examined the fundamental characteristics of each of them and have acquired the skills you need to build an interactive application.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: Action Bar action button categorized default value document embedded views field field alias field type form form alias form formula inheritance input translation input validation keywords layout regions Native OS resources sections shared action Show Single Category subforms view
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Review Questions 1. In which editable field event should Adrianne code a formula that will
trim off white space and convert the field value to uppercase before storing it? A. Default value B. Input translation C. Input validation D. Window Title 2. Beckett has designed a form that will be used by Notes client users. This
form is one of 25 in the database, but will be the most often used to create new documents. Which of the following techniques can Beckett use to guarantee this form appears first in the Notes client Create Document menu? A. Override the default that allows the form to be seen in the Create
menu. B. Precede the form name with an ampersand (&) character. C. Start the form name with a number. D. This cannot be done since form names are sorted alphabetically in
the Notes client menus by default. 3. Catherine deleted a subform from a database yesterday. Today, users
are getting error messages when they try to open their documents. She has made no other database changes. What is causing this problem? A. The subform name is a part of the form, and the fields that exist on
the subform cannot be seen if the subform does not exist. B. The form must have been deleted as well; otherwise the data would
have displayed. C. The deleted subform has caused the form to become corrupt, and
the data is permanently corrupt. D. The form hosting the subform is now invalid and cannot display
4. Dennis wants users to be able to click a date rather than typing the date
into his StartDate field. Which field setting on an editable Date/Time field will allow him to do this? A. Always use 4-digit year B. Use preferences from: User’s settings C. Calendar/Time Control D. On Input: Require user enter four digit years 5. Eve intends to force users to enter their birth date on her Personnel
form. In which of the following field events should she write code to check the field’s contents? A. Default value B. Input translation C. Input validation D. onFocus 6. Franklin wants to code a button to move documents from a view to a
folder. What kind of button should he use? A. Form action. B. View action. C. Freestanding button. D. None—a button cannot be used to do this. 7. Gina wants to build a view that selects all the documents that were not
created with the Reseller Application form. Which of the following view selection formulas will do this? A. SELECT Form != Reseller Application B. SELECT Form <> Reseller Application C. SELECT Form ! Reseller Application D. SELECT Form != “Reseller Application”
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
8. Henry is concatenating the text field CustomerName with the number
field CustomerPhone in a view. What should Henry do to make sure this calculation works correctly? A. Convert the CustomerPhone field to text before concatenating. B. Convert the CustomerName field to a number field before
concatenating. C. Create a new field, because these two fields cannot be concatenated. D. Nothing—Notes will perform any necessary conversion implicitly. 9. Yesterday, Ingrid created a shared field by mistake that she would really
like to be a single-use field. What can she do to rectify her mistake? A. Delete the field and create a single-use field with the same name. B. Cut the field from the form and paste it back into place. C. Change the field’s attribute from Shared to Single Use. D. Nothing—once a field is shared, it cannot be converted to single-use. 10. Jeff wants to create a view column that concatenates a text field on a form
with a number field on the same form. What will the view column display? A. The text field concatenated with the number field B. An invalid function data type error, since the fields should have
been converted to the same type first C. The text field only D. The number field only 11. Kimberly wants to create a field that will contain popular colors for
cars in her Vehicle database. The field name is a computed text field named CarColors. Which of the following formulas will populate the field correctly with the colors Red, Green, and Black? A. “Red” ; “Green” ; “Black” B. “Red” , “Green” , “Black” C. “Red” : “Green” : “Black” D. Red ; Green ; Black
12. Liam wants to code two fields that will be dependent on one another
during the time that a user is editing a document. Which field property should he set to enable this dependency? A. Compute After Validation B. Hide Paragraph If Formula Is True C. Allow Multiple Values D. Refresh Fields On Keyword Change 13. Maria wants to filter out documents in a view to show ones created
with the Reseller Application form or the Product Profile form. Which view selection formula will achieve this goal? A. SELECT “Reseller Application” OR “Product Profile” B. SELECT Form = “Reseller Application” OR Form =
“Product Profile” C. SELECT Form = “Reseller Application” | Form =
“Product Profile” D. SELECT Form = (“Reseller Application” | “Product
Profile”) 14. Norman is making his first attempt at using embedded views in forms.
Which of the following should he keep in mind as he works with embedded views? A. Only one embedded view is allowed per form. B. Embedded views must be centered in the form. C. He must write an embedded selection formula after he embeds a
particular view in a form. D. Embedded views cannot contain more than five columns.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
15. Olga wants the first column of her view to be able to be sorted in ascending
or descending order according to the user’s needs interactively. How can this be accomplished? A. Set the view property to allow sorting. B. Set a column property to allow both types of sorting with the Click
On Column Header To Sort option enabled. C. Create two columns, one sorted ascending and the other descending. D. Users cannot interactively sort columns in a view. 16. Perry hasn’t coded a view selection formula for his new view, yet it is dis-
playing documents. What default database formula is the view using? A. SELECT All Forms B. SELECT Form = “All” C. SELECT @All D. SELECT All 17. Qiana wants to use form alias names to protect the investment she has
in the code she’s written. Which character should she use in a form name to create an alias? A. / B. \ C. & D. | 18. Ray coded a formula in a column that is now returning the error message
“Error: Incorrect data type for operator or @Function: Text expected.” Which of the following conversion functions should be used in the column to correct the problem? A. @Text B. @TextToTime C. @TextToNumber D. @ConvertText
19. Stephanie wants to set alternate colors for the rows in her view. Where
can she do this? A. In the HTML Head event for the view B. In the column Properties box C. In the view Properties box D. In the Programmer’s Pane 20. Ted would like to add context-sensitive help at the form level. Which of
the following Form events will fire in response to a press of the F1 key? A. onBlur B. HelpRequest C. WindowTitle D. QueryOpen 21. In Ursula’s country, dates are commonly written with a comma separating
the day, month, and year. Ursula has created a multiple-value date field with the comma as a separator. Which of the following should she choose as a list separator character in order for the date list to be built correctly? A. A period B. A comma C. A semicolon D. A colon 22. Vincent wants to create a shared view in the WineMaster database.
What minimum access level must he have in order to do this? A. Manager B. Designer C. Editor D. Author
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
23. Wendy wants to create a view column that displays data from a text field
combined with a number field from the same form. What will result when she combines these two fields? A. The text field concatenated correctly with the number field B. An error noting an invalid function data type error C. A blank D. A null value 24. Xavier’s Footer subform contains the field LastUpdated. The host
form also contains a field of this name. What will happen when the subform is embedded in the form? A. Notes will flag an error and not allow the subform to be embedded. B. The field on the subform will be used if it has a default value. C. Notes will use the field on the subform and ignore the field on the
host form. D. Notes will use the field from the host form and ignore the field on
the subform. 25. Yvonne wants to make sure keyboard aficionados have an easy time
using her Notes client application. What character can she use prior to a letter in her form names to create a keyboard shortcut to the form? A. \ B. / C. & D. _
26. Zachariah has a large number of forms in the database he is responsible for
maintaining. To help keep the initial list small in the Create Document menu, he has used cascaded form names. Many of the form names, however, are not showing up in the menu. How can Zachariah resolve this problem? A. Format the names using a form alias. B. Mark the form property option to Include In Menu: Create Menu. C. Mark the menu property option to include cascaded names. D. Cascaded form names cannot be shown in the Create menu.
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
Answers to Review Questions 1. B. The input translation event fires as a document is saved, converting
data before it is stored. 2. C. While form names do appear in the menu sorted alphabetically
by default, by using a number at the beginning of a form name, the sort order is numeric rather than alphabetic. 3. A. When the form loads, it looks for a subform of the given name. If one
does not exist, it cannot load the subform, and an error message is presented to the user. You can repair the problem by re-creating a subform with the same name. 4. C. Editable Date/Time fields can display a clickable month calendar
if the Calendar/Time Control style is used instead of the standard Notes style. 5. C. The input validation event is valid for editable fields, and code can
be written here to check whether a value was entered; if one was entered, it is checked to ensure it meets the business rules expected by the field. 6. B. A view action on the Action Bar can process unopened documents
in a view and move them to a folder. 7. D. != is the NOT EQUAL TO symbol, and in this example the special
field variable Form is being tested to see if it is not equal to the string value “Reseller Application”. 8. A. View columns containing numbers or dates that will be concate-
nated to text data need to be converted to text first, otherwise an error message will be displayed.
9. B. Cutting and pasting the field has the effect of deleting it and then
creating a field with the same name, so this is the preferred method of changing the field from shared to single-use. Deleting the field and creating a single-use field with the same name will also work, and in effect, that is what cutting and pasting will do. According to Lotus, however, the recommended technique to change from shared to single-use is to cut and paste, so this is the most correct answer. 10. B. View columns that concatenate data of different types need to be
converted to a single type, otherwise an error message is generated. 11. C. The list separator character in Notes is the colon. Since Red, Green,
and Black are literal text strings and not variable names, they also need to be in quotes. 12. D. To create dynamic field-dependent behavior in Notes while a doc-
ument is being edited and before it has been saved, you need to enable the refresh field property to tell Notes to take a second look at keyword-type fields. 13. C. The vertical bar is the OR symbol and the variable comparison
must be performed on both text strings. 14. A. Forms and pages are limited to containing only one embedded
view. The Embedded Selection event is populated when the view is initially embedded in the form. There is no limitation on the number of columns an embedded view can contain. 15. B. The column option to Click On Column Header To Sort displays a
triangle in the column heading signaling the user that it can be clicked. When clicked, the data in the column toggles between ascending and descending sort order. 16. C. SELECT @All is the default selection formula for a database that
returns all the documents in the database. 17. D. The vertical bar (also known as the pipe symbol) is used between a form
name for the users to see (on the left of the vertical bar) and the form name for the programmers (on the right side of the vertical bar).
Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data
18. A. The @Text function will convert data into a text string, and since that’s
what is expected (according to the error message anyway!), @Text will do the trick. 19. C. Alternate row colors are an option set for the entire view, so it is set
in the view Properties box. 20. B. Pressing F1 when a form is open triggers the HelpRequest Form
event. 21. C. If you’re working with a Date/Time field and you chose a
comma as a custom separator for the month, day, and year components, and if the field allows multiple values, the list separator needs to be a semicolon. 22. B. Designer access is required to create shared views in a database. 23. B. Fields of different types that are concatenated or combined in a for-
mula need to be converted first, because math on unlike data types generates an error. 24. A. A Notes form cannot contain two fields with the same name. When
a subform is embedded in a host form, it behaves exactly like a single Notes form and will not allow two fields with the same name. Xavier’s attempt will result in an error message. 25. D. Preceding a letter in a form name with an underscore character
marks it as the keyboard shortcut to the form. 26. B. Cascaded and non-cascaded form names appear in the Create menu
only if the option to include it in the menu is enabled. There is no Properties box for the Notes client menu, so there is no way to exclude or include cascaded form names, making this a bogus answer.
f forms, fields, and views can be thought of as the heart of a functioning application, the rest of the design elements in R5 might be thought of as the skin and skeleton, protecting and integrating the application. A good application is much more than just the data it stores; it is the means to interact intelligently with and navigate through the data. This chapter explores pages, outlines, framesets, navigators, and agents. These are the design elements that let users interact with the data in an application.
The Page Design Element
I
magine, for a moment, the last Web site you visited. It probably had text on it, some graphics, a few clickable links to other destinations, a table or two, and maybe even some animation. With this vision in your head, you now know exactly what the page design element does in Notes!
Pages versus Forms Pages were added to Domino to better align the product with the Web world. It is a design element that can be used to provide a navigational structure to an application by presenting information. Basically, a page is a rich-text container for any type of information a programmer wants to add. That makes the difference between pages and forms easy to explain: Users cannot add content to pages, while users add content to forms by populating fields.
Pages do not contain any programmer-defined fields. They do, however, contain Notes-created internal fields. For example, the $Body field is the rich-text container that holds all the contents of a page. The About Database and Using Database documents in Notes are two examples of built-in pages that are available in every database, and the content for these is stored in the field called $Body. The most obvious distinction between pages and forms, then, is that pages do not store user data; instead, they focus on displaying static content. Given this distinction, the following is a list of the type of items that a page cannot contain:
Fields
Subforms
Layout regions
The contents of a page cannot be searched with the full text search engine, because only data stored in fields is searchable in Notes.
Page Properties A page’s Properties box controls how it looks and behaves. There are fewer settings for a page than there are for a form since pages are less complex. The types of attributes you can control include link colors, background color, launch attributes, and one type of security.
General Settings The Page Info tab of the Page Properties box sets the name of the page and other basic information. This Properties box is shown in Figure 3.1. FIGURE 3.1
You can control the colors of links to other destinations at three stages, as described in Table 3.1. TABLE 3.1
Link Settings Link Setting
Description
Active
Color of the link when it is the currently open destination
Unvisited
Color of the link before it has been visited
Visited
Color of the link after it has been visited
A page also has a Web access option that can be enabled for Web clients. This option allows the contents of the page to be treated as HTML. If this option is marked, Domino will not perform its dynamic conversion of the page contents to HTML as it normally would; instead, it will simply serve the page in raw format with the expectation that the content contains appropriate HTML tags.
Background Color Background color or a graphic can be used to improve a page’s visual appeal. These options, including tiling the graphic and hiding the graphic on low-resolution monitors, can be set on the Background tab of the page’s Properties box. Figure 3.2 displays these settings. FIGURE 3.2
Launch Attribute When a page is opened, you have the ability to automatically launch something associated with the page. For instance, if the page contains an attached file, you can automatically open the attachment. You can set the page to launch any of the following:
First document link on the page
First attachment on the page
First OLE object on the page
Figure 3.3 shows the Launch tab of a page’s Properties box. FIGURE 3.3
Security There is only one security option that can be set for a page, and that’s the option to mark it as a public access document. If a user’s privilege to a database allows public access documents to be read, then marking a page as public access would allow the page to be viewed by the user. This setting is shown in Figure 3.4. FIGURE 3.4
Page security
Page Contents As a generic rich-text container, a page can hold a wide variety of content. Typical Web and Notes pages are made up of formatted text, tables, graphics, hotspot links, and buttons.
Tables If you’ve ever tried to center a banner on a page or form, you’ve quickly discovered the need for tables to provide the flexibility needed to anticipate different screen resolutions and monitor sizes as well as various font types. Tables help position content elements and present information in a more structured and predictable manner. Additionally, in R5, they add some special animation features. The table wizard, shown in Figure 3.5, walks you through the table creation process.
In the Table Type area, you click an icon button to choose a table style. You can create four kinds of tables in Domino Designer, each of which is described in Table 3.2. TABLE 3.2
Table Types Type
Description
Basic
Standard row-and-column table
Tabbed
Tabbed interface where each row becomes a tab
Animated
Built-in timer to transition from one style to another
Table Properties Simply put, there are an enormous number of ways to modify the behavior and look of a table and therefore an enormous number of table properties. The Properties box for a table contains seven tabs! These tabs and their descriptions are listed in Table 3.3, and Figure 3.6 shows the first tab. TABLE 3.3
FIGURE 3.6
Table Properties Box Tabs Tab Name
Description
Table Layout
Width and size of columns and rows
Cell Borders
Width, style, and visibility of inner cell borders
Table/Cell Background
Table and cell colors and background images
Table Borders
Width, style, and visibility of outer table boundaries
Table Margins
Table margins and text wrapping attributes
Table Rows
Options for table type chosen (basic, tabbed, animated, programmed)
One of the most popular uses of Basic style tables is to create invisible bordered areas that format information within table cells. To make borders invisible, the Cell Borders tab is set to the border width of 0.
Graphics Nice looking graphics are an often-used content item in the tables of Web and Notes applications, and almost a necessity in terms of visual stimulation for application users. Domino natively supports the image types shown in Table 3.4. TABLE 3.4
Graphic Types File Extension
Pronounced
Acronym Meaning
BMP
Bitmap
Bitmap
GIF
Giff
Graphics Interchange Format
JPG
Jay-Peg
Joint Photographic Experts Group
Images that are not one of these three types are stored in a platformindependent, 256-color image format. A Domino database can render these image formats using the Notes color palette or the Web palette. The Web palette contains a subset of the colors available in Notes. This means that Notes clients display more colors than the Web, and graphics can potentially look different between the two types of clients. If you want the color palettes in the Web and Notes client to match, use the Notes client menu sequence File Preferences User Preferences and select the Use Web Palette option from the list of Additional Options. Background Graphics A graphic can be brought into a page or a form and used as a transparent image map that appears underneath or behind all the content items. As Figure 3.7 shows, a background graphic can be pasted in from the clipboard, imported, or set using a shared image resource.
Individual Graphics Graphics can also be brought in as individual elements. Images can be pasted in from the clipboard or brought in from a file using either the File Import or the Create Picture menu option. The File Import path is used to bring in all kinds of files, not just image files, while the Create Picture option is limited to importing only image files of the types shown in Figure 3.8. FIGURE 3.8
Valid image types
Shared Image Resources Both background and individual graphics can be stored in a Notes database as a shared image resource. Like other shared resources, images can be brought into the Design Panel once and reused over and over. This behavior is along the lines of the shared actions discussed in Chapter 2, “Design Elements: Gathering, Storing, and Retrieving Data.”
The benefit of a shared image resource is that the image is stored one time and linked to from other locations in the database, thereby reducing the amount of storage space needed for images. An example of a good time to use a shared image resource is when you want to use a common banner on all the pages and forms in your application. To create a shared image resource, you need to be in the Images area of the Resources category in the Design Panel. From here, you click the New Image Resource button and add the image, as shown in Figure 3.9. This figure also shows the Properties box that is added for the image and a thumbnail of it. FIGURE 3.9
Adding a new image resource
Adding a new image resource creates the storage for the image. Now, from wherever in the application you want to link to the shared image, like from a page or a form, use the menu options Create Image Resource to add the link. To summarize, there are four ways that a graphic can be added to a page or form:
Copy and paste using the clipboard.
Import using the File Import menu.
Embed a picture using the Create Picture menu.
Embed an image resource using the Create Image Resource menu (available only if you’ve already created the shared image resource).
Graphic Properties Like many other items in Notes, graphic resources have a set of attributes that control how they look and behave. To give you an idea of the kinds of options you can set, the Picture Properties box is shown in Figure 3.10 and described in Table 3.5. FIGURE 3.10
HTML for pictures, including cascaded style sheets.
Hotspots Clickable links are often added to graphics to navigate to a different task or area. These clickable links, or Click events, are called hotspots in Notes. Hotspot resource links help users navigate through an application. Hotspots can be added to pages, forms, and navigators. To add a hotspot to a page, first highlight the text to link, then select Create Hotspot Link Hotspot. Figure 3.11 displays a hotspot’s Properties box. FIGURE 3.11
Hotspot properties
There is no programming involved in building a hotspot; it is created by filling in the blanks on the Hotspot Properties box. One of the blanks includes the ability to specify a target frame where the link destination should display if
frames are being used in the database. Hotspots can be created using the three jump types shown in Table 3.6. TABLE 3.6
Hotspot Jumps Type of Hotspot
Description
Link
Jump to a Notes location: database, view, document, anchor.
Named Element
Jump to a design object that has been given a name.
URL
Jump to a fully qualified Internet address.
Links The phrase “Links” in Domino Designer is used specifically to refer to “Notes Links.” These are jumps within the Notes world that are created by copying and pasting a destination address into the starting address using the clipboard. There are four kinds of Notes links, and these are described in Table 3.7. TABLE 3.7
Notes Link Types Type of Notes Link
Description
Database
Jump to another Notes database.
View
Jump to a specific Notes view.
Document
Jump to a specific document.
Anchor
Jump to a destination within the same document.
Named Elements A named element refers to a design element that you’ve created and named. For instance, if you created a page called Home Page, that page is now a named element. When you work with named elements, Notes lets users open
a browse button to search for existing named elements. This browse button is the yellow folder icon as shown here:
Once activated, the browse button opens a Locate Object dialog box (see Figure 3.12) that includes a drop-down list populated with the names of all the elements matching the design element type selected (a form in this figure). FIGURE 3.12
Named elements
URLs Jumps can also be made directly to a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) address if you type in a fully qualified address. For instance, to jump to the Lotus Web site, the fully qualified Internet address is http://www.lotus.com, where http calls out the kind of Internet connection you are making. Figure 3.13 shows an example of this type of link.
Buttons Like hotspots, buttons also have a Click event and can be placed on pages and forms. Any Click event can be coded to carry out a programming task, and this is often the use of buttons. These tasks are coded in a Click event, as shown in Figure 3.14. FIGURE 3.14
Button Click event
When the user clicks a button, the code in the Click event executes. There are two basic kinds of buttons: free-standing and action. Free-Standing Buttons A free-standing button, commonly referred to as a hotspot button, can be placed anywhere on a page or form. It becomes anchored to the position where your cursor is located when you create the button. Buttons are created using the menu sequence Create Hotspot Button. In order for multiple buttons to be able to be seen in Domino, ensure that the database property Web Access: Use JavaScript When Generating Pages is selected. This database property is enabled by default in R5, whereas in R4 it was disabled by default.
Action Buttons Chapter 2 introduced action buttons on Action Bars in forms and views. Pages can also have an Action Bar with action buttons. Like free-standing buttons, action buttons have a Click event where code is written to perform a task. An Action Bar appears at the top of a document, page, or view if any actions are present. The action buttons are anchored horizontally to the top portion of the screen. To create an action, use the SmartIcon or the Create Action menu option to open the Action Pane at the upper-right corner of the designer screen. Figure 3.15 shows an action button at the top of a page. FIGURE 3.15
Page Action Bar
Shared actions are also valid in a page. Open the action pane, give it focus, and use the menu options Create Insert Shared Action.
The Outline Design Element
Can you remember back to your school days when a teacher would ask you to hand in an outline on a paper you were assigned to write? The outline served the purpose of focusing your thoughts and organizing your material in a way that helped it flow better for the reader. Outlines in Notes do this same task. If pages can be thought of as presenting static content, outlines can be thought of as hierarchically organizing user data and other content. An outline consists of the structure and individual entries. For example, a site map is a popular type of outline to add to a Web application.
Outline Entries Each entry in an outline becomes a clickable link to another destination, making an outline a useful navigation aid. You can add entries one at a time or let Domino Designer build you a default outline. A default outline builds entries for any forms and views that exist in the database and adds to catchall entries for views and forms that might be added to the database at a later date.
Pages need to be added manually to outlines using the New Entry button; the Generate Default Outline button doesn’t add pages to outlines.
The buttons along the top of the Outline Designer let you quickly create new entries, indent or outdent entries, and save the outline. Within the Outline Designer, entries can be dragged and dropped to resequence them. Figure 3.16 shows the design area for an outline complete with several outline entries. FIGURE 3.16
Outline Designer
Embedding an Outline Unlike many of the other design elements, outlines do not stand on their own two feet—they need the assistance of pages and forms to work properly. When you create an outline, you create a structure that then must be embedded in a page or a form before it can be viewed. The Use Outline button automatically generates a new blank page and embeds the currently open outline in the page.
Embedded Elements Embedded elements are named design elements that are placed inside, or hosted by, other design elements. To embed an element, use the menu sequence Create Embedded Element; the element becomes anchored at the position of your cursor. Both pages and forms support a set of embedded elements. The elements that can be embedded in a page are
Outline
View
Navigator
Date Picker
Folder Pane
Forms allow two embedded elements in addition to the ones that are listed for pages:
Group scheduler
File Upload Control
Both the group scheduler and File Upload Control need to set values on a form using fields, making them invalid in a page environment.
Outline Properties The look and feel for outlines is set using the outline Properties box. The configuration for outlines has three levels, which means there are three sets of properties:
Outline as a named element
Outline after it’s embedded in a page or form
Individual outline entry properties
For the outline itself, the Properties box expects only minimal information, such as the outline name. Figure 3.17 shows the Properties box for an outline.
Each outline entry can be configured with both a label name that the users see and link properties that control what should happen when the entry is clicked. The Content area of the Properties box, shown in Figure 3.18, sets the link attributes. This should look familiar, for it is the same interface used for setting hotspot link destinations. FIGURE 3.18
Once an outline is embedded in a page or form, the configuration options become almost overwhelming. Figure 3.19 shows the first of the tabs, and Table 3.8 describes some of the most important Properties box settings. FIGURE 3.19
TABLE 3.8
Embedded Outline Properties
Important Embedded Outline Settings Setting
Description
Style
Tree versus Flat styles, where Tree presents data in a complete hierarchy, and Flat displays one branch of the hierarchy.
Root Entry
Display the outline initially expanded, collapsed, or however it looked when it was saved.
Outline size
Specify explicit height and width or selection options to expand the size of the embedded outline to fit the content.
Web Access
Use HTML or a Java applet to render the outline on the Web.
avigators are visual aids designed to guide users through an application while pleasing their sense of color and organization. The graphical nature of navigators makes them ideal for use with hotspot links and buttons. Figure 3.21 shows a navigator in Design mode with hotspots drawn around areas on the screen. FIGURE 3.21
Navigator Design mode
In Figure 3.21, the hotspot shown forms a transparent rectangle over a part of the graphic. The hotspot is coded to use a simple action when it’s clicked. Simple actions are built-in tasks that can be placed in Click events that can perform the following tasks:
Click events, in general, allow the use of simple actions, formulas, and LotusScript. In some cases, JavaScript is also valid.
Database Launch Properties Navigators can be opened automatically when a database is accessed. Launch attributes are set as part of the database Properties box. For Notes clients, there are three types of objects that can be launched:
Folders
Standard navigators
Pages
The only one of these options not available on Web objects is Folders. Pages are considered to be a type of navigator, and Figure 3.22 shows their use as a launch property. FIGURE 3.22
Embedded Navigators Navigators can be embedded in pages and forms. This gives you maximum control over a navigator and allows you to combine the need for graphic navigation with the need for fields on a form or table layout in a page. Navigators can be embedded using two different menu options:
Create Embedded Element Navigator
Create Embedded Element Import Navigator
With the first technique, the navigator is embedded in the page or form as a single grouped object. With this option, the choice of which navigator to embed can be decided dynamically at runtime using a formula, as shown in the dialog box in Figure 3.23. FIGURE 3.23
Dynamically embedding navigators
Using the second technique, the navigator is embedded as a picture object surrounded by a border. Within the border, navigator elements can be dragged, dropped, and repositioned. In essence, the navigator can be edited in place while embedded in the page.
Navigator Properties The properties of a navigator are set at creation time. Options include the ability to set a starting set of data to display and a background color. Figure 3.24 shows the properties of a navigator.
Embedded navigators have no associated properties; however, a navigator imported into a page or form is treated like a picture, and that picture has associated properties.
The Frameset Design Element
Framesets are design elements that segment a screen into separate areas called frames. The content for each frame in a frameset can be controlled independently of the other frames. The concept behind a frame is that when you click a link in one frame, the content in a separate frame changes. A frameset can have any number of frames; it is limited only by how good things look to you on the screen. A frame wizard, shown in Figure 3.25, walks you through creating a frameset with an initial set of frames. The four different layout arrangement buttons set the starting size and position of each frame within the frameset.
Frameset and Frame Properties Both frames and framesets have properties that can be configured. In the frame Properties box, the options are very limited and include giving the frameset a name. Individual frame properties are much more interesting, and they control the content that a user sees. A programmer gives each frame in a frameset a unique name, which can then be used as a target frame for links. Figure 3.26 displays the frame properties. FIGURE 3.26
The contents of a frame are set in the same way that hotspot links and outline entry links are set. The types of links are the same, as well: Notes links, named elements, or URLs. Additional frame properties give users the ability to scroll content and resize the frame, making frames more flexible than tables for separating data into different screen areas.
Frames can also be set to auto-scroll and to disable resizing.
Target Frames Each frame can have an associated target frame. This means that when a link is clicked in the frame, the destination of the link appears in the associated target frame. For illustration purposes, imagine a two-frame frameset with a narrow left-hand frame and a wider right-hand frame. If the left frame sets its target frame as the right frame, then all links that are clicked in the left frame will display the appropriate data or destination link in the right frame. A frame can also specify itself as its target frame.
Design Elements and Frames In a manner similar to frames setting target frames, individual design elements can also set a default target frame. By setting a default target frame at the designelement level, whenever that element is opened, it will open only in the specified frame. Design elements, like pages, forms, and views, can all set default target frames using the design element’s Properties box. For example, Figure 3.27 shows the Properties box for a page design element with the default target frame option set.
When a design element has a target frame set, this setting takes precedence over other target frame settings (for instance, those of frames within a frameset).
Launching a Frameset Another way that framesets can be used is to set one as the launch attribute when the database is first opened. You might recall that you were able to set pages and navigators as launch attributes. In a similar manner, a frameset can be identified as the first thing that opens when a database is accessed. To set a frameset as the database launch attribute, use the database Properties box, shown in Figure 3.28, and select the named frameset in your database.
Before using a frameset as a database launch attribute, the frameset should be completely built with appropriate content in each of the frames.
The Agent Design Element
U
nlike pages, navigators, and frames, agents do not visually present data to users. Instead, agents process data for users either interactively or behind the scenes. Agents are code modules that are given a name, and when invoked by name, the code executes. As design elements unto themselves, agents can be used throughout a database to facilitate automation. A typical use for agents is to modify document data en masse. For instance, if a database contains 50,000 person documents for a particular geographic region, and the phone company changes the area code for the region, data needs to be updated. The documents in the database can be processed by an agent to modify the data rather than hiring data entry temps to do the work.
Components of an Agent Agents are built using the Agent Manager, shown in Figure 3.29. An agent is comprised of several components starting with a good, descriptive name. The components of an agent are described in Table 3.9. The Agent Manager is also responsible for running and troubleshooting agents. FIGURE 3.29
TABLE 3.9
Agent Manager
Agent Components
Component
Description
Name
Descriptive name; spaces are allowed.
Type
Shared or Private; the default is Private.
Trigger
Identifies when and how the agent will run.
Scope
Subset of documents in the database to be processed.
Task
The code that will execute when the agent is invoked.
Agent names can be long and descriptive, allowing up to 135 characters as well as spaces. Private agents can only be invoked by the person who created the agent, while shared agents can be used by anyone with Reader access or above to a database.
Triggers The trigger for an agent is what causes an agent to execute. Triggers include user interaction or changes in the database environment. The following triggers can be used to invoke an agent:
Manually From The Actions Menu
Manually From The Agent List
Before New Mail Arrives
After New Mail Has Arrived
If Documents Have Been Created Or Modified
If Documents Have Been Pasted
On Schedule More Than Once A Day
On Schedule Daily
On Schedule Weekly
On Schedule Monthly
On Schedule Never
As you can see from this list, there is quite a bit of flexibility in choosing when an agent is triggered. While most of the options are self-explanatory, the On Schedule Never option should be clarified a bit. This option should be used when the agent will be called by another agent or invoked from code.
Tasks The Task area of an agent is where the code is written. There are five coding options for agents, as described in Table 3.10. TABLE 3.10
Agent Coding Options Coding Option
Description
Formula
Write and compile Formula Language within Domino.
Simple Action
Non-programming method of coding using built-in tasks.
LotusScript
Write and compile LotusScript code within Domino.
Imported Java
Import a precompiled Java class file.
Java
Write and compile Java code within Domino.
Formula Formula Language is a declarative, task-oriented language that is used in many places in Domino, including agents. In Chapter 4, “Formulas: Adding Code to an Application,” you’ll review Formula Language in detail. Simple Action The Simple Action coding option is designed to be the easiest way to build a simple agent—there is no coding involved! Instead, simply click the Add Action button, and a wizard walks you through a subset of tasks that are allowed. Figure 3.30 shows the Add Action window.
The Simple Action chosen in Figure 3.30 modifies a field by replacing its value. The agent could be used to run on all the documents in a view, updating the AreaCode field to contain the value 845. Simple Actions are available to do the following tasks: Copy to folder.
Remove from folder.
Delete from database.
Reply to sender.
Mark document read.
Run agent.
Mark document unread.
Send document.
Modify a field.
Send mail message.
Modify fields by form.
Send newsletter summary.
Move to folder.
@ function formula.
LotusScript LotusScript is a procedural programming language that has a Basic-like syntax. Since it allows looping through documents and access to the server’s file system, LotusScript is used for many server-side and Notes client tasks.
The LotusScript language does not work interactively from a Web client. However, a Web client can invoke LotusScript code that executes on a Domino server.
Java and Imported Java Java is an object-oriented programming language that can be used to code agents. Java code can be written directly in the Domino Designer Agent area and compiled into class files, or it can be written and compiled outside of Notes using third-party tools (like VisualAge and VisualCafe) and imported into the agent environment as class files.
Invoking an Agent An agent can be invoked in one of three ways: interactively, event-activated, or scheduled. Agents can also invoke other agents, and these then behave as if they were event-activated.
Interactively Interactive calls to an agent can be coded in a button’s Click event, in a hotspot’s Click event, or from the Notes client menu. In an interactive agent call, the user chooses to make something happen through an interaction, and the agent code executes immediately.
Event-Activated When a form or view opens, there are a host of events that can be triggered along the way (as introduced in Chapter 2). In any of these events, code can be written to call an agent by using ToolsRunMacro, a Formula Language command. The syntax to call an agent in an event is similar to the following: @Command([ToolsRunMacro];”Agent Name Goes Here”) The agent executes when the event is triggered. Two events in particular are used to call agents from Web client interactions: WebQueryOpen and WebQuerySave.
WebQueryOpen The WebQueryOpen Form event fires as a document is opened from a Web client. This can be a useful time to call an agent to perhaps pull data from a relational database to populate the Web form. The agent call is coded in the event using the following syntax: @Command([ToolsRunMacro];”your_agent_name”)
Commands and functions are covered in Chapter 4.
WebQuerySave Unlike WebQueryOpen, WebQuerySave executes when a user submits a Web form to a Domino server. This gives you a chance to intercept user input, process it with an agent, and take an action before the data is actually saved. The syntax for this event call is the same as for WebQueryOpen: @Command([ToolsRunMacro];”your_agent_name”)
The On Schedule Never trigger should be used with WebQueryOpen and WebQuerySave event-triggered agents.
Scheduled Agents can be scheduled to run hourly, daily, more than once a day, weekly, and monthly. Scheduled agents run unattended and require no user interaction. They run in the background on a server or in a Notes client.
Agent Properties Unlike other named element Properties boxes, the properties for an agent are set while the agent is selected in the agent list rather than when the agent is open. Figure 3.31 demonstrates the properties for a selected agent.
The Design tab for an agent’s Properties controls the following options:
Where the agent inherits its design from (if not from the database’s template)
Whether design refresh of the agent should be prohibited
Whether this agent should push out design changes to other databases
Whether this agent should appear in an R4 client menu
Whether the agent should be hidden from Web browsers and/or Notes clients
Of special interest for security reasons is the Web access option that appears at the bottom of the Design tab.
Web Access One of the features in an agent’s Properties box allows you to set the security level on agents invoked by Web clients. Enabling the For Web Access option determines whether the agent runs with the database access level of the person executing the agent or whether it executes with the access privilege of the person who last saved the agent.
By default, agents execute with the privilege level of the user who last saved it.
Anonymous If a user is accessing a database using the special Web group Anonymous and if the For Web Access option is in effect, then whatever access privilege was granted to Anonymous would be used to execute the agent. For instance, if Anonymous was granted Reader access, the agent is limited to Reader access. Named Users Web users don’t have to use the Anonymous group. Often, Web users are assigned a username and password by adding them to the Domino Directory. If Web users have a username and password, then more specific privileges can be granted to them individually in a database’s Access Control List (ACL). When the Run Agent As Web User option is active, the agent executes with the privilege granted to the user in the ACL.
Summary
P
ages, outlines, framesets, and navigators have demonstrated their worth as the visual aides users rely on to use an application. Through hotspots, buttons, actions, and agents, you add simple and complex automation to make the application usable. Combined with forms, fields, and views, you’ve got almost everything you need to build a great application framework. What’s missing? Formulas—which are coming up in the next chapter!
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: action agent embedded element frame frameset hotspot navigator page table target frame
Review Questions 1. Austin has added several pages to his application. Which of the following
design elements can he not add to his pages? A. Embedded views B. Fields C. Horizontal rules D. Text 2. Bette wants to display a different page when a database is opened
depending on whether a Notes client or a Web client is used. Which of the following database launch options should she use? A. Individual frame B. Outline C. Page D. View 3. Charlie wants to use a design element that provides a multipane
navigation method for users to move through a Web site. Which of the following should he use? A. Table B. View C. Page D. Frameset 4. Darcie wants to give her users a way to navigate the contents of her data-
base using a hierarchical structure. Which design element can she use? A. Site map B. Outline C. Navigator D. Frameset
5. Esteban is coding an agent to process a set of documents. However, he
is not a strong programmer and would like to use the easiest coding method available. Which of the following options would be a good choice? A. Formulas B. Simple Actions C. LotusScript D. Java 6. Farrah is creating a picture in a page that will be used in a Web client, and
she wants it to be presented in its native format. Which of the following is not a valid image type since it would have to be converted to be stored in Domino? A. BMP B. GIF C. PCX D. JPG 7. Gene wants to provide a navigation structure that guides his users
through the application in a hierarchical manner. Which of the following design elements should he use? A. Navigator B. Outline C. Page D. Frameset
8. Holly is trying to execute an agent from the Notes client menu that
was triggered to be run from the Actions menu. When she opens the Action menu, the agent does not appear. What is a likely cause of the problem? A. The agent was not created in the Action menu. B. The agent was created as private, and Holly was not the person
who created the agent. C. The agent was created as shared, and Holly was not the person
who created the agent. D. The agent is using JavaScript code, which is invalid in a Notes client. 9. Ignacio is trying to decide whether to use pages in his application or
forms. What is the key difference between the two design elements? A. Pages allow graphics while forms do not. B. Pages allow tables while forms do not. C. Forms allow fields while pages do not. D. Forms allow graphics while pages do not. 10. Jim has created an outline and is going to click the Generate Default
Outline button. What will this do for him? A. Create a blank structure to populate with forms and views. B. Generate an outline with entries for existing pages, views, and forms. C. Generate an outline with entries for existing views and forms. D. Create and embed an outline in a page. 11. Keri has coded an action to close a page. She wants to add this action
to the 27 pages that exist in her application. How should she have coded the action to best facilitate adding it to the pages? A. As a shared action B. As a form action C. As a view action D. As a JavaScript action
12. Lee is planning on using embedded elements in his page. Which of the
following should he avoid embedding? A. Outline B. View C. Navigator D. File Upload Control 13. Maddie wants the graphics in her Notes client to display the same as
they do in her Web client. What option should she enable in her Notes client? A. Use Web Palette B. Web Access: Use JavaScript When Generating Pages C. SmartIcons D. Full Color Icons 14. Noah wants to automatically launch one of the design elements in his
database when the database is opened. Which of the following cannot be used as a database launch option? A. Page B. Navigator C. Frameset D. Outline 15. Opal is displaying content in three different areas in her Web application.
The three areas are each resizable and scrollable. Which design element did she use to create this effect? A. Tables B. Frames C. Framesets D. Pages
16. Which design element should Pierre use in order to add text, graphics,
hotspots, and tables? A. Pages B. Navigators C. Forms D. Subforms 17. Queenie wants to automatically embed her outline in a new page without
leaving the Outline design area. Which button will do this for her? A. Generate Default Outline B. New Entry C. Use Outline D. Save Outline 18. Rafael has created an outline that consists of several outline entries that,
when clicked, jump a user to a different location in his database. In which Properties box did he set the attributes for the link destinations? A. Frame B. Outline C. Outline entry D. Embedded outline 19. Sophie wants to set the default target frame so that when links in one
frame are clicked, the contents display in a second frame. In which design element’s Properties box can she configure this option? A. Frameset B. Action Bar C. Hotspot D. Frame
20. Toby wants to have an object that he’s embedded in a page launch
automatically when the page opens. Which of the following cannot be automatically launched from a page? A. First document link on the page B. First attachment on the page C. First OLE object on the page D. First field on a page 21. Ulysses wants to add three buttons to his page. Where should the
property Web Access: Use JavaScript When Generating Pages be enabled to guarantee that all three buttons display correctly in a Web client? A. In the database Properties box B. In the form Properties box C. In the button Properties box D. In the page Properties box 22. Veronica wants to give her users a way to look at forms and pages at
the same time in a multipane interface in Notes and Web clients. Which of the following design elements can she use? A. Views B. Tables C. Framesets D. Navigators 23. Wyatt wants to make sure that every graphic on his page displays
alternate text so that hearing impaired users can have the information translated by their text devices. Where would he set this property? A. In the picture Properties box. B. In the form Properties box. C. In the database Properties box. D. This cannot be done in Notes.
24. Xiomara has coded an agent that she wants to execute automatically
when a Web form is saved. Which of the following agent triggers should she use? A. Manually From The Actions Menu B. Manually From The Agent List C. On Schedule Daily D. On Schedule Never 25. Yuri has configured two frames in a frameset, one frame on the left
and the other on the right. When links in the left frame are clicked, he wants the results of the link to display in the frame on the right. What can he do to make this happen? A. Set the default target frame property. B. Make the frames resizable. C. Make the frames scrollable. D. Nothing, this is not possible when working with frames. 26. Zena has created several action buttons in a page, and she wants to
reuse them on every page and form in her application. Into which part of the Design Panel should she relocate these action buttons? A. Synopsis B. Navigator C. Subform D. Resources
Answers to Review Questions 1. B. Pages cannot be used to create or store user data, so fields are not
allowed. 2. C. A page can be set directly as a launch attribute when an application
is opened from a browser. Individual frames, outlines, and views cannot be set as database launch properties. 3. D. Framesets segment a screen into separate multipane areas called
frames. The content for each frame in a frameset can be controlled independently of the other frames, making it a good navigation technique. 4. B. An outline is a hierarchically organized design element that aids the
user in navigating an application. Often, a site map is created using an outline; however, a site map is not a design element, making it an incorrect answer choice. 5. B. Simple Actions provide a wizard-like approach to doing simple
tasks in agents with no programming required. 6. C. Only BMP, GIF, and JPG images can be brought into Designer and
stored in their native format. All other image types are converted to a platform-independent, 256-color format. 7. B. An outline provides users with a hierarchical navigation method to
the views and forms in an application. 8. B. If an agent is not marked as shared, it automatically becomes a pri-
vate agent and is visible and available only to the person who created the agent. 9. C. The primary difference between pages and forms is the support for
fields for user data. Users cannot add content to pages, while in forms, users add content by populating fields.
10. C. Generating a default outline builds entries for any forms and views
that exist in the database and adds to catchall entries for views and forms that might be added to the database at a later date. Pages are not automatically added to a default outline. 11. A. Shared actions can be created in one place—the Resources area of
the Design Panel—and reused in multiple forms, views, and pages. 12. D. Since “file upload” implies the storage of user data in the design
element, this control is invalid in a page. Pages do not store user data; forms store user data. 13. A. The Use Web Palette option gives the Notes client and the Web client
a common color palette to use to display graphics; the colors used in both will be identical. 14. D. While a good navigational tool, an outline cannot be used directly
as a launch property for a database. However, it can be used indirectly by embedding the outline in a page and setting the page to launch when the database opens. 15. C. While frames might have been a tempting answer, framesets are the
named design element that contain frames. Frames within a frameset are resizable and scrollable by default. 16. A. Pages will allow text, graphics, hotspots and tables. Forms will as
well, but since forms allow fields, a page is sufficient for the task, since fields were not mentioned in the question. 17. C. The Use Outline button automatically creates a new page and
embeds the currently open outline in the page. 18. C. Each outline entry is individually configured and its destination
content link added. 19. D. Each individual frame can have a default target frame specified, so
this setting is configured in the frame’s Properties box. 20. D. First, pages cannot contain fields, so this choice is invalid. Second, the
first three choices are the only launch options available from a page.
21. A. The property Web Access: Use JavaScript When Generating Pages is
enabled for the database as a whole in the database’s Properties box. 22. C. Framesets segment areas of a screen in multipane windows, each of
which can display different contents like forms and pages. 23. A. The picture Properties box has a setting that allows alternate text to
be set. This alternate text displays on the screen as an image is being loaded and is used by text-encoding devices for hearing impaired users. 24. D. The On Schedule Never agent trigger should be used for agents that
will execute in response to events like Click events for buttons and the Form events WebQuerySave and WebQueryOpen. 25. A. Setting the default target frame property for the frame on the left
with the name of the frame on the right will enable links in the left to display results in the frame on the right. 26. D. Elements added to the Resources area become accessible to the entire
database rather than to just one design element. Relocating the actions to this part of the database will allow them to be stored once and linked to many times.
n Chapter 2, you examined views and coded a SELECT statement in the View Selection event to choose which documents in the database to display in the view. The SELECT statement is an example of one of the many formula statements used in Domino to program activities, values, and behavior into design elements like views. While the design elements provide structure for the application, the code you write automates the application. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to code in Formula Language and where to use it.
Introduction to Formula Language
F
ormula Language is a declarative programming language built into Domino. Declarative languages are task-oriented in the sense that you issue a command, and some action is carried out. In a manner similar to Structured Query Language (SQL), you issue a command using an agreed-upon set of keywords and parameters, and your command is executed, returning a result where appropriate. At no point do you have to say how to carry out the action; instead, you simply order it done—and Domino obeys!
The Formula Concept Formulas are simple to use because they resemble the thought processes we use with formulas in our everyday lives. For example, take the formula used to convert a temperature reading from Farenheit to Celsius. In ordinary math terms, the formula looks like this: C = (F - 32) * 5/9 where F is a variable containing the number of degrees in Farenheit, and C is the result of the calculation after it has been converted to Celsius.
Thus the concept of a formula should be somewhat familiar. This familiarity is what makes Formula Language the Domino programming option that requires the least amount of traditional programming skills. In fact, Formula Language comes to the Notes product line from the Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet product, which is chock full of formulas available to end users and power users. Formula Language is intentionally non-programmer oriented.
Programming Options The range of programming options in Domino runs the gamut from simple to complex, easy-to-learn to difficult-to-learn, and limited-power to unlimited-power. Formula Language is positioned at the low end of the programming options, as shown in Figure 4.1. FIGURE 4.1
Programming options graph Difficult
Ease of use
Easy Simple Actions
Formulas
LotusScript
JavaScript
Java
C/C++
Language
Being at the low end means that Formula Language is relatively easy to learn and apply. It also means, however, that it has some limitations. The primary limitation to point out is that the programming construct known as iteration, or looping, which is found in traditional procedural and object-oriented programming languages, is not a part of Formula Language. If looping through documents is what you need, then you need to look to a language like LotusScript or Java.
Formulas Only, Please On the flip side of the limitations of Formula Language is the fact that although Domino has multiple programming options available, there are places where only Formula Language statements are allowed. So even if you already know Java and C++, Formula Language programming skills are essential for a Domino programmer’s toolbox. The following areas in Domino specifically require Formula Language statements:
View Selection event to select documents
Default value event for an editable field
Input translation event for an editable field
Input validation event for an editable field
Formula Language consists of a set of pre-written methods that have been optimized for use in Domino. That means that oftentimes a formula can accomplish a task more efficiently than coding a solution in LotusScript or JavaScript.
Rules and Regulations Like all programming languages, Formula Language has rules governing how to create well-formed formulas. A formula is made up of operators, keywords, variables, and constants, and the following rules apply:
Formulas are not case sensitive.
Fields on a form become variable names in a formula.
Temporary variables can be created on the fly without declaration.
Temporary variables derive their data type from surrounding context.
Temporary variables exist only in the scope of the executing formula.
Multiple formulas can be strung together if separated by a semicolon.
Formulas execute left to right.
Operator precedence controls formula evaluation.
Parentheses can be used to modify the order of operation within a formula.
Reserved words cannot be used as temporary variable names.
Order of Operations Take a second look at the formula for converting Farenheit degrees to Celsius. The way that this formula is written, the calculation of F minus 32 is performed first, then that result is multiplied by five and divided by nine. C = (F - 32) * 5/9
Parentheses are used in formulas to modify the computer’s default order of operations.
If this formula were rewritten without parentheses and then typed into Domino to execute, it would evaluate quite differently. Without parentheses, the formula evaluates left to right and uses mathematical precedence to determine which part of the calculation to do first. That means that multiplication and division are performed first, then addition and subtraction. Below, square brackets are added for ease in reading to represent how the computer would attack the formula if no parentheses were present. C = F - [[32 * 5]/9] The result of the two formulas is entirely different. To convince yourself, substitute a number like 59 for the variable F. In the first example of the formula, where parentheses were provided, C evaluates to 15. In the second example, with no parenthesis, the multiplication operation is performed, then the division; the result of that is then subtracted from F. Using the second example, C evaluates to approximately 41. Operator Precedence The order of operations for the most frequently used operators in Formula Language are presented in descending order (highest to lowest) in Table 4.1. TABLE 4.1
Formula Order of Operations (continued) Operator Symbol
Operator Name
*
Multiplication and Division
/
- +
Subtraction and Addition
< > <> !=
Less Than and Greater Than and Not Equal To and Not Equal To
<= >=
Less Than or Equal To and Greater Than or Equal To
& | !
And and Or and Not
The + operator is also used for concatenating two string operands.
Reserved Words There are five keywords, or reserved words, in Formula Language, as described in Table 4.2. These keywords have an associated behavior when used in a formula. By convention, reserved words appear in uppercase, and Notes will convert them to uppercase for you automatically. TABLE 4.2
Formula Language Reserved Words Reserved Word
Description
FIELD
Used to assign a new value to an existing field on a document or to create a new field on the document.
DEFAULT
Does the same thing as the FIELD variable except that if no field exists, one is created and the default value event is used to populate the field.
REM
Used to add remarks or comments to a formula.
ENVIRONMENT
Used to set or get (read or write) values to the notes.ini file.
SELECT
Used to identify the set of documents to display or process.
Formula Syntax The rules of syntax for how to combine operators, reserved words, variables, and constants determine whether the formula will execute. A typical Notes Formula Language statement is arranged like this: @function_name(optional_arguments) where the function name is always preceded with an @ symbol. A formula may have arguments or parameters passed to it that determine its behavior or what value is returned by the formula. As an example, examine the syntax of the Notes @BrowserInfo formula: @BrowserInfo("JavaScript") This formula is used to investigate properties of the Web browser being used to access the Domino application. JavaScript is one of the parameter values that can be passed to the formula to determine if the browser supports JavaScript. @BrowserInfo returns a 1 or a 0 to signal true or false on the question of supporting JavaScript.
If a formula allows more than one optional argument, the arguments are separated with semicolons (;).
Formula Programming
T
here are more than 500 formulas in Domino’s Formula Language. Some of these act as methods and return a result while others act more like subroutines and simply carry out a sequence of steps. Let’s consider the formulas in groups that define their activity:
Commands that simulate Notes client menu activities (@Commands)
Statements that involve conditional logic (@If statements)
@Commands @Commands account for more than half of all @ functions, and are often considered as a language unto themselves. @Commands are geared toward carrying out a sequence of steps that would normally be initiated from the Notes client menu. For example, to save a document while in Edit mode in the Notes client, you would use the menu sequence File Save. You can code an @Command to do this same task using the following command: @Command([FileSave]) The keyword @Command signals Notes that what is about to follow in the parentheses is a command that should be passed directly to the Notes processing engine to execute as a subroutine sequence. Some @Commands also open dialog boxes as a side effect of the command. For instance, when a document is in Edit mode in a Notes client, executing @Command([FileCloseWindow]) closes the currently open window but first prompts the user to ask whether the document should be saved.
When the FileCloseWindow command is used in combination with other commands, it will always execute last, overriding the default of left-to-right execution of formulas.
Names of @Commands As you can see from the FileSave example, most @Commands are named in a way that resembles the menu sequence that is used in a Notes client to invoke the task. This gives you a basic understanding of the types of @Commands that might exist: Since there is a good probability that if a task can be done in a menu, an @Command exists, as well. How will you know what commands are available? Well, there are far too many to memorize, so don’t even try! Take the approach of thinking about the Notes client menu and the tasks you can do there and then locating an @Command that has a similar name.
The Domino Designer R5 help file is the best source of information on @Commands.
@Commands and the Web Typically, a Submit button placed on a Web input form will execute the commands @Command([FileSave]) and @Command([FileCloseWindow]) sequentially to save the document to the Domino server. However, not all @Commands are valid in the Web client. Since many of the @Commands actually simulate Notes client menu tasks, a great many commands do not work in the Web environment. When the database supports JavaScript, however, @Commands like FileSave and FileCloseWindow become active in a Web client. Table 4.3 describes the subset of @Commands that can be used in a Web application. TABLE 4.3
Web @Commands @Command
Description
CalendarFormat
Displays a calendar view with a specified number of days.
CalendarGoTo
Jumps to a specific day in a calendar view.
Compose
Creates a new document using a named form.
EditClear
Deletes the currently open document—be careful!
EditDocument
Toggles a document from Read to Edit mode.
EmptyTrash
Removes documents marked for deletion from the database.
Most of the @Commands that work on the Web are only valid if the database property Use JavaScript When Generating Pages is enabled.
URL Syntax An @Command can be invoked from a URL in a Web client. To do this, the command is formatted differently than when it is used in Click events of buttons or in a Notes client. Compare the two statements below: @Command([OpenPage] ; “HomePage” ) and http://10.0.0.1/winemaster.nsf/HomePage?OpenPage Both of these statements open the page named element entitled HomePage; however, one of them can be used in a URL while the other would be placed in an action button on a form or a view. In the URL syntax, the host name and database precede the command, and the command is formatted as named_element?command. To read this statement, think of the question mark as the command directive; then look at the text following the question mark as the action and the text before the question mark as the named element that will be acted upon.
There are over 400 @Commands in Domino Release 5.0.5. To research an @Command, learn more about what it does, investigate required or optional parameters, refer to the Domino Designer help file.
Conditional (@If) Statements Conditional logic has long been the mainstay of a programmer’s world. You are constantly comparing values and taking an action based on whether the value meets expected criteria. For example, if today is Monday, you might pop up a “Welcome to a New Week!” message on the screen. To do this, you need to test to see if the day is Monday, and then take an action if the test evaluates to True.
Thus, the goal of a conditional statement is to put forward a condition to test, allow for an action to be taken if the condition is true, and provide a default action if the test condition results in a false statement. The @If formula is the Formula Language equivalent of an if-then-else statement in other programming languages. The syntax of the statement is: @If (condition ; action ; default_action) where condition is the test that evaluates to a True or False value (also referred to as a 0 or a 1), action is the task to carry out if the condition evaluated to True, and default_action is the task to execute if the condition evaluated to False.
Where Do You Code @If Statements? @If statements can be coded as field values, input translation events, input validation events, view columns, window titles, and so on. Figure 4.2 shows an example of an @If statement that is coded in a field’s default value event. FIGURE 4.2
An @If example
Reading an If Statement In Figure 4.2, the field on the document named WineColor is being used to determine the value for the ServingTemperature field on the same document. To read this statement to yourself (either silently or out loud!) to derive its complete meaning, it would go like this: If the wine color is red, then set the value of the ServingTemperature field to the string “Serve at room temperature.”, otherwise set the value of the ServingTemperature field to the string “Serve chilled.”.
Condition-Action Pairs The simplest expression of an @If statement contains one condition, one action, and one default action. To test multiple conditions in one statement, you can use up to 99 condition-action pairs in an @If statement The @If statement must always end with a default action. With multiple condition-action pairs in an if statement, when the first true condition is found, the action associated with the condition executes. The statement then ends execution without evaluating any remaining condition-action pairs.
In other programming languages, multiple condition-action pair behavior is coded in a Case or Switch statement.
Figure 4.3 shows an example of multiple condition-action pairs, again using the WineColor and ServingTemperature fields on a document as well as an additional field, WineType. FIGURE 4.3
Condition-action pairs
The logic of what happens when the formula in Figure 4.3 executes is that if the WineColor field contains the value “Red”, the string value “Serve at room temperature.” is returned to the ServingTemperature field, and execution of the statement stops. On the other hand, if the WineColor field contains a value other than “Red”, the condition evaluates to False, and the next condition-action pair in the @If statement is attempted. An additional point to note in the formula presented in Figure 4.3 is the use of the Boolean & (and) operator in the third condition-action pair. The condition can be a simple test or a complex test. In this case, two conditions must be true in order to execute the associated action.
Forcing True or False Conditions When programming @If statements, there may be times when you need to force a condition to evaluate to True or to False. Domino provides four statements that can be used to do this, as shown in Table 4.4. TABLE 4.4
Statements That Force True or False Statement
Description
@False
Evaluates to False, which is also the integer 0
@No
Evaluates to False, which is also the integer 0
@True
Evaluates to True, which is also the integer 1
@Yes
Evaluates to True, which is also the integer 1
Input Validation One of the most common uses of an @If statement is to test values entered by a user during editing to see if valid values were provided. Building a robust application means that you have to add a lot of error checking to protect the integrity of the data being collected. Validating Values in the Notes Client The input validation event on editable fields is provided to test values in a Notes client using two special functions, @Success and @Failure. These two functions are only valid in the input validation event. The @Success formula returns a True value as an action, meaning that whatever condition was tested in the if statement was true and passed validation. The @Failure formula is an example of programming by side effect. It not only returns a False value for the condition, which fails validation; it also pops up a message box window in the Notes client with a text message for the user. Figure 4.4 shows how an input validation event can be coded.
Figure 4.5 shows what the user will see if the document is saved without providing a value in the WineType field. Notice that the message box is presented with one button, the OK button, and a default window title message of “Field Contains Incorrect Value”. When the user clicks the OK button, the cursor is placed in the field that triggered the error condition. FIGURE 4.5
An input validation event message box
Input validation field events fire when a document is saved or refreshed.
Validating Internet Addresses Another type of validation that can be done on data is to verify an Internet mail address typed by a user. The @ValidateInternetAddress in R5 is a special function dedicated to this task. This formula can be used with an @If statement. The syntax for this function is: (@ValidateInternetAddress([KEYWORD]; Address))
where the two possible keywords determine which standard Internet format to use to compare to the provided e-mail address. The keywords and their descriptions are presented in Table 4.5. TABLE 4.5
RFC822 Address Format (e.g., "McCoy, Cate (New York)" )
State Information Coding conditional statements often involves checking the state of a piece of information and taking an action based on the state. If you’re confused by the term “state” used here, consider the example of a light switch in your home. It has two states: on or off. To check the state of something is to determine its current setting. Many functions in Domino return information about the state and environment in which the formula is executing, and these can be used in the condition portion of an if statement. Among the functions that return condition-testable information are:
Boolean functions
Client platform information
User information
Document information
Database information
Boolean Functions Boolean functions are formulas that return a True or False value, or (for those of you more comfortable in the binary world) the value evaluates to a 1 or a 0. Table 4.6 describes the Boolean functions available. Most of the
Is the value in question not a member of the list?
@IsNumber
Is the value in question a number?
@IsResponseDoc
Is the current document a Response document?
@IsText
Is the value in question a text string?
@IsTime
Is the value in question a date/time value?
@IsUnavailable
Is a named field not in the document?
@IsValid
Do all fields on the form successfully pass validation using their input validation events?
Boolean functions are generally used in conjunction with an @If statement, as demonstrated by Figure 4.6. In this example, an input validation formula checks the field’s value to see if the field contains the string “Fucito Family”. FIGURE 4.6
Client Platform Information When a user accesses your application, you can use functions to determine what the environment is and how the user’s client is configured. Table 4.7 presents functions that can be used to detect client platform information. TABLE 4.7
Client Platform Functions Function
Description
@BrowserInfo
Detects information about the client type being used.
@ClientType
Detects whether a Notes client or Web client is being used.
@LanguagePreference
Detects language preference specified by the user.
@Locale
Detects the language name for the language preference.
@Platform
Detects the version of Notes Domino currently being used.
@Zone
Detects the time zone of the current computer.
When coding applications used in the Notes client and the Web client, @ClientType can be a handy function. By determining if the user is using a Web client, you can use an @if statement to take a set of actions that differ from the set of actions taken if the user is using a Notes client. The return value of the @ClientType function is either the string “Notes” or “Web”.
A good time to use the @ClientType function is when choosing a subform to load into a form dynamically at runtime using a formula.
The @BrowserInfo formula contains many keywords as parameters that provide detailed information about the type of client. The valid keywords are shown in Table 4.8. TABLE 4.8
@BrowserInfo Keywords Keyword
Description
BrowserType
Returns a keyword describing the type of browser: "Microsoft", "Netscape", "Compatible", "Unknown"
Cookies
Returns 1 if cookies are supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
DHTML
Returns 1 if DHTML is supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
FileUpload
Returns 1 if file upload is supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
Frames
Returns 1 if frames are supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
Java
Returns 1 if Java applets are supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
JavaScript
Returns 1 if JavaScript is supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
Iframe
Returns 1 if frames are supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
Returns 1 if tables are supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
VBScript
Returns 1 if VBScript is supported in the browser; otherwise returns 0
Version
Returns the version number of the browser; returns -1 if unknown
@BrowserInfo is not valid in view selection formulas.
User Information Every user who logs in to a Domino application, accesses a server, or opens a database has a username and information associated with the user. Domino provides several formulas that retrieve information about the current user and their security privileges in the current application. Table 4.9 describes the functions used to retrieve user information. TABLE 4.9
Retrieving User Information Function
Description
@Name
Retrieves a user’s hierarchical name or a portion of it
@UserAccess
Determines a user’s security access to the current database
@UserName
Retrieves the user’s primary or alternate hierarchical name, where 0 returns the primary and 1 returns the alternate
Retrieves the code that identifies the language preference of the user for their primary and alternate names
@UserNamesList
Retrieves the current user’s name as well as a list of groups and roles the user is a member of for the current database
@UserPrivileges
Returns a text list of privileges associated with the current user
@UserRoles
Returns a text list of the roles containing the current user
The user can be an individual user or a server.
The @Name and @UserName functions are often used together, as shown in the view selection formula example in Figure 4.7. This selection formula is coded to only show documents in the view where the EmployeeName field contains the name of the current user of the database. FIGURE 4.7
@Name and @UserName example
Usernames are based on the user ID that was issued, and a hierarchical username can have many parts. Examine one type of hierarchical name for a user ID: CN=Cate McCoy/OU=Human Resources/O=AlphaPoint/C=US
CN, OU, O, and C are known as component tags that identify the user’s common name, organization unit, organization, and country, respectively. The component labels can include other components, such as G for given name and I for initials. The components available depend on how the user ID was set up when it was created. The @Name function can retrieve all or part of this ID’s name using keyword parameters in the formula. The keywords available are described in Table 4.10. TABLE 4.10
@Name Keywords Keyword
Description
[A]
Returns the administration management domain name.
[Abbreviate]
Returns the user’s name without the component labels.
[Address821]
Formats the name using the RFC821 e-mail address format.
[C]
Returns the country portion of the user ID.
[Canonicalize]
Returns the ID with all component labels.
[CN]
Returns the common name portion of the user ID.
[G]
Returns the first name, or given name, of the user.
[HierarchyOnly]
Returns the user ID without the common name.
[I]
Returns the initials associated with the name.
[LP]
Returns the LocalPart part of an RFC822 Internet address.
Returns the organization unit portion of the user ID. Note that an ID can have up to four organization units, so n is 1, 2, 3, or 4.
[P]
Returns the private management domain name for the ID.
[PHRASE]
Returns the Phrase part of an RFC822 Internet address.
[Q]
Returns the generation portion of an ID (e.g., “Jr.”, “III”).
[S]
Returns the last name, or surname, of the user.
[ToKeyword]
Returns the user ID without the common name in reversed order with backslashes: Country\Organization\ Organization Unit.
Document Information When a document is created and stored, in addition to the fields you coded on a form, Domino stores many internal fields describing key document attributes. These internal fields can be queried to uncover document information. The information available is dependent on whether you are working with an open document or a document that is selected in a view but is unopened. Open Document Properties Internal values associated with a document when it is opened for reading or editing describe properties of the document itself as a stand-alone piece of
Returns the unique Note ID for the document; this value is unique within the database.
@Responses
In Window Title event, shows number of responses to document.
Document Properties in a View When a document is presented in a view, a second set of document properties becomes available. These properties are used in view selection formulas and in view columns, and they often describe document relationships. Table 4.12 describes the functions that are available in views to process documents. TABLE 4.12
Document Properties in a View Function
Description
@AllChildren
Used in a view selection formula to include a document’s children
@AllDescendants
Used in a view selection formula to include a document’s children and any descendant documents of the child documents
@DocChildren
In a column, returns the number of children for the document
@DocDescendants
In a column, returns the number of all descendants of the document
@DocLevel
Returns the hierarchy and position level of the document in view (e.g., 1.1, 1.2)
@DocNumber
Returns the entry number of the current document
@DocParentNumber
Returns the entry number of the current document’s parent
@DocSiblings
Totals the number of entries at the same position level
When @AllChildren and @AllDescendants are used in view selection formulas, they are always placed at the end of the formula and preceded by the pipe symbol ( | ). Figure 4.8 demonstrates this. FIGURE 4.8
View selection criteria
The formula executes from left to right; it takes the set of documents that result from everyone to the left of the vertical bar and then adds the descendants, or children, to that set of documents. Thus in Figure 4.8, all main documents created with the form “formOrder” are selected, and then all Response and Response to Response documents are added to the set of main documents.
Database Information Every Notes application is a Domino database. You can use functions to detect information about the application database at runtime. Table 4.13 shows the functions that retrieve current database information. TABLE 4.13
Database Information Function
Description
@DbExists
Determines if the named database exists
@DbManager
Returns a list of users, servers, and groups with Manager access
@DbName
Returns the server name and operating system filename for the database
Processing Data Many of the functions used in Domino are used to reformat or modify data that was entered during document editing. Data in Notes takes on three basic data types:
Text
Numbers
Date/Time values
Text Data Far and away, the majority of data stored in documents is text data. Several @ functions are available to help improve the integrity of the stored data either as the users enter it or as it is being saved. Table 4.14 presents the bulk of the text processing functions. TABLE 4.14
Text Processing Functions Functions
Descriptions
@DeleteData
Removes stored data from a document
@Left
Returns a specified number of characters from the left
@LeftBack
Searches from right to left for a specified number of characters
@Length
Returns the length of a text string
@Like
Compares one string to another using multiple wildcard matches
@LowerCase
Converts a string to all lowercase
@Matches
Compares one string to another using individual wildcard matches
Numbers Processing numbers requires a solid bench of mathematical functions, and Notes has just that. Table 4.15 shows the set of mathematical functions available. TABLE 4.15
Mathematical functions can operate on a discrete (single) value or on a list of values.
Dates and Times Date/time arithmetic and parsing is a challenging task in many languages. Domino has a suite of functions that make dealing with this type of data straightforward. The Date/Time field type stores its data value as 64K float numbers that can be manipulated with @ functions. Table 4.16 shows the functions available for managing date/time data. TABLE 4.16
Returns the date portion of today’s date/time stamp
@Tomorrow
Returns the date portion of tomorrow’s date/time stamp
@Weekday
Returns an integer denoting the weekday of the date
@Year
Retrieves the year portion of a date
@Yesterday
Returns the date portion of yesterday’s date/time stamp
Today, Yesterday, and Tomorrow are also reserved keywords that evaluate to the same values as @Today, @Yesterday, and @Tomorrow, respectively.
Date Formulas Some care needs to be taken when using formulas like @Today and @Now that evaluate to different values depending on when they execute. Consider the case of placing the @Today formula in the Value event of a computed text field. Each time the document is opened in Edit mode, the formula is recalculated. This type of behavior can be a major performance hit, especially when used in a view selection formula, since each document recalculates as the view is opening. This might be fine for views with 100 documents, but when the view has 10,000 documents, the views are very slow to open. In general, avoid using formulas in view columns or selection criteria where the formula constantly recalculates itself.
Date Arithmetic The @Adjust function is the workhorse that performs date and time arithmetic. For instance, if you want to calculate the date two years, seven months, four days, and one hour from right now, the following @Adjust function will do it: @Adjust(@Now ; 2 ; 7 ; 4 ; 1 ; 0 ; 0 ) The seven parameters to the @Adjust function represent the date/time stamp to be adjusted and then six placeholders for year, month, day, hour, minutes, and seconds to be adjusted. Positive numbers add to the date while negative numbers subtract from the date.
Errors with Data Types Formula Language doesn’t require you to declare the data type of a variable when you use it. That means that the language itself is doing implicit conversions where possible to carry out concatenation and math functions on data. If you try to combine two data types that can’t be implicitly converted by Notes, you will see an error message. The possible error messages include:
Incorrect data type for operator or @Function: Text expected
Incorrect data type for operator or @Function: Number expected
Incorrect data type for operator or @Function: Time/Date expected
The formula either has an incorrect data type for one of the variables involved or the operator is invalid for the type of data. The field that generated the error is generally identified in the error message, as well.
Managing Lists A list in Notes contains multiple values separated by a distinct character. The data in a list can be of any data type. Many pieces of data in Notes are stored internally as lists, including internal fields like @Author and @DocFields. The example below uses the @DocFields function, which returns a list of all the fields in a document: FIELD AllTheFields := @DocFields
This statement creates a new field on the document called AllTheFields and stores in the field the names of all the fields in the document. If there were 25 fields on the document where this formula ran, AllTheFields would contain 25 elements of data.
The first element in a list is known as element 1, meaning lists are indexed from the number 1.
List Separator Characters A list in Notes contains multiple data items, or elements. A special character separates each element in the list. In some cases, the character will be a colon, while in others it will be a semicolon. It is valuable to understand which character is used at which point in time. Generated by Notes In the example above, AllTheFields contains a list formatted as elements separated by semicolons. Typical contents would be similar to those shown below. ProdCode ; WineType ; WineColor ; WineRegion Like the result of @DocFields, the separator character for list data generated by Notes is the semicolon. Generated at Runtime by a Formula The separator character differs when you, as a programmer, create a list using a formula. In this case, the list separator is a colon. For example, the following formula creates a new field on the document and populates it with a list that contains three elements: FIELD GlassTypes := “Fluted” : “Goblet” : “Cordial” Generated at Form Creation To muddy the waters just a bit more, if you add a field to a form and mark it to allow multiple values, you can choose the list separator. Figure 4.9 shows the area in the field’s Properties box where this is set.
To know your list separators, be aware of how the list was created.
Processing List Data Domino provides a set of functions to manage lists, turn strings into lists, turn lists into strings, pull elements out of a list, and more. Table 4.17 presents the list functions available. TABLE 4.17
List Functions Function
Description
@Elements
Returns the number of elements in a list
@Explode
Converts a text string into a list
@Implode
Converts a list into a text string
@IsMember
Returns a 1 or a 0 if an item is a member of a list
@IsNotMember
Returns a 1 or a 0 if an item is not a member of a list
@Keywords
Compares two lists and returns the values found in both lists
@Member
Returns the position of an item in a list (elements count up from 1)
User and Database Interactions One of the key points about programming an interactive application is that users often provide information dynamically through the use of dialog boxes. These dialog boxes are generally modal, meaning they pop up and won’t go away until the user clicks a button. To program this type of interaction in a Notes client, several formulas come in handy.
Prompting the User for Input The @Prompt formula can do something as simple as popping up a message box with an OK button or something as complex as taking input from a user based on a list of coded choices. How @Prompt behaves is entirely dependent on its button keyword choices. @Prompt Keywords The button keyword is the first parameter of the @Prompt, and it determines how many buttons are displayed, which buttons they are, and whether user input is required. Table 4.18 summarizes the valid options for the button keyword and describes the behavior created by the keyword choice. TABLE 4.18
@Prompt Button Keywords Keyword
Description
[LocalBrowse]
Displays a text message, a browse button, an input field to search for an operating system file, and OK and CANCEL buttons
Displays a text message, a list of choices in a dropdown box, and OK and CANCEL buttons
[OkCancelEdit]
Displays a text message, a user input box, and OK and CANCEL buttons
[OkCancelEditCombo]
Displays a text message, a list of choices in a dropdown box, and OK and CANCEL buttons, and allows users to add choices
[OkCancelList]
Displays a text message, a list of choices, and OK and CANCEL buttons
[OkCancelListMult]
Displays a text message, a list of choices, and OK and CANCEL buttons, and allows users to choose more than one selection from the choice list
[Password]
Displays a text message, a user input box, and OK and CANCEL buttons, and user input is masked with asterisks as it is typed
[YesNo]
Displays a text message with YES and NO buttons
[YesNoCancel]
Displays a text message with YES, NO, and CANCEL buttons
Selecting Data from a List Two formulas in Notes are used to present choices to a user based on data stored in documents: @Picklist and @DbColumn. One use of these formulas would be if you wanted to have users choose a product to sell from your company’s product list. The product list changes over time, so it’s a good idea to keep this type of data in a document so that users are able to maintain their own data. If they maintain the data, then presenting choices to them using formulas becomes a self-maintaining task.
@Picklist and @DbColumn do the same job, so it’s useful to point out the features of both that might influence which one you use in a given situation.
@Picklist
Provides fastest possible list of values in a view
Retrieves a column value from the view based on the row selected
Has no limit on the amount of data retrieved from a source view
Retrieves information each time the formula runs
Shows the entire view in a scrollable dialog box
Supports the “Starts with…” type-ahead on first-column sorted views
@DbColumn
Retrieves a specific column based on field name or column number
Retrieves a column value or any field in the document
Limits the amount of data retrieved from a source view to 64KB
Can cache information for multiple lookups
Shows one column from the specified view in a dialog box
@Picklist and @DbColumn Keywords As you’ve noticed with other functions, a keyword can determine how a formula works as well as the value that the function returns. @Picklist has a keyword that determines whether the list presented to the user will come from a custom view created by a programmer or from the Domino Directory or a database’s Access Control List. @DbColumn has a keyword parameter that controls from where Notes retrieves the column of values: a Notes data source or an ODBC data source. The default is Notes, while ODBC allows your application to read data from an external relational data source.
Looking Up a Data Item Have you used a phone book recently to look up someone’s phone number? If so, then the concept of looking up a data item should be a familiar one. The @DbLookup formula is often used in a Notes field to search for a data item and populate the field with the search result.
The way a lookup works is that you provide a search key, which is used to find a piece of data that corresponds with the key. In the phone book example, the key you provide is a last name, and the piece of data you hope to find that corresponds to that key is the person’s phone number. Here’s an example of how the @DbLookup formula can be coded in a field’s value to look up an associated value: @DbLookup("Notes":"NoCache";@DbName;"CountryInfo";CtryCode ;"CtryName") In this example, a lookup is done from the current document into a view named CountryInfo in the current database. The name of the current database was calculated using the @DbName formula. The @DbLookup statement passes in the value of the field CtryCode as a parameter to the view, and when a document is located in the view that contains a matching CtryCode, the value of whatever is stored in the “CtryName” field is returned. @DbLookup Keywords In the same way that @DbColumn can retrieve values from an ODBC data source, @DbLookup can retrieve ODBC values as well. To do this, the “Notes” keyword parameter is replaced with ODBC. The ODBC keyword allows Notes to look up data values in Read mode from an external relational data source.
Release 5.0.5 @ Functions You’ve now taken a look at the most often used functions in Formula Language. To summarize and complete your knowledge of Formula Language, the complete list of @ functions available in Domino as of Release 5.0.5 is presented in Table 4.19. That list is followed by a discussion of the functions that are new in R5 and of those that are not supported in the Web browser. TABLE 4.19
Release 5.0.5 @ Functions Function
Brief Description
@Abs
Calculates absolute value.
@Abstract
Condenses the contents of a field.
@Accessed
Returns the date and time when the document was last read or edited.
Functions New in Release 5 New functions and features are added to each new release of the evolving Notes product. For example, several functions, such as the @Name function examined earlier, received new keyword parameters that enhanced its functionality. The following functions, which are described in Table 4.19, are new in Release 5 of Domino. @AddToFolder
@LanguagePreference
@SetTargetFrame
@BrowserInfo
@LaunchApp
@UndeleteDocument
@FontList
@Locale
@UserNameLa
@FormLanguage
@NameLookup
@UserNamesList
@HardDeleteDocument
@Narrow
@ValidateInternetAddress
@IsAppInstalled
@PasswordQuality
@Wide
These new aspects to the product are tested on the Lotus certification exams.
Functions Not Supported by Web Browsers While a majority of @ functions can be invoked from a Web browser, some cannot. As a general rule, consider that functions that deal with Domino security and those that open dialog windows in a Notes client do not translate to the Web. Below is a list of functions that are not available in a Web client. @Certificate
ormula Language is a core component of Domino programming. Its simpler syntax makes it a good choice for beginning programmers. As precompiled code units, Formula Language statements generally execute faster and complete a task in a minimum number of code lines. In addition, there are many places in Designer where Formula Language is the only valid programming choice. Formula Language comprises @Commands and @ functions, and this chapter has given you a foundation in how to read and code formula statements as well as exposed the power they bring to an application. In addition, examples of syntax were presented, and features new in R5 were highlighted.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: @If @Command temporary variables field variables URL syntax
Review Questions 1. Abbie designed a frameset that she plans to have users open with an
@Command. Where can this kind of @Command be used? A. Action button B. Field default value formula C. URL D. View selection formula 2. Boris will be coding a formula to open a document, put the document
into Edit mode, refresh the fields on the document, print the document, save the document, and then close the document. This involves several @Commands. Which of the commands will execute last, regardless of where it’s placed in the combination of formulas? A. FileSave B. FileCloseWindow C. EditDocument D. FilePrint 3. Charlotte is using an Author field named DocAuthors that has the
value “CN=Cate McCoy/OU=HR/O=AlphaPoint/C=US”. If she codes an input translation event using @Name([CN]; DocAuthors), what value will be stored in the DocAuthors field? A. Cate B. McCoy C. Cate McCoy D. CN=Cate McCoy
4. Daniel has a button on the MY DOCUMENTS folder labeled “Add
Document To PROJECTS Folder”, which moves the current document out of the current folder and into the PROJECTS folder. Which of the following functions is likely to have been coded to create this behavior? A. @AddToFolder(“PROJECTS” ; “MY DOCUMENTS”) B. @AddToFolder(PROJECTS ; MY DOCUMENTS) C. @AddToFolder(PROJECTS) D. @AddToFolder(CURRENT) 5. Elisabeth has coded two enrollment subforms: one for use from a Web
client and one for internal Notes users. The subforms are named EnrollWeb and EnrollNotes, respectively. Which of the following formulas will include the appropriate subform at runtime? A. @If(@ClientType = “Notes” ; “EnrollWeb” ; “EnrollNotes” ) B. @If(@ClientType = “Notes” ; “EnrollNotes” ; “EnrollWeb” ) C. @If(@Browser
= “Notes” ; “EnrollWeb” ; “EnrollNotes” )
D. @If(@Browser
= “Notes” ; “EnrollNotes” ; “EnrollWeb” )
6. Floyd wants to remove leading, trailing, and redundant blanks from
user text input before it is stored in the database. Which of the following functions should he use in the input translation event? A. @Trim B. @LeftTrim C. @RightTrim D. @AllTrim 7. Georgeann wants a formula that will calculate the date two weeks
from today. Which of the following will do this for her? A. @Adjust(@Today;0;0;2;0;0;0) B. @CalendarFormat(14) C. @CalendarFormat(2) D. @Adjust(@Today;0;0;14;0;0;0)
8. Homer wants to retrieve the first word in the WineDescription field.
Which of the following formulas will NOT do this? A. @Word(WineDescription; 1; “ “) B. @Left(WineDescription; “ “) C. @Middle(WineDescription; 1; “ “) D. @Right(WineDescription; “ “) 9. Isabella wants to add a new field called DueDate with a value of
tomorrow’s date to all existing project documents. Which of the following formulas will help with this task? A. FIELD DueDate := @Tomorrow B. DueDate = @Adjust(@Now; 0; 0; 1; 0 ; 0 ; 0) C. DueDate := Tomorrow; D. FIELD DueDate := @Adjust(@Now; 0; 0; @Tomorrow; 0 ; 0 ; 0) 10. Jared enabled the database property for soft deletion in his database
and set an expiry time of 48 hours. He wants to code a button that will retrieve deleted documents prior to the expiry time. Which formula will do this? A. @DeleteData B. @HardDeleteDocument C. @DeleteDocument D. @UndeleteDocument 11. Kristen wants to make sure all the Reseller names in her application
are stored in uppercase. Which event and formula should she use? A. @ProperCase in the input translation event B. @ProperCase in the input validation event C. @UpperCase in the input translation event D. @Upper in the input validation event
12. Lenny wants to use the @BrowserInfo function to determine informa-
tion about the client using his application. In which of the following formula areas will this function not return meaningful data? A. View selection B. Button C. Field D. Window title 13. Millicent’s formula is trying to add a text string to a number and store
it back in a number field. Which of the following error messages might this generate? A. Error! B. Incorrect data type for operator or @Function: Date expected C. Incorrect data type for operator D. Incorrect data type for operator or @Function: Number expected 14. Nickolas wants to check the e-mail address being collected as the data
input staff adds new contact records to the contact management system. Which of the following techniques can he use to do this? A. Input translation event with the @ValidateInternetAddress
formula B. Input validation event with the @ValidateInternetAddress formula C. View selection formula with the @ValidateInternetAddress
formula D. View form formula with the @ValidateInternetAddress formula 15. Olive needs to use the correct keyword to add a new value to a docu-
ment. Which one of the following will help her? A. FIELD B. REM C. DEFAULT D. SELECT
16. Pablo has multiple functions combined in a field’s default value event.
Which of the following must be used to separate the functions? A. Colon B. Semicolon C. Comma D. Carriage return 17. Quianna is passing multiple parameters to a single function. What
separator character does she need to use between the parameters? A. Colon B. Semicolon C. Comma D. Carriage return 18. Rick is creating a temporary variable that contains a list of five elements.
What separator character does he need to use between list elements? A. Colon B. Semicolon C. Comma D. Carriage return 19. Sally wants to call an agent from a formula. Which of the following
will let her do this? A. @OpenAgent B. @Command([ToolsRunMacro]) C. @ToolsRunMacro D. @Command([OpenAgent])
20. Thurman is using the URL http://10.0.0.1/winemaster.nsf/
HomePage?OpenPage. Which of the following is equivalent to this URL behavior? A. @Command([OpenPage] ; HomePage ) B. @Open(“HomePage”) C. @Command([OpenPage] ; “HomePage” ) D. @OpenPage(“HomePage” ) 21. Uma is using the function @Command([EditClear]) in a Web application.
What effect will this have? A. Clears all input fields of any values. B. Clears all input fields of any non-default values. C. Deletes the currently open document. D. None; this command doesn’t work in the Web client. 22. Virgil goes by the name Chip at work. The Domino system administrator
has set up his user ID in a way that allows him to use his nickname. Which @UserName formula can be used in Domino to allow Chip to use his nickname in e-mails? A. @UserName(0) B. @UserName(1) C. @UserName(Primary) D. @UserName(Alternate) 23. Whitney wants the Product Profile form to open in a specific frame
when a button is clicked. Which formula can she use to do this? A. @SetFrame B. @SetTargetFrame C. @Command([OpenFrame]) D. @OpenFrame
24. Xuan wants the window title of the Product Profile document to show
how many Response documents are associated with the current parent Product Profile. Which formula will do this? A. @Responses B. @AllResponses C. @Children D. @AllChildren 25. Yulanda wants the information in a user’s ID name to display in a
view column but does not want the actual user’s name to appear. Which of the following keyword parameters, when used with the @Name function, will do this? A. [Address821] B. [CN] C. [Canonicalize] D. [HierarchyOnly] 26. Zachery’s Web input form is collecting a user’s e-mail address in the
editable field UserEmail. When the data is saved on the Domino server, he’d like to check to see if the e-mail address is valid. Which of the following techniques will help him do this? A. An input validation event for the UserEmail field using
@ValidateInternetAddress B. An input translation event for the UserEmail field using
@ValidateInternetAddress C. A default value event for the UserEmail field using
@ValidateInternetAddress D. A JavaScript onBlur event for the UserEmail field using
Answers to Review Questions 1. A. An action button can be used to open named elements; the command
would be invalid when used in a field’s default value, a Web client’s URL, or a view selection formula. 2. B. When the FileCloseWindow command is used in combination
with other commands, it will always execute last, overriding the default of left-to-right execution of formulas. 3. C. Using the CN, or common name, keyword on the @Name function
suppresses the component label and returns just the common name. The common name consists of the first and last name of the user. 4. A. The @AddToFolder function moves documents from the second folder
into the first folder, removing it from the second folder altogether. 5. B. The @ClientType function returns either “Notes” or “Web”. If the
condition of the @If is true, the action fires. In this case, if the ClientType is Notes, then the EnrollNotes subform is used. 6. A. The @Trim function removes leading, trailing, and redundant
blanks from a text string. 7. D. The seven parameters to the @Adjust function represent the date/
time stamp to be adjusted and then six placeholders for year, month, day, hour, minutes, and seconds to be adjusted. Positive numbers add to the date while negative numbers subtract from the date; in this example, 14 days are added to today’s date. 8. D. @Right searches from the end of the string and moves forward
to the beginning, so this formula would return the last word in the WineDescription field using the space as the separator character. 9. A. The keyword FIELD is used to create a new field or update the value
of an existing field. The Formula Language assignment symbol is :=, not just =. @Tomorrow cannot be used as a parameter to the @Adjust formula in the position placeholders.
10. D. The @UndeleteDocument formula works in a database where soft
deletions have been enabled. This formula recovers documents marked for deletion by a user before the expiry time is reached. 11. C. The input translation event fires as a document is saved, converting
whatever the user entered into a new format. The @UpperCase formula converts data to uppercase. 12. A. @BrowserInfo can’t be used in a view selection formula. 13. D. When data types or operators are combined incorrectly, Notes will try
to tell you what data type it was expecting. In this case, the field the data is being stored in is a number field, so the error message will identify this as the expected data type. 14. B. The @ValidateInternetAddress formula can be used in an input
validation event together with @Success and @Failure to test whether an e-mail address matches popular Internet mail standards. 15. A. The FIELD keyword is used to assign a new value to an existing
field on a document or create a new field on the document. 16. B. Multiple functions are combined with a semicolon separating
them. 17. B. If a formula allows more than one optional argument, the arguments
are separated with semicolons. 18. A. When a programmer creates a list in code, the list separator character
is a colon. 19. B. The @Command([ToolsRunMacro]) invokes a named agent. 20. C. The URL syntax calls out the command name after the question
mark and the named element name before the question mark, so the correct format for an @Command is answer C. 21. C. The EditClear command deletes the currently open document, so
22. B. The 1 is an index into the options for the @UserName function. 0
designates the primary name while 1 designates the alternate name. 23. B. The @SetTargetFrame function specifies the name of the frame to
use to display an object. 24. A. The @Responses is valid in a Window Title event ONLY and
returns a count of how many Response documents are associated with the parent document. 25. D. The HierarchyOnly tag will suppress the common name from the
hierarchical username and will show only the remaining information like OU, O, and C. 26. A. @ValidateInternetAddress can be used in the input validation
event combined with the @Success and @Failure functions to produce an error or pass the validation. JavaScript events do not allow @ functions to be coded.
Server and Database Security LOTUS EXAM COMPETENCIES COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER Calendaring and Scheduling Database Access: ACL changes Database Access: Roles Databases: Access Control List Databases: Groups Databases: Roles Determine Notes security levels: database level Determine Notes security levels: server level
he database is the outermost container of an application, holding all the design and data components inside. This outer shell and the server it resides on are the first line of defense for application security. In this chapter, you’ll examine the security components that can be applied to the server and the databases that reside on a server. In addition, calendaring and scheduling security will be examined as a database issue.
Server Security
T
he server has two levels of protection it can offer to Domino: hardware and software.
Hardware Security The typical server craves a cold, dark, lonely room, which is okay since we don’t expect a server to excel at relationship skills. The biggest threat to server security comes from malicious human contact. The following tips can help reduce the risk of physical security breaches:
Locate the server in a room in a low-traffic area.
Secure the server room with a locked door.
Air-condition the room to discourage human presence and to keep the physical hardware from operating in an overheated situation.
Remove the monitor from the Domino server and administer the server remotely.
Software Security With the hardware side of the server under control, the next level of security issues for a server is the software side. Accessing a Domino server from a Web client may involve a firewall and definitely requires appropriate privileges in the Domino Directory.
Firewalls Whenever Domino is used as a Web server, the issue of protecting the internal information is a real concern. Most companies place a software firewall between the private Domino server and the public Internet. A firewall is a software configuration that controls access between two networks. Firewalls generally prevent access to servers behind the firewall by blocking access to most TCP/IP ports, opening up selected ports for certain types of communication traffic. A Domino server communicates using one TCP/IP address with the clients accessing it on one of two ports: port 80 or port 1352. For Notes-only traffic (server-to-server and server-to-client), Domino transmits information using the Notes Remote Procedure Call (NRPC) on port 1352. For Internet and intranet traffic, Domino uses the HTTP communications protocol, which defaults to port 80. If the firewall blocks ports 80 and 1352, the outside world cannot access closed ports on the Domino server using either a Web browser or a Notes client.
Domino Directory Configuration The system administrator can configure several settings in the server document of the Domino Directory that will affect the security provided by the server. Of particular interest are server settings for HTTP access and agent capabilities. HTTP Access For access from Internets and intranets, the following settings modify server access: Allow Anonymous HTTP Connections If the option is set to Yes, users do not need to log in unless the database they are accessing prevents Anonymous access. If this option is set to No, users are required to log in when they access any database on the Domino server.
Allow Anonymous Notes Connections If the option is set to Yes, users can use the http://ServerName/?OpenServer command to display a list of databases on the server. If any database allows Anonymous access, an unauthenticated user can open it. If this option is set to No, users must authenticate to access a database and the ?OpenServer command does not work. Server-Based Agents Running agents on a server requires special privileges that are configured in the Agent Restrictions area of the Domino Directory. Three privileges can be granted through the use of these fields in the server document: Run personal agents To restrict who can run personal agents, individual usernames and group names can be added to this field. If the field is left blank, all users and groups can run personal agents. Run restricted LotusScript/Java agents Restricted agents are agents that have restricted access to the Domino server and to the server’s operating system. To specify who can run restricted agents, individual usernames and group names can be added to this field. If the field is left blank, all users and groups are denied the ability to run restricted agents. Run unrestricted LotusScript/Java agents Unrestricted agents are agents that have unrestricted access to the Domino server and to the server’s operating system. To specify who can run unrestricted agents, individual usernames and group names can be added to this field. If the field is left blank, all users and groups are denied the ability to run unrestricted agents.
Password Quality The decryption strength required for a Notes password is determined when a system administrator creates a user ID. The levels are described in terms of a number that describes the relative strength from weak to strong, where the longer the password is, the stronger it is. Typically, sensitive IDs, like the cert.id, are protected with a password quality of 16, while user IDs use a lower strength. Tips for increasing the strength of a password include using mixed-case words; combinations of letters, numbers, and punctuation; and a sentence or
phrase instead of a single word. The phase is often referred to as a passphrase. Table 5.1 lists the password-quality scale. TABLE 5.1
Password-Quality Scale
Numeric Quality
Meaning
0
Password is not required and is optional.
1
Any password, regardless of complexity, is valid.
2–6
Weak password using only letters.
7–12
Strong password requiring letters and numbers.
13–16
Complex password.
Passwords are case sensitive, and the maximum length allowed is 63 characters.
When the server is adequately protected, the next level of concern is database security. Having access to the Domino server does not guarantee you access to a database. Let’s look at the issue of database security next.
Database Security
D
o you remember the last time you parked your car in a parking garage that required you to leave the key in the car? Did you leave the normal key for the attendant or the valet key? The concept behind the valet key is that it limits access to the ignition of the car, blocking access to the trunk and glove box. Different types of people are given different types of keys. The concept of different types of keys and different levels of trust for different users is implemented in every Domino database using three mechanisms:
Access Control List The Access Control List, or ACL, is a list of users, groups, and servers defined in the Domino Directory who are granted or denied privileges to the database. The term access control level, also ACL, is often used to describe a user’s privilege to a database.
An ACL can contain individual usernames, database Replica IDs, server names, groups, and hierarchical names with a wildcard character.
Privilege Levels Seven privilege levels can be associated with a user, server, or group in a database’s ACL. Table 5.2 describes the seven levels. TABLE 5.2
Access Control List Privilege Levels
Level
Description
No Access
No authority to access a database
Depositor
Ability to create and save new documents
Reader
Ability to read content and navigate an application through hot links
Author
Reader privileges plus the ability to modify documents you created
Editor
Author privileges plus the ability to modify documents created by other users
Designer
Editor privileges plus the ability to make programming design changes
Manager
Designer privileges plus the ability to delete databases, change ACL security settings, and modify replication settings
Each user or group is associated with one of the privilege levels. To make the association, a name in the ACL is highlighted and an access level selected using the drop-down list at the top-right corner. This is depicted in Figure 5.1. FIGURE 5.1
Access Control List
Replicating Privilege Levels For a privilege level to replicate from one server to another, the server must be listed in the ACL with Manager access. If the server is not listed in the ACL, ACL changes will not replicate. If any access lower than Manager is used for a server involved in replication, the ACL changes do not replicate.
The ACL on Local versus Server As you can see from the ACL discussion so far, the Domino Directory is intricately involved in database security. An issue exists, however, which is that the Domino Directory is located on a Domino server and, therefore, provides the best security coverage specifically for server-based databases. For databases stored locally, a user’s access defaults to Manager since they have complete control over their local machine. This lack of server-security enforcement at the local level can lead to confusion when database replicas are involved. One would hope that changes
made locally would replicate to the server, but this is not necessarily the case. Imagine the situation where you replicated the Domino Directory itself locally, then deleted all the Person documents from it. Would you want those changes to replicate? No, definitely not! However, since you have Manager access to any database you create, you are certainly able to delete the documents from the local replica of the Domino Directory. They would not, however, replicate. To prevent users from going down the garden path of thinking they were able to do something like this at the local level, a special advanced database security option can be enabled. The advanced option provides the ability to enforce a consistent access control, and it is located in the Advanced area of a database’s ACL as shown in Figure 5.2. FIGURE 5.2
Consistent access control
With this option enabled, the database will enforce the ACL at the local level rather than allowing Manager access to it.
Additional ACL Permissions Once a user is granted one of the seven basic access privileges, several additional permissions can be applied within the privilege level to fine-tune what the user can do in the database. The additional permissions are as follows:
Ability to create documents
Ability to delete documents
Ability to create personal agents
Ability to create personal folders/views
Ability to create shared folders/views
Ability to create LotusScript/Java agents
Ability to read public access documents
Ability to write public access documents
Each access level is given a combination of the additional permissions automatically. Some of the additional permissions can be enabled or disabled depending on the access control privilege assigned. Table 5.3 describes the access privilege and its associated optional permissions. If not listed as an
Ability to create documents Ability to delete documents Ability to create personal agents Ability to create personal folders/views Ability to create shared folders/views Ability to create LotusScript/Java agents Ability to read public access documents Ability to write public access documents
Ability to create documents Ability to delete documents Ability to create personal agents Ability to create personal folders/views Ability to create shared folders/views Ability to create LotusScript/Java agents Ability to read public access documents Ability to write public access documents
Ability to create documents Ability to delete documents Ability to create personal agents Ability to create personal folders/views Ability to create shared folders/views Ability to create LotusScript/Java agents Ability to read public access documents Ability to write public access documents
Ability to create documents Ability to delete documents Ability to create personal agents Ability to create personal folders/views Ability to create shared folders/views Ability to create LotusScript/Java agents Ability to read public access documents Ability to write public access documents
Ability to create documents Ability to delete documents Ability to create personal agents Ability to create personal folders/views Ability to create shared folders/views Ability to create LotusScript/Java agents Ability to read public access documents Ability to write public access documents
Ability to create documents Ability to delete documents Ability to create personal agents Ability to create personal folders/views Ability to create shared folders/views Ability to create LotusScript/Java agents Ability to read public access documents Ability to write public access documents
Ability to create documents Ability to delete documents Ability to create personal agents Ability to create personal folders/views Ability to create shared folders/views Ability to create LotusScript/Java agents Ability to read public access documents Ability to write public access documents
If a user has been denied the ability to create personal views, a view can still be created; however, it will be stored in the DESKTOP5.DSK file and not the NSF.
Groups Groups accessible to all users are created in the Domino Directory and, therefore, are usable across an entire server and a domain of servers. Generally, a system administrator creates and maintains a group. A power user may also co-own a group and have author rights to it to maintain the users within the group.
Determining a User’s Access Level Are you confused about which privilege level Domino grants if there are conflicting entries? The flowchart shown in Figure 5.3 and the description here should help! FIGURE 5.3
Determining access level
Is the username explicitly listed in the Access Control List?
Yes
Apply the specific privilege level associated with the username.
Yes
Apply the highest privilege level of all groups in which the user is a member.
No
Does the user belong to one of the groups listed in the Access Control List?
No Is this a Web user?
Yes
Apply the privilege level associated with the Anonymous Access Control List entry.
No Apply the privilege level associated with the -Default- Access Control List entry.
Is the username explicitly listed in the Access Control List? If a username is listed in the ACL, the access privilege associated with the user’s username is the access they receive. Does the user belong to one of the groups listed in the Access Control List? If a username is not explicitly listed in the ACL, Domino will check to see if the user is a member of any of the groups listed in the ACL. If the user is a member of one or more groups, Domino assigns the user the access rights of the highest group. Is this a Web user? If this is a Web user and they have not authenticated with the server (logged into the server), then Domino looks for a special entry in the ACL called Anonymous. An unauthenticated user is added to a special group called Anonymous. This entry is not mandatory in a database and is only used by Web users. If the Anonymous entry does not occur in the ACL, then the access specified for the -Default- entry will be used. If all else fails. If you get to this point without any matches, then the user will be granted the access that has been assigned to the -Defaultentry, which appears in the database.
If a user is listed in a group that is assigned the No Access privilege level, the user is prevented from accessing the database regardless of the high privilege level in other groups.
Roles Roles are a powerful design feature that designers can use to provide special functionality for users. Unlike groups, which are created in the Domino Directory at the server level, roles are created at the database level. This makes roles a very flexible design feature for programmers since they don’t have to get the system administrator involved for the creation and management of roles. There are three steps to working with roles: 1. Create the role in the database ACL. 2. Assign users to the role in the database ACL. 3. Use the role in design elements and code for added security.
Creating Roles To create a role, the Roles area of a database’s ACL is used, as shown in Figure 5.4. FIGURE 5.4
Creating roles
Role names can be up to 15 characters long and will be automatically surrounded by square brackets in a database.
The use of roles can be a time-saver because it is easier to work with a collection of users than to add and delete individual users in the ACL and in the code in your application.
Replication and Roles Servers can only replicate data they can read, so roles can affect whether data replicates. If a role is used to limit access to information in a database, the role should contain the server name in all cases so that the data can still be replicated.
In addition to the security offered to a database through the ACL, databases can be encrypted by a user for further protection. To encrypt a database, a user must have Manager access. A database can be encrypted using the Encryption Settings button shown in the database properties, as shown in Figure 5.5. FIGURE 5.5
Encryption Settings button
The database encryption schema is based on dual keys: a public key and a private key. A database is encrypted with a user’s public key. To decrypt a database, the private key in a user’s ID file is used. Local databases can be encrypted using one of three strengths: strong, medium, and simple. The difference between the strengths is security protection, access speed, and data compression abilities. Table 5.4 describes the strength of the keys and Figure 5.6 shows where the strength can be set. TABLE 5.4
Encryption Strengths Strength
Description
Strong
Data is protected at the maximum level, which in turn slows down data access; data is not compressed.
Data is protected at a medium level, which offers faster data access than strong encryption but slower access than simple encryption; data is not compressed.
Simple
Data is protected at a minimum level, which speeds data access and allows data to be compressed.
Encryption Strength setting
When a new copy or a new replica of a database is created, database encryption is not carried forward. You do, however, need to be the user who encrypted the database to make the replica or new copy.
Secure Socket Layer When a database developer enables the database property to use Secure Socket Layers (SSL), data that is transmitted between a Domino server and a Web browser is encrypted. The system administrator must configure the server to allow SSL traffic for the SSL database option to function properly. Figure 5.7 shows the SSL option enabled for a database.
You must have Manager access to enable the SSL setting.
Calendaring and Scheduling
Another database security issue is calendaring and scheduling. The calendar can be used to record meetings, appointments, To Do tasks, and other time-related activities. Since the Domino calendar is stored in a user’s mail database, security mechanisms are needed to allow users to grant individual access to their calendars. This security mechanism is the Calendar Profile. For calendaring and scheduling to work correctly, a user must configure the following information:
Mail file owner
Delegation profiles
Both types of information are set using the Preferences option on the Tools action button. Both the Mail and Calendar areas contain the Tools action button, and both are shown in Figures 5.8 and 5.9. FIGURE 5.8
Mail File Owner When you set up the Notes client for the first time, it will automatically add your username and hierarchical certificate information as the owner of the mail file. Figure 5.10 shows this setting. FIGURE 5.10
Mail file owner
Domino uses the information in this field to determine if you are sending a mail message from your mail file or if someone else is sending mail on your behalf. The information in this field appears in the From: field of a mail memo that is sent from your user ID.
If one user takes over the job and mail file of another user, the information in this field needs to be manually changed by the user.
Delegation Profiles Delegation profiles in a mail database allow a user other than the mail file owner to manage mail activities and the calendar. Two types of delegation profiles can be configured:
Mail Delegation Users can delegate privileges on their mail, To Do tasks, and calendars at four levels:
Read Mail, Calendar And To Do Documents
Read Mail, Calendar And To Do documents, And Send Mail On My Behalf
Read, Send And Edit Any Mail, Calendar And To Do Document
Delete Mail, Calendar And To Do Documents
Each of these privilege levels can be granted to one or more users through the Mail Delegation tab of the Preferences dialog, shown in Figure 5.11. FIGURE 5.11
Mail Delegation
By selecting the down arrow for each entry, you can select Names, Groups, or Servers from the Domino Directory. These sections are described below. Read Mail, Calendar And To Do Documents This option allows delegates to read mail, calendar entries, and To Do documents and is the basic privilege level granted.
Read Mail, Calendar And To Do Documents, And Send Mail On My Behalf This provides the same functionality as the basic privilege level above, but these delegates can additionally send mail as if they were the owner of the mail database. Mail sent by delegates still states that it is from you, but in the header of the document an additional field titled “Sent By” indicates the name of the delegate actually sending the mail. Read, Send And Edit Any Mail, Calendar And To Do Document This access level gives the same privileges as the basic privilege level above, but with the additional ability to edit any document in the mail database. Delete Mail, Calendar And To Do Documents This access level grants delegates the same rights as the basic privilege level above and adds the ability to delete mail.
Calendar Delegation The Calendar Delegation tab controls who can read or edit the calendar. The two control sections determine Read access or Author and Editor access, as shown in Figure 5.12. FIGURE 5.12
Calendar Delegation
For both types of access, you are given the option to allow anyone to read or create/edit calendar entries, or to select specific users. Radio buttons toggle between these settings, and the down arrow is used to select users from the Domino Directory as needed.
In most cases it is a very good idea to give all users the ability to read your calendar. This will allow the Domino server to track your busy time in a global database called BusyTime.nsf. The BusyTime database stores calendar information for all users that have made their calendars available. Domino uses this database to help schedule meetings based on user availability.
Group Calendars You can add a group calendar to a form in a Notes application using the menu options Create Embedded Element Group Scheduler. The group calendar displays the individual calendars of several users side by side in a condensed format as shown in Figure 5.13. FIGURE 5.13
Embedded Group Scheduler
For a group calendar to include individual calendars, each individual involved in the group calendar must allow other users to read their calendar by configuring the calendar delegation profile in the mail preferences. For more detailed information, individual calendars can be opened from the group calendar by clicking on a person’s name to display that user’s calendar.
Troubleshooting Calendar Problems Calendaring and scheduling is a global activity performed at the database level. Since it involves the interaction between servers, users, and network resources, problems are inevitable. The most common types of calendaring and scheduling problems are as follows:
Calendar Profile Replication Conflicts If the busy times shown on a calendar defy logic, for example 1:00 A.M. to 4:00 A.M., its pretty safe to assume there’s a problem. This may happen if a user’s calendar profile is in a replication conflict state due to a change made locally and another made on a server. To fix the problem, the user needs to edit and re-save the Calendar Profile document.
Calendar Connectivity Issues If a calendar consistently returns the message “Information not available,” one of two things may be the problem. First, the user may not have made their calendar available to free-time lookups. To do this, the user must edit and save the Calendar Profile document. Second, there may be network connectivity problems. Between a user’s client and the server, there are several possible points of failure at the network level including the multiple servers that a request may have to pass through. The system administrator can research connectivity problems using log files and server console messages to help pinpoint the problem.
Calendar Access Control Problems The “Information not available” message can also occur if the person whose calendar you’re trying to access is off-limits to you. A user can set the Calendar Profile and Delegation Profile to limit access. In addition, if the user’s calendar sits on a server that is not accessible or if a server in the connection path is not accessible, the “Information not available” message can be returned. To determine if the servers are the culprit, you can trace the connection using the Notes client or with the help of the system administrator and the log files.
Performance Concerns If calendar lookups are failing for many users and if multiple servers are involved, performance problems may occur and time out a lookup. To solve the problem, an administrator may choose to set up a gateway server dedicated to handling calendaring and scheduling lookups.
In Domino’s top-down approach to security, server and database security are the first two lines of defense. A server contains many databases and the databases contain user data. At the server level, you can protect from global problems through the use of a firewall. At the database level, you can control who gets into the database and therefore into the data. In this chapter you have examined the ways in which you can protect a server and the databases it contains.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: Access Control List (ACL) encryption group private key public key role Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
Review Questions 1. Adrian has created a Notes form that includes an embedded calendar
control for group scheduling. What does Adrian need to do to allow users to drill down and open an individual calendar from the group calendar? A. Complete a group calendar profile. B. Add the group Anonymous to the ACL of the individual’s mail file. C. Enable the option in the calendar profile allowing everyone to
write to the calendar. D. Nothing; this is the default behavior of a group calendar. 2. Blanche is building an e-commerce site that she would like protected
with SSL connections. What should she do at the database level to make this happen? A. Enable the database property Web Access: Require SSL Connection. B. Enable the database property Web Access: Use JavaScript When
Generating Pages. C. Enable the form property Web Access: Use JavaScript When
Generating Pages. D. Enable the form property Web Access: Require SSL Connection. 3. Carl has encrypted his mail database on the server. When he made a
local replica copy of the database, what happened to the encryption? A. The encryption on the new replica was reduced to simple encryption. B. The new replica database was not encrypted. C. The new replica database was encrypted at the same encryption
strength. D. The new replica database was encrypted with the server’s ID.
4. Desiree is in the WineReviewers group in the ACL for the WineMaster
database. The WineReviewers group has Reader access. She is also listed individually in the ACL with Editor access. Which of the following is she able to do? A. Read existing documents without create or edit capabilities. B. Create new documents but not edit any existing documents. C. Create new documents and edit documents she created. D. Create new documents and edit any existing documents. 5. Eduardo is listed explicitly in the Access Control List of a database
with Editor access and is also a member of two groups in the ACL: the Administrator group, which has been given Manager access, and the PowerUsers group, which has Reader. What access level will Eduardo be given when he tries to access the database? A. Manager B. Editor C. Reader D. None of the above 6. Fredricka has unchecked Dana’s ACL permission to create personal
folders/views, but Dana can still create views. What is wrong? A. Nothing; this is expected behavior. B. Dana needs to be removed from the Create Folder group in the
Domino Directory. C. Dana needs to be removed from the Create Folder role in the
database. D. A DBCACHE flush is needed on the server hosting the database.
7. Gerald has been given the right to run personal agents on his organi-
zation’s server. When he tries to create a personal agent in one of his databases, he receives an error message. What is he missing? A. He must have Designer access to the database. B. He must update the database signature for the right to take effect. C. He must refresh the cache on the server. D. He must have permission to create personal agents in the database. 8. Helena wants to protect the server at the network level. What can she
implement for her organization to do this? A. Firewall B. Domino Directory without agent access C. Virus protection D. Limit physical server access 9. Isaiah wants to enable password-quality checking on his server. At
what point does he set the password quality? A. When creating a new server B. When creating a new database C. When creating a new user D. When creating a new document 10. Janice does not want unauthenticated Web users to access her application.
What change should she make to the ACL to make this happen? A. Add an Anonymous entry with Default access. B. Add an Anonymous entry with No Access. C. Add a Default entry with No Access. D. Add a Default entry with Depositor access.
11. Which of the following would be illegal for Keith to add to the ACL
of a database? A. Users with x.509 certificates B. Replica ID C. Users with Notes IDs D. Hierarchical names with a wildcard character 12. Lacy is listed in a database’s ACL as Manager and in a group on the
ACL that has No Access as its privilege level. What is Lacy’s privilege level? A. Manager B. No Access C. Reader D. Unknown 13. Marc has authenticated with the Domino server by providing a user-
name and password. At what point will he next be challenged? A. Database ACL B. Form access list C. View access list D. Group 14. Nedra wants to allow users to run a shared agent in her database.
What minimum access privilege should she grant? A. Editor B. Author C. Reader D. Depositor
15. Oren has Editor access to a database. Which of the following permis-
sions is not automatically granted to the Editor privilege level? A. Ability to create documents B. Ability to create personal agents C. Ability to read public access documents D. Ability to write public access documents 16. Patsy is troubleshooting a set of servers that are not replicating correctly.
To pull data from one server to another, what privilege level is required? A. Depositor B. Reader C. Author D. Manager 17. Quentin wants to allow unauthenticated Web users to access his appli-
cation. Which of the following should he add to the ACL to allow this to happen? A. A Default entry B. A Manager entry C. An Anonymous entry D. A $WebUsers entry 18. Raul has Designer privileges on a database. Which of the following
can’t he do? A. Create forms. B. Read documents. C. Edit documents. D. Create roles.
19. Shannon wants to encrypt a database. What minimum access privilege
does she need? A. Manager B. Designer C. Editor D. Author 20. Tyler wants to edit his own documents. What minimum privilege does
he require? A. Manager B. Designer C. Editor D. Author 21. Uma wants to require Web users to use a SSL connection to her data-
base. How can she do this? A. Use the server property Web Access: Require SSL Connection. B. Use the database property Web Access: Require SSL Connection. C. Use the form property Web Access: Require SSL Connection. D. Use the view property Web Access: Require SSL Connection. 22. Vern noticed that the Run Restricted LotusScript Agents field is blank
in the NTSERVER1 server document. What does this mean? A. No one can run restricted LotusScript agents on the server. B. Only users with Designer access can run restricted LotusScript
agents on the server. C. Anyone can run restricted LotusScript agents on the server. D. None of the above.
23. The cert.id Wendi uses on the Domino server is protected by a password-
quality checking level of 16. Which of the following passwords is invalid for level 16? A. W3w0nR5! B. J0hnGr1sHam1sAGR8tWriter C. UrL8 D. WhatBeautifulEyesYouHave 24. Xavier needs to identify which database stores users’ free-time infor-
mation. Which of the following should he choose? A. FreeTime.nsf B. BusyTime.nsf C. Time.nsf D. AvailableTime.nsf 25. Yolanda needs to assign one of her users the minimum access level
required so the user can create personal agents in a database. Which access should she assign? A. Depositor B. Reader C. Editor D. Designer 26. Zachery is unable to make ACL changes to a database on the ORG2741
server. Which minimum privilege level is required to do this? A. Manager B. Designer C. Editor D. Author
Answers to Review Questions 1. D. The calendar profile option to allow everyone to read the calendar
must be enabled for group calendars to work. If this option is enabled, the default behavior of a group calendar allows users to drill down and open the calendars of individual users. 2. A. To require that an SSL connection is used to access a Web applica-
tion on a Domino server, the database property Web Access: Require SSL Connection must be enabled. Without this option enabled, users can access the database with either an SSL connection or a TCP/IP connection. 3. B. When making a new copy or new replica of an encrypted database,
encryption does not carry forward. You do, however, need to be the user with the private encryption key to make the new replica or new copy. 4. D. The most specific privilege assigned in the ACL is granted, and in
this case, that is Editor access, which comes with the ability to create new documents and edit existing documents. 5. B. If a username is explicitly listed in the Access Control List of a
database, this will be the access this user receives. 6. A. Even if the Create Views privilege is not set, users can still make
new views, or folders; however, the view index will be stored in the DESKTOP5.DSK. 7. D. Along with having permission on the server to run personal agents,
users must have permission to create personal agents in the database. 8. A. A firewall protects a server at the network-traffic level. 9. C. Password-quality strength is set when a new user ID is created. 10. B. By setting Anonymous to No Access, Web users without usernames
and passwords receive the No Access privilege level. 11. A. Users who have x.509 certificates but no Notes ID cannot be listed
12. B. A group with No Access overrides individual and other group
accesses. 13. A. The database ACL is the second level of security after the network level. 14. C. A minimum of Reader access is required to run a shared agent. 15. B. The ability to create personal agents is an optional privilege for users
with Editor access to a database. 16. B. Reader access is required to pull data; Manager access is required to
push out ACL changes; Editor access is required to modify documents. 17. C. Adding an entry for Anonymous to an ACL will trap Web access by
users not explicitly listed in the ACL. 18. D. Manager access is required to change the ACL and create roles. 19. A. Manager access is required to encrypt a database. 20. D. Author access provides the ability to create new documents and
edit documents you created. 21. B. The property Web Access: Require SSL Connection is a database
property. 22. A. The default for this field is blank, which means that no users can
run restricted agents on this server. 23. D. This phrase contains no numbers and, therefore, fails level 16.
Password quality depends on complexity, which involves combining numbers and letters as well as having an adequate length. 24. B. Free time is stored in the BusyTime.nsf database. 25. B. The minimum access level required is Reader if the additional per-
mission to create personal agents is given to the user. This will allow the users to create personal agents not shared. 26. A. Manager-level access is required to make ACL changes.
ith the release of R5, the Lotus team declared to the world that their goal was to provide a Web and application server that was accessible by many types of clients, including Web and Notes clients. Since security is one of the core services in the product, the scope of the security net needs to be studied from the perspectives of both types of clients. In this chapter, you’ll examine the security features that Notes and Web clients use when communicating with a server or when working offline.
Notes Client From the ground up, the Notes client was designed to offer secure access to the Domino server. Table 6.1 summarizes security protection levels and the mechanism used to provide that protection in the Notes client. TABLE 6.1
Levels of Protection—Notes Client Protection Level
Levels of Protection—Notes Client (continued) Protection Level
Mechanism Providing Security
View Level
View access list
Form Level
Form access list
Document Level
Authors fields, Readers fields, and document encryption
Field Level
Field encryption, field signing, and controlled access sections
Let’s examine each of the protection levels in more detail from the perspective of the Notes client and the job it does to provide security.
Authentication If you have a network path to a Domino server and are using a Notes client to access it, you will be challenged to authenticate to actually gain access. The method of authenticating a Notes client user is known as basic password authentication. The server challenges the user to provide a valid name and valid password.
This type of authentication is also known as challenge/response authentication.
The Notes client or, for that matter, another Domino server, is asked to authenticate with a server when the initial access attempt is proffered.
Firewalls In today’s work environment, it has become more and more common for a Web browser to access the company intranet and the applications available on the intranet. This means that a Web browser is often used internally to access a Domino server. If a firewall is in place to control Web traffic, an internal intranet user might be subject to the same open-port dependencies that affect a Web client. Access through a firewall is transparent to the client as long as the system administrator has opened the appropriate ports for communication between servers and clients. These communication ports are better described in Chapter 5, “Server and Database Security.”
Execution Control List The Notes client can gain additional security protection by applying three levels of control to its operating environment through the Execution Control List, or ECL:
Workstation security
Java applet security
JavaScript security
The ECL can warn users of attempted security issues, such as writing files to the hard drive outside of Notes, and access to other resources on the computer. To open the ECL, use the Security Options button accessed from the File Preferences User Preferences menu sequence dialog window. The workstation security control level is then displayed, as shown in Figure 6.1. FIGURE 6.1
The ECL is configured on a by-user basis in a similar manner to a database’s Access Control List. To customize the ECL, the radio buttons are used to switch between the three control levels, while the check boxes are used to enable or disable security checking for individual options. Figures 6.2 and 6.3 show the options available for Java applet and JavaScript security, respectively. FIGURE 6.2
The ECL can be used to prevent attachments from being stored or executed on the workstation computer. In this way, it offers an additional layer of protection from malicious executable files that might arrive in the Notes client as attachments.
A system administrator can deploy a server-based ECL setting that will override the individual user settings.
Access Control and Encryption While a database’s Access Control List does a thorough job of protecting the use of server-based databases, the ACL does not adequately protect local databases. This makes database encryption the best option for securing local databases. The topic of database encryption was introduced in Chapter 5, but let’s look a bit closer at the mechanics of encrypting a database.
Public and Private Keys A user’s public key is stored in two places: the Domino Directory and the user’s ID file. A user’s private key is stored in one place: the user’s ID file.
Encrypting a Database To encrypt a database, you must have a Notes client and a Notes ID. From the database Properties box, the Encryption Settings button shown in Figure 6.4 allows you to initiate the encryption process. FIGURE 6.4
You must have Manager access to a database to encrypt it.
The process of encrypting a database generates a random encryption key that is then encrypted with the user’s public key from the user ID file. This generated, encrypted key is then applied to the database as an unlock code. To unlock the database, the private key from the user’s ID file is used. This means that no user other than the one who encrypted the database can open the database.
View Access List The Notes client fully respects the use of the view access list to control who can see a view. The default, shown in Figure 6.5, is that all users with Reader access or above can see the view. FIGURE 6.5
Form Access List The Notes client also fully supports the use of the form access list to determine who can create documents using a particular form and who can read documents created with the form. The default for these two settings, shown in Figure 6.6, is that all users with Reader access or above can read documents from the form while users with Author access or above can edit documents created from the form. FIGURE 6.6
Default form access list
Document-Level Security The database Access Control List, the form access list, and the view access list control who can access a database, create documents, and see views based on the ACL and roles. Documents or parts of documents can be additionally protected with two special field types: Authors fields and Readers fields.
Authors Fields Authors fields control who can edit documents after they are created. These fields apply only to users who already have Author access to a database. The concept of this type of field is that the field’s value controls who can edit the document after it has been created. For example, if the value of an Author’s field is the user ID name “GMCGUIRE,” only the user ID GMCGUIRE.ID can edit the document after it has been saved. All other users, even if they have author or editor rights to the database, are prevented from editing the document.
Readers Fields In a similar manner to Authors fields, Readers fields control who can see or read existing documents. These fields apply to users with Reader access or above on a database. As an example, if the value of a Readers field is “GMCGUIRE,” only the user ID GMCGUIRE.ID can see the document after it has been saved. All other users, even if they have reader or above rights to the database, are prevented from seeing the document in the database.
Encrypting a Document In a similar manner to encrypting a database, Notes client documents can be encrypted using public and private keys. Encrypted documents, when mailed between Notes users, provide additional security during the network transmission. For documents that are mailed, the public key of the recipient is used to encrypt the document while the recipient’s private key is used to decrypt the document.
Field Encryption and Signing The Notes client can be used to encrypt or sign data items stored in a document. Encrypting scrambles the data using an encryption key algorithm, making it unreadable to anyone who does not have the encryption key. Signing associates the field with a unique code that guarantees that the data has not been tampered with during transmission or since it was last edited by a valid editor.
Field Encryption Fields are encrypted using encryption keys created by the designer or manager of the database. In addition to the public and private keys stored in a user’s ID file, additional keys can be created by anyone with a Notes ID to encrypt individual items of data within a document. These types of keys are known as secret encryption keys and are stored in a user’s ID file. Any fields that are enabled for encryption are encrypted when the document is saved. Password type fields are automatically enabled for encryption. Fields enabled for encryption display with a red border around the field in Designer. Creating and Managing Secret Encryption Keys To create a secret encryption key, the Notes client is used. Using the menu options File Tools User ID, a user can access the Encryption area of the user ID, as shown in Figure 6.7. In this area, keys can be created, deleted, imported, mailed, and exported. FIGURE 6.7
Multiple keys can be created and even applied to the same document; however, any one of the keys applied will decrypt the data.
When a Domino programmer creates an encryption key for use with an application, they must manage and distribute the keys to the users who need access to the encrypted data. Managing the distribution of keys is the responsibility of the database manager, who is often the programmer. Those users can receive the key through an e-mail or on a diskette. Editing Encrypted Documents Data items that have been encrypted with secret encryption keys are not visible to users who do not have the key. While the user may be able to open the document, the field will appear to be empty. In addition, the data item does not display in the database’s list of fields when inspected using the Properties box. If a user has edit rights to an encrypted document but does not have the encryption key to see the encrypted fields, the user cannot edit and save the encrypted document. On the other hand, if the user does have the key and has edit rights to the document, when the document is saved, the encryption algorithm updates the key using the current editing user’s ID.
Signing Fields A digital signature can be added to a document that will be mailed or has a controlled access section by sign-enabling a field on the form or in the section. Attaching a digital signature to a document guarantees that the person who saved the document is authentic and that the data was not tampered with from the time it was saved. Storing a Digital Signature When a document is signed, the following pieces of information are stored in the signed document:
A generated unique key
Private key of the user saving or mailing the document
Public key of the user saving or mailing the document
List of certificates from the user’s Notes ID
So, from this list, you can correctly assume that you must have a Notes ID to digitally sign a document.
Signing a Field To sign a field or a section, the field attribute to Sign If Mailed Or Saved In Section must be enabled in the field’s Properties box as shown in Figure 6.8. FIGURE 6.8
Signing a field
By definition, controlled access sections contain fields that are editable by a specified set of users of the database. While this does not prevent users from seeing the data, it does limit who can edit the data. Signing a field in a section guarantees the identity of the saver and the integrity of the data and does not change who can see the data. When a document is mailed with signable fields, the digital signature is attached to the document during the mailing process using one of the following methods:
If the Sign option is chosen in the Mail Send dialog
If the form contains a field called “Sign” and the value of the field is 1
If the @MailSend formula is used with the [Sign] flag
If an event associated with the document uses the LotusScript “SignOnSend” property with a value of TRUE
When a document contains signable fields in a controlled access section, the digital signature is attached to the document when the document is saved.
Web Client
W
eb clients are users who access Domino servers from a Web browser. This includes both Internet and intranet users. Table 6.2 outlines the levels of security protection available to a Web client and the mechanism providing that security. TABLE 6.2
Levels of Protection—Web Client Protection Level
Mechanism Providing Security
Server Level
Authentication
Network Level
Firewalls
Workstation Level
None
Database Level
Access Control List and x.509 certificates
View Level
View access list
Form Level
Form access list
Document Level
Authors and Readers fields
Field Level
None
Authentication If you have a network path to a Domino server from a Web client, your access attempt will be challenged with either basic authentication or with SSL authentication.
Basic Basic authentication means being challenged to provide a username and password. Web clients are challenged to authenticate when a database on a server is accessed. Contrast this to the Notes client authentication process, which takes place on initial access to the server. Any database can assign specific privileges to Web client users by adding their usernames to the database ACL. Web users will have a username and password, also known as an HTTP or Internet password, if a Person document has been specifically created for the user in the Domino Directory. Web users who don’t have Person documents can only access the server as Anonymous users through the privilege granted to the Anonymous group in a database’s ACL. Maximum Internet Name & Password Access If basic username and password authentication is being used by a Web client, an advanced database property can be set requiring a specific ACL privilege. If the user accessing the database is listed individually or in a group in the ACL, the maximum Internet setting overrides that access level. The Maximum Internet Name & Password Access is located on the Advanced tab of a database’s ACL as shown in Figure 6.9. FIGURE 6.9
Anonymous Access The maximum Internet access setting is also in effect for users who access the Domino server using an anonymous Internet connection on the TCP/IP port or the SSL port. Two Domino Directory configuration settings, which were described in Chapter 5, affect whether anonymous Web client access is allowed to a server:
Allow Anonymous HTTP Connections
Allow Anonymous Notes Connections
If the user is not anonymous and has an SSL certificate for the browser client being used, the maximum Internet setting is ignored.
Login URLs Server and database authentication from a Web client can be activated through hotspots or events using the following URL command format: http://Host?OpenServer&login http://Host/DatabaseDirectory/ DatabaseFileName?OpenDatabase&login If basic authentication is not used by a client and a server, then the more secure SSL authentication is used. Table 6.3 describes the available protocols and notes which ones use encrypted data transmissions. TABLE 6.3
Protocols That Use Name and Password Authentication Protocol
Behavior Description
TCP/IP
Information transmitted between user and server is not encrypted.
SSL
All information transmitted between user and server is encrypted.
NNTP
Configured in Domino Directory to use either TCP/IP or SSL method.
LDAP
Configured in Domino Directory to use either TCP/IP or SSL method.
Protocols That Use Name and Password Authentication (continued) Protocol
Behavior Description
POP3
Configured in Domino Directory to use either TCP/IP or SSL method.
HTTP
Configured in Domino Directory to use either TCP/IP or SSL method.
SMTP
Configured in Domino Directory to use either TCP/IP or SSL method.
IIOP
Configured in Domino Directory to use either TCP/IP or SSL method.
IMAP
Configured in Domino Directory to use either TCP/IP or SSL method.
SSL Secure Socket Layer (SSL) is an encrypted type of data transmission between Web clients and servers. For SSL to work in the Domino environment, both the database itself and the Domino server must be configured to allow it. The programmer’s responsibility for SSL lies naturally on the database side. To enable a database to allow SSL communications, enable the database property requiring an SSL connection as shown in Figure 6.10.
The administrator’s responsibility for SSL lies in configuring the server to allow one of three types of SSL communication:
Anonymous SSL access
Name and password authentication using SSL
Authentication using x.509 client certificates over SSL
The system administrator can also enable session-based authentication so that users can log out of a Domino session without needing to close their browser client.
Login URLs Secure server and database authentication from a Web client can be activated through hotspots or events using the following URL command format: https://Host?OpenServer&login https://Host/DatabaseDirectory/ DatabaseFileName?OpenDatabase&login
Firewalls To use a Web client to access a Domino server, you may need to pass through a software firewall. This will happen transparently to the client…unless it can’t get through the firewall. A system administrator will open up specific ports for communication between servers and clients. To troubleshoot Web or Notes client access to a Domino server, touch base with the administrator to see if the appropriate communication ports are open. The essential communication ports were described in Chapter 5.
Execution Control List The Web client is not protected by the Execution Control List (ECL) settings. The ECL has no effect in the Web environment.
Access Control and Encryption A database’s ACL is applicable to both Notes and Web clients; however, the one special entry in use for Web clients is the Anonymous entry. Any Web user who does not have a specific username and password can only access the server as an Anonymous user. Standard Domino encryption is not supported in a Web environment. Encryption requires the use of public and private keys. In Notes, these keys are stored in the Domino Directory and a user’s ID file. Web clients do not have a user ID file, making Notes encryption impossible. This makes encrypting anything based on a user ID’s private key impossible. In addition, since the server stores public keys in the Domino Directory, anything that can be decrypted using the public key of a user is transmitted as clear text during an HTTP transmission to a browser since the server automatically decrypts this type of encryption.
An alternate approach to encryption in a Web environment is to use x.509 certificates in place of Notes IDs.
View Access List If a Web user has a username and password and has authenticated to access a Domino server, their username can be used in a view access list just like users who have a Notes ID. In addition, Web users who do not authenticate but instead access applications anonymously can be excluded or included in the view access list. Figure 6.11 shows an example of a view access list that configures the view in question to be used only by Anonymous users. FIGURE 6.11
Anonymous view access
Form Access List In a manner similar to the view access list, Web users can be listed in a form’s access list. Since a Web user may log in with a username or may be accessing the database anonymously, the explicit username or the more generic Anonymous group can be used in the access list. Figure 6.12 shows a form that allows only Anonymous users to read documents created with the form and to create documents using the form.
Document-Level Security Authors fields and Readers fields behave the same way in a Web client as they do in a Notes client. A Web user’s username or the group name Anonymous can appear as values of either type of field. Keep in mind that for Authors fields to be in effect, the user needs to have exactly Author access to the database in the ACL. For Anonymous users, that would mean setting the Anonymous privilege level to Author for the entire database.
Field Encryption and Signing From the discussion of field encryption in a Notes client, you might recall that secret encryption keys used to encrypt field data are stored in the user ID file of the person creating the key. Since Web users do not have Notes ID files, field encryption is not a supported security feature in a Web client. This holds true for signing fields in documents as well since a Notes user ID is required.
This chapter has focused on drawing distinctions between the security features available in a Notes client and those available in a Web client. From the network level down to the field level, you should now have a better understanding of how to build a secure Web or Notes application.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: Anonymous Authors field controlled access section database encryption Execution Control List field encryption firewall form access list Readers field Secure Socket Layer (SSL) view access list
Review Questions 1. Alyson wants to limit which users in the database can create docu-
ments using the Product Profile form. What can she use to do this? A. Authors field B. Readers field C. View access list D. Form access list 2. Bruno is trying to create an agent in a database from the Web. How
can he do this? A. From the main view in the Web navigator, select the Create
Agent link. B. Use the URL http://serverName/
databaseName.nsf?CreateAgent. C. Use the URL http://serverName/
databaseName.nsf?OpenDatabase&CreateAgent. D. This cannot be done. 3. Carlotta will be mailing an encrypted document to Greg. Which key is
used to encrypt the document? A. Public B. Private C. Secret D. Personal
4. Damon wants to code a URL command that will force the server to
authenticate a Web user. Which of the following URL command formats should be used for this purpose? A. http://Host?OpenServer&login B. http://Host/DatabaseDirectory/
DatabaseFileName?Open&login C. http://Host/DatabaseDirectory?OpenServer&login D. http://Host?OpenDatabase&login 5. Elaine has multiple encryptable fields on her form and has applied sev-
eral secret encryption keys to the form. How many decryption keys must be used to view the data in the encrypted fields? A. One B. Only the first one that was applied C. Only the last one that was applied D. All keys that were applied 6. Freddie wants to stop executable files from being detached to the
workstation. Which of the following will do this? A. Access Control List B. Execution Control List C. Secure sections D. View access list 7. Giselle plans on encrypting the AnnualBonus field on the form she is
currently coding. The data will be edited and saved by users with Web clients. How will this affect the stored data in the AnnualBonus item? A. The AnnualBonus data will be encrypted only for Notes users. B. The AnnualBonus data will be encrypted only for Web users. C. The AnnualBonus data will be encrypted for Notes and Web users. D. The AnnualBonus data will not be encrypted.
8. Harry has enabled a field to be signed in Designer for a form that will
not be mailed to anyone. Which of the following is a true statement about signed fields? A. The field must be in a standard section to be signed. B. The field must be in a controlled access section to be signed. C. The field will be signed only when mailed. D. The field will be signed within 24 hours. 9. Ilona wants to add an additional layer of security to her database by
adding document-level security. Which of the following can she use? A. Form access list B. View access list C. Encryption D. Authors field 10. Jacques has deployed an application to his Notes users that writes
temporary files to the user’s hard drive. Users are complaining that they are getting security warnings when they use his application. What security feature is generating these warnings? A. Access Control List B. Execution Control List C. View access list D. Form access list 11. Kaitlyn has Editor rights to a database that has several encrypted doc-
uments in it. She does not have an encryption key, so she cannot see the data in encrypted fields. Which of the following is a true statement regarding her ability to work with the encrypted documents? A. She can read the documents but not edit them. B. She can edit the documents. C. She cannot read or edit the documents. D. She cannot open the documents.
12. Lloyd knows that four pieces of information are stored in a document
when it is digitally signed. Which of the following is not one of those four pieces of information? A. A generated unique key B. Private key of the user saving or mailing the document C. Public key of the user saving or mailing the document D. All secret keys from the user’s ID file 13. Maegan is using a controlled access section on her form. Which of the
following is a true statement about this type of section? A. Only certain users can edit information in the section. B. Only certain users can read information in the section. C. Only certain users can collapse the section. D. Only certain users can expand the section. 14. Napoleon added fields containing sensitive data to your Web applica-
tion and would like to encrypt them. When you enable encryption for the field and apply an encryption key, what will happen? A. The sensitive data will be encrypted when viewed by Web users. B. The sensitive data will be encrypted when viewed by Notes users. C. The sensitive data will be encrypted when viewed by Web and
Notes users. D. The sensitive data will not be encrypted. 15. Odelia wants to prevent users from running applets with their Notes
client. What security mechanism can she use to do this? A. Access Control List B. Execution Control List C. Readers fields D. Authors fields
16. Paul is using SSL on his database and the system administrator has
enabled SSL on the server. What effect will the maximum Internet access setting in the database’s ACL have on SSL-authenticated Web users if these users are listed in the database’s ACL with a specific privilege? A. The maximum Internet access will override the specific privilege. B. The maximum Internet will affect only Notes users. C. The maximum Internet access setting will be ignored. D. The maximum Internet access setting will be reset to the specific
privilege. 17. Quiana wants a digital signature to be attached to a document when
it is mailed. How can she make sure this happens? A. Place a sign-enabled field in a controlled access section. B. Make sure a sign-enabled field is not in a controlled access section. C. Place a sign-enabled field in a standard section. D. Make sure a sign-enabled field is not in a standard access section. 18. Raul has mail-enabled a form that contains signable fields. There are
no sections on the form. When will the fields be signed? A. When the document is saved B. When the document is mailed C. When the document is opened by the recipient D. Never, since signable fields must be in a controlled access section 19. Shania is confused about which key is used to create digital signatures.
Which one is used? A. Public B. Private C. Secret D. Session
20. Timothy will be using digital signatures in a workflow application for
documents that are routed up an approval chain. Which of the following must be present on the form for this to happen? A. A field named Encrypt B. At least one field that has been sign-enabled C. A controlled access section D. At least one Authors field 21. Usha has added a signable field to a controlled access section in his
form. When will this field actually be signed? A. When the document is mailed B. When the field is edited C. When the document is saved D. When the form is saved 22. Vincenzo’s new form in his Web application contains a field that will
store sensitive data that should only be seen by certain people. He is considering using field encryption. What effect will this have on the data stored in the sensitive field? A. The data in the field will be encrypted only for Notes users. B. The data in the field will be encrypted only for Web users. C. The data in the field will be encrypted for Notes and Web users. D. The data in the field will not be encrypted. 23. Wilhelmina wants to stop Java applets from being run on the work-
station. Which of the following will do this? A. Access Control List B. Execution Control List C. Secure sections D. View access list
24. Xuan has applied three secret encryption keys to a form. To decrypt
the data, how many keys must be used in order to view the data? A. One B. Two C. Three D. None 25. Yesenia often receives encrypted documents from Schuyler in the Inbox
of the mail database. Which key is used to decrypt the documents? A. Public B. Private C. Secret D. Personal 26. Zane wants only certain users to be able to create Product Profile
documents even though all users have Author access to the database. What can be done to accomplish this? A. View access list B. Form access list C. Authors field D. Readers field
Answers to Review Questions 1. D. The form access list can be used to limit who can create documents
with the form in question. 2. D. Web users do not have the ability to create agents. 3. A. For documents that are mailed, the public key of the recipient is
used to encrypt the document, while the recipient’s private key is used to decrypt the document. 4. A. The host name is followed by the question mark command prompt,
then the OpenServer command, and finally, the parameter keyword “login” after the & parameter marker. 5. A. At least one of the keys must be available to decrypt the data; how-
ever, it doesn’t matter if it was the first or last or even ones in between that were applied. 6. B. The Execution Control List for a workstation can be configured to
prevent Notes client access to the file system, which would stop executable files from being detached to the workstation. 7. D. Field-level encryption is not supported in a Web environment
because there is no user ID file that stores the encryption keys. 8. B. To attach a signature to a document that will not be mailed, the
field must be contained in a controlled access section. 9. D. An Authors field provides document-level security by preventing
edits by users other than those listed in the Authors field. Since the value of the Authors field can change programmatically from one document to another, each document is uniquely protected. 10. B. The workstation’s ECL in a Notes client can be used to warn users
about activity that an application will do that might be harmful to them. Writing files to a hard drive could be malicious, so the ECL warns the user.
11. A. If a user has edit rights to an encrypted document but does not have
the encryption key to see the encrypted fields, the user cannot edit and save the encrypted document. 12. D. Digital signatures do not use secret encryption keys. The fourth miss-
ing item is a list of the certificates from the sender/saver’s ID. 13. A. Controlled access sections allow all users with Reader access to the
document to see the contents of the section. However, only certain users can edit the data contents of the section. 14. D. Field-level encryption is not supported in the Web environment since
the encryption keys required to encrypt data are stored in the ID file and Web users do not have ID files. 15. B. The ECL can be configured to prevent Java applets from executing
in the Notes client. 16. C. When SSL is in use, the maximum Internet access setting has no
effect. Therefore, the access granted to the group in the database’s ACL is in effect. 17. B. Signing happens when a document is either mailed or saved. Signing
happens at mail time if a sign-enabled field exists anywhere on the form except in a controlled access section. Signing happens at save time if the sign-enabled field is located in a controlled access section. 18. B. Fields that are not contained in controlled access sections are signed
only if the document is mailed and the signing occurs at mail time. 19. B. The private key from the ID of the user saving the document is
stored in the document together with the public key and the list of certificates of the person saving the document. 20. B. To attach a digital signature to a document, at least one field on the
form must be sign-enabled. 21. C. When a document contains signable fields in a controlled access
section, the digital signature is attached to the document when the document is saved.
22. D. Field-level encryption is not supported in a Web environment
because there is no user ID file that stores the encryption keys. 23. B. The Execution Control List for a workstation can be configured to pre-
vent Notes client access to the file system, which would stop Java applets from being written to and executed on a workstation. 24. A. When multiple keys are used, at least one of the keys must be avail-
able to decrypt the data. 25. B. For documents that are mailed, the public key of the recipient is
used to encrypt the document, while the recipient’s private key is used to decrypt the document. 26. B. The form access list can be used to limit which users can create doc-
Design Element Security LOTUS EXAM COMPETENCIES COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER Agent Access Creating workflow related fields: document encryption Creating workflow related fields: signing Field Access: Authors Field Access: Encryption Field Access: Groups Field Access: Readers Field Access: Signing Form Access Form Access: Groups Section Access Section Access: Groups View Access: Encryption
ith server, database, and client security in place, one additional level of security is offered through the design elements themselves. In fact, the design elements provide some of the tightest data security available. In this chapter, you’ll examine forms, views, and agents to gain an understanding of the design-level security attributes at your disposal.
Forms
Forms serve as the viewing mechanism and the creation mechanism for documents in a database. The level of security that can be applied at the form level protects document access through the form access list and special fields placed on the form.
Document Security through Form Access Lists The form access list is used to isolate user activity within a database with many forms. Not all users should be able to create new documents with a particular form; however, they might need to create documents with a different form. To accomplish this type of isolation in a single database, the form access list is used to specify which users will be able to do two things using the form:
By default and in the absence of any other security measures, all users with Reader access or above to a database can read the documents created with the form. When the default is disabled, individual users, groups, roles, and servers can be selected from a list to specify who can read documents with the form. Selecting this option adds a special hidden field to a form called $Reader, which contains users, groups, roles, and servers allowed to read the documents. The form access list setting is shown in Figure 7.1. FIGURE 7.1
Form access list
Also by default, all users with Author access or above can create new documents using the form. This is useful for preventing all but a specified set of users from creating new documents using the form, regardless of their access privilege to the database. If a user does not pass the form access list security, the form will not appear in the Notes client Create menu. Normal behavior is for form names to appear in the Create menu.
Document Security through Fields Another layer of document security that can be applied involves using special security fields. This type of security prevents users from seeing or editing certain documents. In addition, you can encrypt fields of data in a document to protect sensitive fields within the document. The techniques of applying document-level security revolve around the use of special fields that you add to the form.
Authors Fields Programmers can add Authors fields to a form by selecting the Authors type for the field type, as shown in Figure 7.2. Authors fields are also known as Author Names fields. The actual field name itself is immaterial and can be any unique name. FIGURE 7.2
Authors field
The behavior of an Authors field refines an Author-level user’s database access by preventing the user from editing documents even if he or she created the document. This type of behavior is desirable when you have multiple users in a database, all of whom require Author access, but at the same time you need to limit edit capabilities.
Here’s an example: imagine that you have an application that allows users to guess lucky numbers over the Internet for the chance to win a free bottle of wine. Ideally, you want the users to be able to create the document, add their lucky numbers, and then not edit the lucky numbers after they submit them yet still be able to see them. To do this, you give the users Author access to the database. However, if you left it at that, with Author access, the user could go back in and edit their own document in the future and, in this case, change their lucky numbers. This is not exactly what you want, since you don’t want users to be able to edit their numbers. By placing an Authors field on the form and leaving its value empty, no one will be able to edit the user’s lucky number document, including the user who authored the document. Using an Authors field affects a user’s ability to edit their own documents later. You should know several important points when using Authors fields:
If an Authors field value is left empty, no one will be able to edit the document.
The values in an Authors field can include usernames, group names, roles, and server names.
An Authors field can contain multiple values.
Authors fields only affect users with Author access to the database.
A document can contain more than one Authors field.
The value for an Authors field can be Editable, Computed, or Computed When Composed.
A special formula that works with Authors field values is @Author. The function returns a text list of all the authors of a document. It does this by first looking for a field of the Authors type and returning the value from the field. If there is no Authors field, Domino looks for a From field and then an $UpdatedBy field and returns the value from that field. The $UpdatedBy internal field is automatically maintained by Domino, and if an Authors field exists, $UpdatedBy automatically adds the names of users who have edited the document to the field.
Readers Fields Readers fields are similar in concept to an Authors field in that they refine a user’s access to individual documents in a database. Readers fields are also known as Reader Names fields. In contrast to Authors fields, Readers fields limit who is able to see, or read, documents. Figure 7.3 shows how to create a field of type Readers. FIGURE 7.3
Readers field
As an example, consider the lucky numbers document again. If you add a Readers field to the document and give it a value of [STAFF], then only users who belong to the [STAFF] role will be able to see the documents after they are created. If the user who created the document is not in the [STAFF] role, the user will not be able to see the document. When using Readers fields, keep the following points in mind:
If a Readers field value is left empty, the field is ignored and has no effect.
The values in a Readers field can include usernames, group names, roles, and server names.
Readers fields apply to anyone with Reader access or above in a database.
A document can contain more than one Readers field.
The value for a Readers field can be Editable, Computed, or Computed When Composed.
$PublicAccess Another type of field you can place on a form to affect security for a document is $PublicAccess. By adding this field and giving it a value of “1,” as shown in Figure 7.4, the document becomes marked as a public access document. FIGURE 7.4
$PublicAccess
Adding the field to a form is step one of three needed to complete the process of creating a public access document. In addition to adding the field, you need to mark the form and a view to display the document as public access as well. This is done using the form or view’s property box. In fact, all of the following design elements can be designated as public access documents using the object’s Properties box:
Once a public access document is completely created, users who have the access control privilege to read or write public access documents can work with the public access document you created. Figure 7.5 shows these ACL settings for the Anonymous user who has No Access to the database. Regardless of this No Access setting, Anonymous users can read and write any public access documents. FIGURE 7.5
Public access privilege
Public access documents are primarily used in conjunction with the No Access, Depositor, and Reader access levels to give users an additional path for working with documents without granting them access to the database. A familiar example of public access documents is your calendar in your mail database. You want the ability to allow people to see your calendar, but you don’t want to give them any access privileges to your mail database.
SecretEncryptionKeys Field encryption in documents does not use the public and private keys stored in a user’s ID file and the Domino Directory. Instead, secret encryption keys created by the programmer are used and distributed to the users who need the key. A special field, SecretEncryptionKeys, is used by designers to help manage the secret encryption keys applied to a form.
If the value of the SecretEncryptionKeys field is null, the document will not be encrypted.
The field is added to a form by a programmer, and its value is manually set to be the names of the secret encryption keys used to encrypt a document. Before creating this field, three things have to take place to encrypt a document:
Create one or more fields that can be encrypted.
Create a secret encryption key.
Apply a secret encryption key to a document.
To enable a field for encryption, you have two choices: use the Password type field, which is automatically ready for encryption, or enable field encryption in the field’s Properties box. The property to enable a field for encryption is found on the Advanced tab of a field’s Properties box and is shown in Figure 7.6. Any field can be enabled for encryption. FIGURE 7.6
When a field that is enabled for encryption exists on a form, the data values are stored as clear text unless an encryption key is applied to the form. To apply a key, first you need to create a key. This is done in the Encryption area in the user ID of the person creating the key, generally the programmer or designer, as shown in Figure 7.7. The key can be created with any name. While the key itself is actually a hidden combination of ASCII characters, you will only be able to see the key’s name, not its value. FIGURE 7.7
Creating a secret encryption key
With a key created, a form containing fields that have been enabled for encryption can now be encrypted. Once the key is applied when the user saves a document created from the form, the data values in the field are encrypted and visible only to users who have the secret encryption key in their user ID. Figure 7.8 shows the area on a form’s Security tab in the Properties box that is used to apply a secret encryption key to a document.
An encryption key can be changed or removed after the document has been saved. This can only be done by someone who already has the existing encryption key and has edit access to the document. To modify the encryption key, the formula @Command([EditEncryptionKeys]) is used.
Sign Another field that can be added to a form to provide a measure of document security is the Sign field. The Sign field takes a value of “1” to signal that the field should attach the signature of the sender to the field when the document is mailed. When the document is mailed, a hidden field, $Signature, is added to the document, and this field contains the user ID of the sender. When the recipient opens the document, the sender’s name appears in the Notes client status bar. The Sign field only signs fields that have been sign-enabled. To enable a field for signing, use the Security Options property on the Advanced tab of the field’s property box, as shown in Figure 7.9. FIGURE 7.9
Fields can only be signed if the document is mailed or if the field is placed in a controlled access section.
Field Editor Access Edit access to a field can be limited through a field property. On the Advanced tab of a field’s property box, you can select the security option Must Have At Least Editor Access To Use, as shown in Figure 7.10. FIGURE 7.10
Field edit access
This field setting controls whether the field can be edited in existing documents. New documents can still be created by users with at least Author access.
Document Security through Sections Sections are regions on a form that are encapsulated in collapse and expand areas. While Notes supports two types of sections, standard and controlled access, only the controlled access section offers security to the document contents. This type of section offers security by both controlling access and allowing fields to be signed.
Controlled Access Controlled access sections allow specified users to edit the data stored in the fields of the section. All users can see the data, but only certain users can edit it. Figure 7.11 shows the property box setting to enable users to edit data in the section. A formula is used to control which users can edit the data. FIGURE 7.11
Controlled access section formula
In this example, a specific user’s ID name has been hard-coded as the computed value for the section. The value can equate to any user, a list of users, groups, roles, and servers.
Signing Fields Controlled access sections can also contain signed fields. In fact, if a document is not mailed, fields that have been enabled for signing are only signed if they are inside a controlled access section.
Views
V
iews offer little in the way of security to data items stored in documents; however, they do provide a few speed bumps to slow the average user down. Since a user may have been granted the rights to create their own views, the user is in a position to create a view just like the one you’re trying to stop them from seeing. Two mechanisms, however, will slow them down, and often the idea of “out of sight, out of mind” will be enough to meet your application needs. The two mechanisms are view access lists and hiding a view.
View Access List View access lists determine which users can see which views in a database. The view access list is set using a view’s Properties box. The default is for all users with Reader access or above to be able to see and use a view. You can disable the default and, instead, select users, groups, roles, and servers from the database ACL or the Domino Directory to grant access to a view. Figure 7.12 shows a view access list that has been configured to allow only users in the WineReviewers group. FIGURE 7.12
View access list
Users who are not in the WineReviewers group will not be able to see the view. This does not prevent them from creating their own view with the identical view selection criteria.
Hiding Views Another view speed bump in a user’s database experience is hidden views. Programmers create hidden views frequently, often using them for database lookups and other behind-the-scenes programming needs.
Creating a Hidden View The technique for creating a hidden view is easy…simply surround the view name with parentheses. After naming the view with parentheses, the view displays in the list of all views with a chevron to its left, another indicator that it is a hidden view. Figure 7.13 shows how a hidden view appears in the list of views in Designer. FIGURE 7.13
Hidden view
Displaying a Hidden View Users can display all the hidden views in a database by using a keyboard combination when opening the database. To see hidden views, the keys Ctrl+Shift are held down while the database is opened, for instance, using the File Database Open menu sequence.
Hidden views are truly hidden from Web users since they do not have a Notes client that allows them to show the views using the Ctrl+Shift and open technique.
Agents
A
gents are code modules that can be called by name within a database. These code modules are used to accomplish database utility tasks, handle scheduled database duties, and act as aids in automating workflow processes. Agents are the indispensable glue that often brings an application together. However, since they are code modules that can touch many areas of a database, including the data, agents are also a security concern. To address the security concern, let’s explore agents from three perspectives: who can create agents, who can run agents, and what access control level an agent has when it runs.
Creating an Agent Users and programmers with a Notes client or the Domino Designer client can create agents in a database. Common sense would tell you, however, that some restrictions apply, starting with the familiar database security checkpoint, access control privileges.
ACL Privileges Required to Create an Agent The ability to create agents is governed by a user’s access control level in the database as well as optional ACL privileges. The optional privileges determine whether the user can create personal or shared agents. A personal agent can only be run by the user who created it and in the database in which it was created. Shared agents, in contrast, are available to all users of the database. By default, agents are created as personal and need to be marked as shared by the creator. In addition to the type of agent, the type of code used to write the agent plays a role in whether a user can create an agent and where it can be created. LotusScript and Java are robust programming languages with more capabilities than Simple Actions and Formula Language, and therefore, the ability to create these types of agents requires a special privilege in the ACL.
Table 7.1 describes the agent types, code types, and access privileges required by Notes client users to create agents in databases. TABLE 7.1
Database Access Levels for Creating Agents
Agent Type
Type of Code
Minimum ACL Level
Additional ACL Privileges Required
Personal
Simple Actions, Formula Language
Reader
Create personal agents
Shared
Simple Actions, Formula Language
Designer
None
Shared
LotusScript, Java
Designer
Create LotusScript/Java agents
Agents cannot be created by Web users, regardless of ACL privileges.
Running an Agent A user’s ability to run an agent depends on the runtime environment and the access control level associated with the agent. The runtime environment will either be a user’s local machine or the Domino server. If an agent is invoked by a user interactively, the runtime environment of the agent is the user’s local machine. Since users generally have Manager access to databases on their local machine, security restrictions are avoided. When an agent runs on a scheduled basis in a server-based database, its runtime environment is the server and it therefore uses server-based resources. For agents that run on the server, there are three settings in the Agent Restrictions area of the server document that control which users, if any, are allowed to run agents on the server as well as what type of agents they can run. Run personal agents This server document field specifies the names of users and groups who can run personal agents on the server. By default, this field is empty, which means that anyone can run personal agents. In addition to this server setting, users must also have the optional ACL privilege in the database to create personal-agents access for that particular database.
Run restricted LotusScript/Java agents This server document field specifies the names of users and groups who can run LotusScript and/or Java agents that use a subset of the language features. The agents are restricted from doing certain things; namely, this access level does not allow the specified individuals to perform file system operations (file I/O), modify the system time, or run operating system commands. By default, this field is empty, which means that no users can run restricted agents. Run unrestricted LotusScript/Java agents This field specifies the names of users and groups who can run LotusScript and/or Java agents without any restrictions. Unrestricted agents have complete access to the server’s operating system and all Domino features. By default, this field is empty, which means that no users can run unrestricted agents.
Agent Access Control Every user who has access to a database is associated with a specific access control level. What would happen if you logged into a database with Reader access and ran an agent that edited documents? Would the agent run? Or perhaps a better question is, should the agent run? In the same way that a user has an access privilege to a database, an agent has an access privilege in the database too. There are two factors to consider when determining an agent’s access privilege: the ACL of the user running the agent and the ACL of the user who last saved the agent. One of these is used as the effective ACL of the agent at runtime. Table 7.2 describes the three ACLs associated with an agent. TABLE 7.2
Agent ACL Perspective
Description
Signer’s ACL
The access level of the user who last saved the agent
Invoker’s ACL
The access level of the user who is invoking the agent
Effective ACL
The access level of the agent at runtime, which is either the signer’s or the invoker’s ACL
The following rules determine whether the signer’s or invoker’s ACL will be used as the effective ACL:
If an agent is running interactively in local memory, the invoker’s ACL is used.
If an agent is running in the background on the server, the signer’s ACL is used.
If an agent is invoked by the server, the signer’s ACL is used.
When troubleshooting agents, check the agent log to see what security the agent had at runtime. If an agent runs interactively just fine but fails when run scheduled on a server, there is a high likelihood that the agent doesn’t have the proper ACL privileges.
Web ACL and Agents Whenever a Web user invokes an agent, it runs on the server due to the stateless nature of the HTTP communication between a server and a browser. This means that the agent will run with the access privilege of the agent signer. Since Web users will either access a database by logging in with a username and password or by using the Anonymous entry in the Access Control List, you can enable an agent property to run the agent with the Web user’s privilege instead of the signer’s access privilege. This setting is shown in Figure 7.14. FIGURE 7.14
Script Libraries Security A script library is a repository area for named LotusScript code modules that can be called from multiple points in a database. Script libraries reduce code duplication and provide a place for a single point of maintenance for LotusScript routines. As a security side note, if code in a script library is called by an agent, no security checks or ACL verification are done on the code in the script library module.
Internet Inter-Object Request Broker Domino R5 supports the ability to create applets that perform Domino tasks, just like LotusScript agents. Normally Java applets are restricted from accessing native operating system calls, like the ones used when accessing Domino. A new R5 server task, however, makes this possible. The task is called DIIOP, which stands for the Domino Internet Inter-ORB protocol. This server task allows Java applets to communicate with the Domino Object Request Broker (ORB) server program, which is a server task that serves up Domino objects. Both the DIIOP and ORB server tasks must be running on the Domino server for Java applets to use Domino objects. In a similar manner to the agent restrictions in the server document, two fields in the server document are used to limit a user’s ability to run restricted and unrestricted Java/JavaScript and COM objects. The distinction between restricted and unrestricted is the same as for agents; namely, unrestricted code has access to the external file system and its resources, while restricted code does not. Run restricted Java/JavaScript/COM This field specifies the users and groups that are allowed to execute restricted Java applications and Java applets over IIOP, Java servlets and JavaScript over IIOP, or COM applications (which include Active Server Pages and VBScript) on the server. The default is blank, which means that no users can run this type of code. Run unrestricted Java/JavaScript/COM This field specifies the names of users and groups that can execute unrestricted Java applications and Java applets over IIOP, Java servlets and JavaScript over IIOP, or COM applications (which again include Active Server Pages and VBScript). The default is blank, which means that no user can run this type of code.
In this chapter, you have examined security from the design element perspective. Design elements such as forms, views, and agents can all be secured in a way that increases the overall protection offered by your application especially when more than one type of security is employed. Combining design element security with server, database, and client security, Domino gives you a way to build secure applications.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: agent Authors field controlled access section encryption hidden view public access document Readers field sign
Review Questions 1. Arthur has created a LotusScript agent in a database on the ORG2741
server. When he tries to save the agent a message dialog is displayed with the message “You are not authorized to perform that operation.” What database access level does he have, and what is the minimum access control level he needs to be able to create this agent? A. Reader and Designer B. Author and Designer C. Editor and Designer D. Designer and Manager 2. Brianna has listed four encryption keys in the SecretEncryptionKeys
field on her document. When the document is mailed to users, how many keys are required to decrypt the document? A. One B. Two C. Three D. Four 3. Christopher would like to run scheduled LotusScript agents on the
ORG2741 server. These agents do not access the file system. What is the minimum access needed in the server document for this action? A. Run Personal Agents B. Run Restricted LotusScript/Java Agents C. Run Unrestricted LotusScript/Java Agents D. None
4. Darlene wants to track the names of the encryption keys she’s using in
a form by adding a special field to store the names. What field name should she give this field? A. EncryptionKeys B. SecretEncryptionKeys C. Sign D. $Signature 5. Edgar has changed the default form read access list to limit access to users
in the WineMaster group. What field will this action automatically add to documents created with the form? A. $FormAccessList B. $UpdatedBy C. $Signature D. $Readers 6. Fiona wants to prevent Anonymous Web users from working with a set
of views she’s created but wants Notes users to see the views by default. What design element security mechanism can she use to do this? A. Form access list. B. View access list. C. Hidden views. D. Assign No Access to the Anonymous entry in the ACL. 7. What approach can Geoffrey take to limit who can create Product
Profile documents from the Notes client’s Create menu? A. Disable the Create menu. B. Use an underscore (_) character at the beginning of the Product
Profile form name. C. Apply a form access list. D. None; all form names will appear in the Create menu.
8. Hyacinth has Author access to a database and is included in the value
of the Readers field that is on the ProductProfile form. An Authors field on the form is blank. Which activities best describe the actions she can take on ProductProfile documents she creates? A. Read and edit B. Read only C. Edit only D. Read, edit, and delete 9. Ike has given Designer access to the programmers on his team. He
does not want them creating LotusScript agents. What can Ike do to prevent them from coding this type of agent? A. Disable the Create LotusScript/Java Agents option in the ACL. B. Disable the Create Shared Views option in the ACL. C. Disable the Create Personal Agents option in the ACL. D. Nothing; all users with Designer privileges can always create
LotusScript agents. 10. Jewel has added an Authors field to a form but not provided a value for
the field. What effect will this have on documents created with the form? A. No users will be able to edit the documents. B. All users will be able to edit the documents. C. Only users with Author access will be able to edit the documents. D. Only users with Manager access will be able to edit the documents.
11. Karl has never used Authors and Readers fields. What statement
would you use to describe the power of these types of fields? A. Authors fields refine Author access to documents while Readers
fields refine read access to documents. B. Authors fields and Readers fields cancel one another out. C. Authors fields refine edit access to documents while Readers fields
refine read access to documents. D. Authors fields refine edit access to a database while Readers fields
refine read access to a database. 12. Lara wants to limit the view she is creating to be used by only the
WineReviewers group. How can she do this? A. Apply a view access list specifying only the WineReviewers group. B. Give the WineReviewers group Reader access to the database. C. Add the special field $Readers to the documents she wants the
WineReviewers to see, and specify WineReviewers as the value of the field. D. Modify the form properties to encrypt the documents and only
give the key to the users in the WineReviewers group. 13. Marcelo has Author access to the WineMaster database. The Product-
Profile form in the database has an Authors field on it that does not contain Marcelo’s username. Which of the following describes what he can do with these documents? A. Edit. B. Delete. C. Read. D. Nothing; he cannot see these documents.
14. Noreen and Doreen both have Author access to the WineMaster data-
base. The ProductProfile form includes an Authors field that contains only Noreen’s username. Which statement best describes who can create and edit ProductProfile documents in the database? A. Noreen and Doreen can both create and edit. B. Noreen and Doreen can both create, but only Noreen can edit. C. Noreen and Doreen can both create, but only Doreen can edit. D. Neither Noreen nor Doreen can edit. 15. Ozzie and Harriet both have Editor access to the WineMaster data-
base. The ProductProfile form includes an Authors field that contains only Harriet’s username. Which statement best describes who can create and edit ProductProfile documents in the database? A. Ozzie and Harriet can both create and edit. B. Ozzie and Harriet can both create, but only Ozzie can edit. C. Ozzie and Harriet can both create, but only Harriet can edit. D. Neither Ozzie nor Harriet can edit. 16. Priscilla created a form and applied a read access list. Her database
will be used by both Notes and Web users. With which type of user can a form read access list be used to limit read capability? A. Notes B. Web C. Notes and Web D. Neither
17. Quincy does not see WineReview documents in the WineMaster
database, but he noticed that Rip, his office mate, can see them. Which security mechanism is a likely cause of this behavior? A. Field encryption B. $Readers field C. Form read access list D. View read access list 18. Rhonda wants to take full advantage of the public access document
feature in Notes. Which of the following does she not have to do to effectively use public access documents for a form she is creating? A. Add the field $PublicAccess with a value of “1” to the form. B. Mark the form to allow public access use. C. Mark the database ACL for users to use public access documents. D. Mark the database property to allow public access use. 19. Sanford wants to create a form that allows two different groups to
control the contents of a single document. Neither group is allowed to edit the other group’s information, but all information must be visible at all times. What security mechanism should he use? A. Field encryption B. Roles C. One controlled access section D. Two controlled access sections 20. Teresa is about to use an Authors field for the first time. Which of the
following is not a true statement about Authors fields? A. An Authors field can contain multiple values. B. Authors fields only affect users with Author access to the database. C. Authors fields override the Access Control List setting. D. A document can contain more than one Authors field.
21. Ulysses has granted a default of Author access to his database. How-
ever, he wants to prevent OpinionSurvey documents from being edited after they are created. How can he do this? A. Add an Authors field to the form and exclude the names of the
users from the field who should not be allowed to edit. B. Use a form read access list. C. Use a form create access list. D. Use the property Must Have At Least Editor Access To Use. 22. Vonda’s username is listed in an Authors field in the ProductProfile
form in the WineMaster database. What access privilege does she need to edit ProductProfile documents she creates? A. Manager B. Editor C. Author D. Depositor 23. Wayne is using the default view access list on all the views in his database.
How will this affect the users of his database? A. Users with Reader access to the database will be able to edit
documents in the database. B. Users with Reader access to the database will be able to edit
documents using the view. C. Users with Reader access to the database will be able to see the
views. D. Users with Reader access to the database will be able to read the
24. Xenia noticed that the documents created with the ProductProfile
form seem to have a $Readers field on them. She does not see this field in the form’s design. What accounts for the presence of this field? A. The form has a Readers field on it. B. The form has a form read access list applied to it. C. The form contains an Authors field. D. The $UpdatedBy field does not exist so $Readers is used. 25. Yang has created a multivalued field called SecretEncryptionKeys.
What will happen if he does not provide a value for the field? A. The documents created from the form will not be able to be edited. B. The documents created from the form will not be able to be
opened. C. The documents created from the form will not be able to be
mailed. D. The documents created from the form will not be encrypted. 26. Zoraida wants to assign the users of her database the minimum access
level that will allow them to create their own agents in a database. What level should she assign? A. Depositor B. Reader C. Editor D. Designer
Answers to Review Questions 1. A. If you have Reader access to a database on a server, you have
the ability to create agents. Only personal agents can be created with Reader access, and the type of code allowed is simple actions or formulas. The user additionally needs the ACL privilege to Create Personal Agents. The minimum access level needed to create LotusScript agents is Designer. 2. A. Even though four encryption keys have been specified for a document,
only one is required to decrypt the document. 3. B. Since no file system manipulation will be occurring in the LotusScript
agents, the minimum access required would be Run Restricted LotusScript/Java Agents. 4. B. The special field SecretEncryptionKeys can be created as a multi-
valued field to store a list of the encryption keys for the form. If this field has no value, the document will not be encrypted. 5. D. The field $Readers contains the names of the users, groups, servers,
and roles that have been granted read access through the form access list. 6. B. Using the view access list in the view’s properties to specify that all
users except Anonymous should be able to use the view will prevent Anonymous users while allowing other users. 7. C. A form access list limits who can read or create documents with the
form. If a create access list is applied, only users allowed to create new documents with the form will see the form type on the Notes client’s Create menu. 8. B. Since she is not listed in the Authors field, Hyacinth cannot edit
documents she creates. She can, however, read them. She may even be allowed to delete them.
9. A. A designer must have the Create LotusScript/Java Agent option
enabled in the ACL to create LotusScript agents. This option is enabled by default but can be disabled. 10. A. Leaving an Authors field blank prevents anyone from editing the
documents in the future. Not a bad security measure if it’s what you intended but a pretty bad one if it’s not what you intended! 11. C. As a document-level security mechanism, Authors fields refine edit
access to documents while Readers fields refine read access to documents. 12. A. A view access list defines who will be able to read, and therefore see,
a view. By specifying the WineReviewers as the users who can see the view, no other users will be able to see that particular view. 13. C. Since he has Author access, Marcelo can create documents with the
ProductProfile form but he cannot edit them. He can, however, see them, so C, read, is the correct answer. 14. B. Since Doreen’s username is not listed in the Authors field, she can
create but not edit documents from the ProductProfile form. 15. A. Since Ozzie and Harriet have Editor access and not Author access,
they are unaffected by the Authors field. 16. C. A form’s read access list can include both Web and Notes users and
applies to both. The Anonymous user can be listed as a form read access entry to either prevent or allow Anonymous access. 17. C. The form read access list is the best candidate; however, the view
read access list is a good second choice. The difference between the two is that the view read access list is a speed bump or barrier while the form read access list definitely can be used to prevent certain users from seeing documents created from a form. 18. D. A database cannot be marked to allow public access use. This is a
setting that takes place at the design element level in conjunction with the ACL.
19. D. While roles might be useful, using two controlled access sections
is the best way to allow both groups to see the data while limiting edit access for areas to a specific group. 20. C. Authors and Readers fields refine, not override, a database’s Access
Control List. The ACL is always in effect. 21. A. By adding an Authors field to the form, Ulysses can specify users who
should not be allowed to edit the documents after they are created. 22. C. Authors fields only apply to users with Author access in a database. 23. C. View access lists determine who can see the view, not who can read
or edit documents. The default view access list is that all users with Reader access or above can see the view. 24. B. Creating a read access list for a form using the form’s properties auto-
matically adds the reserved and hidden field $Readers to all documents created from the form. The field contains the names of users, groups, servers, and roles allowed to read documents created with the form. 25. D. The SecretEncryptionKeys field helps manage and track the secret
encryption keys used to encrypt fields on a document. A side effect of using this field is that if the value evaluates to null, meaning no keys are listed in the field, the document will not be encrypted. 26. B. The minimum access level required to create personal agents is Reader.
This means that the additional ACL privilege to create personal agents must also be assigned to the user.
LOTUS EXAM COMPETENCIES COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER Creating mail enabled forms Creating Mail-in Databases Creating workflow related fields: conditional/unconditional fields Creating workflow related fields: hide when fields Creating workflow related fields: keyword fields Creating workflow related fields: reserved word fields Creating workflow related fields: workflow related field attributes Creating workflow related forms: mail enabled forms Creating workflow related forms: setting workflow related form attributes Creating workflow related sections Creating/distributing workflow tracking databases Creating/setting up workflow roles: external to Notes Creating/setting up workflow roles: within Notes Creating/setting up workflow routing rules (addressing) using formulas: Booleans Creating/setting up workflow routing rules (addressing) using formulas: conditional/unconditional Creating/setting up workflow routing rules (addressing) using formulas: constants
Creating/setting up workflow routing rules (addressing) using formulas: variables Creating/setting up workflow routing rules (addressing) using formulas: @Commands Creating/setting up workflow routing rules (addressing) using formulas: @Functions Creating/setting up workflow routing rules (addressing) using multiple mail systems Determine Workflow control Distribution through routing Mail enabled field problems: field attributes Mail enabled form problems: workflow related Mail encryption Mail-in database problems Parallel/Serial distribution Planning for multiple mail systems Setting up events Setting workflow related form attributes Tracking through mail-in databases Tracking through replication Workflow distribution problems: replication Workflow distribution problems: routing Workflow distribution problems: roles Workflow distribution problems: rules
t’s no secret that workflow and collaboration are two of the prime reasons Lotus Notes Domino is the top groupware product on the market. The strength of the product comes from the combination of messaging, security, and programmability. It’s in the programmability area that workflow is implemented in a Domino database by you, the programmer. In this chapter, you’ll learn what workflow is, how to implement it using the Domino toolkit, and how to troubleshoot problems that might crop up.
Workflow Defined
W
orkflow describes the state-transition changes of ownership or information in a document over a period of time. The changes represent a defined business process. For instance, getting reimbursement for travel expenses incurred on a business trip represents a business process. A defined procedure is in place to ensure that you are reimbursed. The concept behind workflow is that the reimbursement form you fill out flows from one step, or state, in the process to the next until you eventually receive the money due you. Did you notice that neither the word workflow nor the phrase “business process” implies automation? That’s where Domino comes in. With Domino, you can automate a business process. So the answer to the unasked question of how workflow happens in Domino is that you, the programmer, code it to happen.
Benefits of Workflow Applications Workflow applications encapsulate and automate business processes that are often human-interaction intensive. Creating a workflow application can offer the following benefits to the business process itself:
Decreased process-completion time
Streamlining of the process
Potential enhancements of the process
Improved tracking and control of the process
Reduction in total process cost
Increased profitability of the process
Tasks and Activities All businesses consist of numerous business processes. Each business process is composed of a set of steps or activities. Examples of business processes include purchasing, order management, invoicing, resource management, time tracking, expense reports, approval processes, inventory control, and vacation request procedures. All of these can be done as manual tasks, and all of them are candidates for workflow automation. Let’s examine the business process of applying for vacation leave. The process varies from company to company but might contain the following discrete steps: 1. Create an initial vacation request using a vacation request form. 2. Submit the completed vacation request form. 3. Approve or deny the vacation request. 4. Report approved vacation to shift manager.
To create workflow in Notes to model this process, you need to automate the tasks. Here’s a thought on how to make it happen in Notes: Create Create and save a Notes document. Submit Route the document to an approver. Approve/Deny Route an approval/rejection back to the submitter. Report E-mail the shift manager.
As you can see from this example, the idea of automating a workflow is to break the business process down into small tasks and automate each one. Completing a business process generally requires the collaboration of multiple people. Domino is known as a collaboration tool since it facilitates the exchange of information between multiple users even if they are geographically located in different places.
Workflow Distribution Models
W
orkflow applications distribute information and tasks to the people participating in the business process. A good model helps to ensure that a person who is responsible for a task actually carries out the task. The programmer designing and automating the workflow can smooth the interactions between tasks using code. Once one task is complete, the application provides the information for the next task and distributes it to the appropriate people. Workflow information distribution models can be classified into three types: Send model Sends the information directly to users. The form is stored in the document and documents are routed automatically to users involved in the workflow process. Users act on information in the documents as they are delivered into the users’ mail databases. Share model Users participating in the workflow process go to a central database located on a server to interact with documents. Users are responsible for regularly checking the database for document status. Hybrid model Uses the best of both models. Brief notification or reminder e-mails are sent to users when their attention is required to a task in the central database on a server. The e-mail contains either a link to the workflow database or a directive telling the user where to go in the workflow database. Which model should you choose? Your choice will be driven by the complexity of the business process you are modeling, the network accessibility of your
users, and the database size restrictions on your servers. Table 8.1 compares the advantages and disadvantages of the three models. TABLE 8.1
Workflow-Distribution Model Comparison Model
Advantages
Disadvantages
Send
–Remote users only need to replicate their mail file to contribute to the workflow application.
–The disk space increases for workflow-application users because the logic created in the form must be stored in the document so it can be routed to the users. –The mail database needs to be replicated frequently for effective information flow.
Share
–People on the LAN can create and edit data directly in the database. –Users get to see all revisions to the document.
–Remote users must connect to the network to contribute to the workflow application.
Hybrid
–This method will have the same advantages as the send and share methods. –A user receives a short e-mail indicating that a workflow task needs processing attention. –This model conserves disk space.
–This model is usually more complex to design, making it harder and more time-consuming to implement.
To distribute information in any of the models, the timing for when an action on an activity is needed is decided either in parallel or serially. Let’s examine the implications of the two different distribution mechanisms.
Parallel Distribution Activities that do not have to be completed in a specific order can be distributed in parallel. If this is a send model database or a hybrid model, then notification or an encapsulated version of the form will be sent to every person who is interested in
the data. For instance, if the vacation request needs to be approved by a manager and by the human-resources director but it doesn’t matter who approves it first, the request can be sent to both parties in parallel. There is a caveat to using parallel distribution. Since separate copies of the document are sent to all the involved parties simultaneously and independently, the users could make changes to the document that need to be managed or merged. If this back-end process for parallel distribution is not implemented, different versions of the document will exist, which may cause data conflicts. Two kinds of conflicts are possible: save conflicts and replication conflicts. A save conflict is created when two or more people modify the same fields in a document that is stored on a single shared server. A replication conflict occurs when two or more people modify the same fields in a document that is stored on multiple servers that replicate with one another. Both types are commonly referred to as replication save conflicts. Replication save conflicts can be reduced using the database property to merge replication conflicts. However, they can be eliminated if serial distribution is used in a workflow instead of parallel distribution.
Serial Distribution If you have an activity that must be completed in a specific order by specific individuals with specific privileges, then you are interested in serial distribution. Serial distribution means that tasks are carried out sequentially. The activities in the vacation request process happen sequentially. The state of the information and who owns it changes when the prior activity is completed. At the beginning of the process, the employee owns the information and its state is “new.” In the middle of the process, the state of the information is “pending” and the owner is the vacation approver. At the end of the process, the status is either “approved” or “denied” and its owner is the system itself since no further action is required. From the point at which you request a vacation until the time your request is acted upon, your request is flowing sequentially through a set of processing states or phases. With serial distribution, only specific individuals that meet a predefined criterion are allowed to edit the documents at a particular stage in the process. When the user has made the appropriate modifications to the information in the document, a predetermined user is then allowed to edit it. This process continues until the document is complete, which is generally flagged by a status field of some kind. If this is a send model database or a hybrid model, either the document itself or an e-mail containing a document link will be sent to the appropriate individuals.
Using serial distribution, the workflow may take longer than it would with parallel distribution, since it is done sequentially.
Implementing a Domino Workflow
D
omino provides services and methodologies to support parallel and serial workflow distribution and flexible support for the different types of workflow models. The most often used workflow capabilities and their descriptions are shown in Table 8.2. TABLE 8.2
Domino Workflow Capabilities Capability
Description
Flexible client access
Domino applications can be accessed using either Notes clients or Web clients.
Integrated mail capabilities
Workflow applications can route information to users through the built-in Domino mail infrastructure.
Modification tracking
Changes to documents can be tracked over time using document versioning with Response documents.
Replication
Flexible geographic mobility is possible through synchronizing the contents of two replica databases.
Robust security model
User identity and access rights are investigated when a user opens a database and randomly when carrying out tasks within a database.
Domino allows a programmer to combine these techniques to automate business processes into workflow processes. Depending on the type of database implemented, one or more of the techniques will solve the workflow problem.
Workflow and Databases Workflow applications are comprised of a single database or a combination of databases. There are five major types of databases. The type of database used determines how information is shared with or distributed to users. The five types of Lotus Domino databases are listed as follows: Broadcast Used to relay information to multiple users; users receive information that is pushed out from a broadcast database into each user’s individual mail file. Discussion Used to coordinate discussions with multiple users, including responses and responses to responses; users add new comments to a database and read the comments of other users. Reference Used to store relatively static information; users access the database to read information. Tracking Used to track information about data; users access the database to modify fields of information and to view the status of information. Workflow Used to model business processes; users interact with a workflow database for the purpose of document approval or denial as well as reviewing its current status. The vacation request workflow application you’ve been considering can be implemented as a combination of the five database types. Table 8.3 describes the activity and relates it to the type of database that supports the activity. TABLE 8.3
Vacation Workflow Process: Database Analysis
Activity
Type of Workflow
Database Type
Create Request, Submit Request
The request will be saved in the database for future reference. An alert may be sent to the appropriate supervisors, letting them know that an approval is to be made. Changes may be tracked.
Reference, Workflow, Broadcast, Tracking
Approve Request, Deny Request
Approvals and denials will be stored for future reference. The approval or denial could be broadcast to the requesting user. The data may be tracked for future reference.
Database Replication Replication is the process in which two databases exchange incremental content and design updates. Replication occurs only between two databases that have identical Replica IDs. Each time a database replicates, a log of the replication events is recorded and stored in the database. This is a feature in Domino that is useful in troubleshooting problems that may occur during replication. This event log history is actually used as part of the replication process to determine the date time stamp of when data was last synchronized between different replica copies of a database. You may find it helpful to examine a database’s replication history when trying to troubleshoot replication problems. The log, shown in Figure 8.1, can highlight transmission and delivery failures. FIGURE 8.1
Replication history
The history can be opened in Domino Designer or the Lotus Notes client using the Replication History button on the first tab of the database Properties box or using the menu sequence File Replication History.
Tracking Databases Tracking databases are designed to monitor the state of a document and maintain status information for each state. There is no option to mark a database as a tracking database; instead, it’s how the information in the database is used that makes it a tracking database. In addition, several features in Domino facilitate the tracking of a document in a database over time.
Document Versioning One of the features that allow every state of the document to be preserved over time is document versioning. The concept behind document versioning is that each time a document is re-saved, a new copy or version of the document is generated and stored. The $VersionOpt special field can be added to a form by a programmer to allow users to create new versions of existing documents by specifying a value for the field that determines the versioning behavior. Table 8.4 details the behavior associated with the seven possible values of $VersionOpt. TABLE 8.4
Document Versioning Options Field Value
Behavior Description
0
Document versioning is disabled.
1
New saves to a document become Response documents with the menu sequence File Save As New Version.
2
New saves to a document become Response documents automatically when the document is saved.
3
Prior existing versions of a document become Response documents with the menu sequence File Save As New Version.
4
Prior existing versions of a document become Response documents when the document is saved.
5
New saves to a document become sibling documents with the menu sequence File Save As New Version.
6
New saves to a document become sibling documents automatically when the document is saved.
Tracking Edits In addition to tracking versions of a document, Domino can track the history of who has edited a document over time. The internal reserved field $UpdatedBy is maintained by Notes automatically. This read-only field contains the user IDs of all users who have modified the document.
The only time the $UpdatedBy field does not exist and is not updated is if the form was marked to be an Anonymous form using the form properties. In this case, the $Anonymous field exists with a value of “1” and no $UpdatedBy field exists.
Servers that interact with the documents for replication purposes are not added to the $UpdatedBy field.
The @Accessed formula is useful to inspect who has edited documents, and in addition, it identifies users who have simply read the document and not edited it.
Mail-In Databases Any Domino database can receive mail if there is a routing document in the Domino Directory that tells the router where to deliver the mail. Databases that have these routing documents are called Mail-In databases. Mail-In databases can also be used as tracking databases since information is being mailed to and stored in the database and can be tracked and reported on over time. The routing documents themselves are referred to as Mail-In database documents. Workflow databases are often implemented as Mail-In databases to facilitate the movement of information in a business process. How does Domino know where to deliver the mail? A Mail-In database is assigned a Mail-In name that acts like a username for routing purposes. When the mail is being routed, the router looks up the recipients’ addresses in the Domino Directory to figure out where to deliver the mail. Among the documents the router considers in its look-up process are Mail-In database documents as well as Person and Group documents. Once the router knows where the database is located and how to deliver mail to it, the router adds the message document to the database. When a document is received by a Mail-In database, it is treated like the creation of a new document. The router then deposits the mail as a new document in the Mail-In database, similar to depositing a new mail message document in an individual user’s mail database. Creating a Mail-In Database Since Mail-In database documents are created and reside in the Domino Directory on the Domino server, you need appropriate security privileges to
the Domino Directory database (names.nsf) to create this special type of routing document. Two security privileges are required as listed below and shown in Figure 8.2:
FIGURE 8.2
Author access to the Domino Directory with the ability to create documents
The NetCreator role in the ACL
ACL for creating a Mail-In database
Domino system administrators have these privileges by default, and the administrators may also have given certain developers the same privileges. The following steps describe the process of creating a Mail-In database document: 1. Open the Domino Directory and verify that you have Author access
with the Create Document privilege enabled. 2. Use the menu sequence Create Server Mail-In Database to create
a new Mail-In database document. 3. Fill in the Mail-In name, description, domain, server, and filename for
the Mail-In database. 4. Save and close the document. 5. Provide the name of the Mail-In database to users and programmers
for use in the To: field of messages to be sent to the database.
To help you understand the information required in a Mail-In database document, the fields and their descriptions are outlined in Table 8.5. TABLE 8.5
Mail-In Database Document Fields
Tab
Field Label
Description
Basics
Mail-In name
Enter the name used to mail documents to the database, e.g., Vacation Request, making sure the name is unique for the server.
Basics
Internet message storage
Choose from three drop-down options for the preferred data format for the mail message: –No Preference (default) –Prefers MIME –Prefers Notes Rich Text
Basics
Internet address
The Internet address for this database.
Basics
Description
Place a description for the use of this document for documentation.
Database Info
Domain
Enter the domain name that the database resides on.
Database Info
Server
Enter the fully distinguished name that the database resides on.
Database Info
Filename
Enter the database path name, including subdirectories, e.g., Apps\ winemaster.nsf.
Administration
Owners
Enter the fully distinguished name of users, groups, and/or servers allowed to modify this document.
Administration
Administrators
Enter the fully distinguished name of users, groups, and/or servers allowed to edit this document.
Administration
Foreign directory sync allowed
Specify if the database mail address can be sent to foreign directories like cc:Mail.
Agents and Mail-In Databases The arrival of new mail into any database, including a Mail-In database, can trigger an agent. An agent can detect changes in the state of the database, and inbound messages and documents definitely change the state of the database. Two of the changes that come into play in a Mail-In database occur before and after new mail is delivered. An agent can be set to react to either of these two state changes. The agent triggers are the Before New Mail Arrives and After New Mail Arrives state changes, as shown in Figure 8.3. FIGURE 8.3
Agent mail triggers
An example of how to put the agent trigger facility to use would be to automatically generate a “Thank You for Your Input” message to be returned to the sender of the inbound document. Troubleshooting Mail-In Database Problems Since a Mail-In database is treated like a user receiving mail, it can experience the same kinds of mail-routing problems that the average user experiences. To troubleshoot mail routing problems, try the following: 1. Use the Notes client to trace mail manually. 2. Inspect the Notes log for any problems that may have been logged. 3. Check with your system administrator.
An administrator can treat custom-developed applications as if they were user mail files, using the normal mail-tracing tools to troubleshoot problems. In addition to mail-routing problems, a Mail-In database may not allow documents to be created in it. If so, the likely cause is that security settings have not been appropriately set on the database by the administrator.
Mail Addressing and Routing Workflow applications model a business process by anticipating the expected route a process will follow. All workflow applications follow predefined rules and routes for input, approval, modifications, and comments.
Types of Routing There are three types of routing:
Client-based
Role-based
Dynamic rerouting
Client-Based Routing Organizations sometimes use more than one mail system or operating system. This causes problems when creating workflow applications, because by the time the mail reaches its intended recipient, the routing information that is required to determine the next recipient may have been stripped off the message. Without the routing information, the document cannot complete its workflow lifecycle. Client-based routing gets around this problem by having the routing information and the form travel together through a message’s workflow journey. Domino achieves this by storing the form structure in the document so that it becomes part of the mail message. Role-Based Routing Roles are collections of users that are referred to using a single name in a database. Role-based routing allows the recipients of mail messages to be programmed in a general way to de-couple specific usernames from the business process and instead associate a set of users with a task in an application. This means that when the particular item has finished, the new document is sent to the new recipient or recipients based on a generic role. The advantage of this is that if individuals leave the organization, the logic of the application need not be rewritten. The database maintainer, someone with Manager access to the database, adds and removes users from database roles. Dynamic Rerouting Routing a form is often based on the value of the data entered in the form. For example, in an expense-reporting workflow application, expenses under $300 could be automatically approved by the system, expenses over $300 and under $1000 could be approved by the CTO (Chief Technical Officer), and any expenses over $1000 could be required to be approved by the CEO (Chief Executive Officer). Dynamic routing relies on a process governed by rules programmed by the database designer using conditional statements and field combinations.
Mail Addressing The single most important task in successful mail routing, and therefore workflow routing, is correctly addressing the document being mailed. A document can be assigned a destination programmatically using special fields combined with formulas or LotusScript. Using a programming language like Formula Language or LotusScript, routing rules can be coded to automate the sequence involved in a business process. The issues involved with mail addressing include working with Booleans, conditional statements, constants, variables, @Commands, @ functions, and multiple mail systems. Booleans Booleans are true or false values. True is represented in the digital world as a 1. False is represented digitally as a 0. Booleans are used in conjunction with conditional statements. A typical Boolean function used in workflow applications is @IsNewDoc, which tests whether a document has been previously saved. Conditional/Unconditional Conditional statements evaluate to true or false, triggering some action in either case. Conditional statements generally test the value of a field, the state of the document, or the state of the database and take an action based on a true or false condition. As an example of an action, the following formula mails a document if it has never been saved before: @If(@IsNewDoc;@MailSend;NULL). Constants Constants are values in code that do not change over time. One famous constant is pi, the mathematical value used to calculate the radius of a circle. In LotusScript, you can define your own constants for workflow to test thresholds, for instance, checking to see if two approvers signed off on a document by testing against a constant you created and set to 2 called NumberOfSignOffsNeeded. Variables Variables are named identifiers that reference a value that either is stored in the NSF or exists in memory. Fields on forms are referred to as form variables. In workflow, variables are used to store state information. For instance, you may have a field on a form called OrderStatus that changes state from “NEW” to “PENDING” to “COMPLETE.” The variable changes programmatically and is often used for testing purposes in a conditional statement. @Commands @Commands represent the step-by-step tasks that are carried out interactively, oftentimes through the Notes client menu. Workflow automation often involves providing users with buttons and hotspots that contain @Commands to ease some of the manual interactions required to process information.
@ functions @ functions are the programmatic heart of workflow. Functions provide conditional statements and access to variables that are testable for the state changes that are characteristics of workflow applications. Multiple mail systems Domino workflow can be routed to Notes mail addresses as well as Internet addresses. This allows a database to be designed to support Notes workflow and Web workflow. Additionally, some formulas provide for automatic conversion to cc:Mail messaging format.
Workflow and Forms
F
orms are one of the basic design elements in a Domino database. To create a workflow application, you design forms that collect the data required by the business process. A basic form consists of fields that gather information from the users, and static text labels that describe the fields or offer the user direction on how to fill out the form. When a user adds data to a form and then saves it, a document is created. A document consists of the data items that were entered by the user, and a Domino database consists of many documents. The power of a workflow application lies in the ability of multiple individuals to contribute information to the same document. In a workflow application, the initial creator of a document uses the form supplied by a programmer to create a new document. Depending on the underlying logic of the application, another individual or a set of individuals in the company will then contribute to the document by adding or modifying content. The contributions by users often occur in a predefined order representing the sequential flow of information in the business process. This process is known as user interaction, and it connects the activities in the business process to one another.
form seamlessly allows recipients to view the data stored in the document. Without a stored form in the document, a user’s mail file would need to include a copy of the form to display the document’s data. FIGURE 8.4
Store Form In Document
Storing the form in the document increases the size of mailed messages, but it also ensures that the recipient will be able to see all items in the document.
On Close: Present Mail Send Dialog This check-box option is found on the Defaults tab of a form’s Properties box as shown in Figure 8.5. When this option is enabled, a dialog window pops up when the document is saved to allow the user to decide whether the document should be mailed. The dialog window is shown in Figure 8.6.
Web users can participate in workflow distribution through form and view action buttons to process and route information.
Troubleshooting Form Attributes If the form is not stored in a document that is mailed to users’ inboxes, the user must have a copy of the form in their mail database to be able to view the data. A special field in the document called Form contains the name of the form used to create the document. If the user does not have the form named in the Form variable, an error message similar to that shown in Figure 8.7 is displayed. At that point, Domino attempts to display the document using the default form for their mail database, which is the Memo form. FIGURE 8.7
Cannot Locate Form dialog
It is not always practical to store a copy of the form used to create the document in every user’s mail database. In this case, it may be best to encapsulate the form into the document that will be routed to the users. This can be done by using one of the options in the send command for Java or LotusScript or by selecting the Store Form In Document check box from the form’s Properties box as shown previously in Figure 8.4.
Sections on a Form A section is a special area that you can place on a form to simplify a busy form and assist in workflow. Sections can be collapsed and expanded. The type of section used with workflow is called a controlled access section. Controlled access sections are editable by a subset of the users who are allowed to access the entire database. The information in the section is visible to all users but can only be edited by the subset of users. The Properties box of a controlled access section is used to designate which users can edit the section, as shown in Figure 8.8. By coding a formula, the programmer determines who will be able to edit the section. The formula type can be Editable, Computed,
Computed For Display, or Computed When Composed. The value of the formula must evaluate to a name, a set of names, a group, or a role. FIGURE 8.8
Access formula
In addition to controlling who can edit the section, the Properties box contains settings to control the expand/collapse behavior for the document as shown in Figure 8.9. The programmer determines whether the section is expanded or collapsed automatically when the document is Previewed, Opened For Reading, Opened For Editing, or Printed. It also allows you to choose different selections based on whether the person can edit the document. By default, all selections are set to Don’t Auto Expand Or Collapse. You can also choose to Auto Expand or Auto Collapse the section. FIGURE 8.9
Mail-Enabled Forms Workflow requires a good mail-messaging infrastructure, and Domino provides the following features that facilitate the automatic mailing of documents:
Sending a link to a document
Sending documents directly
Sending documents as part of a mail memo
Sending replies to a mail memo
To use any of these features, the programmer mail-enables a form by using special reserved fields, form actions, and view actions to move information through a workflow process. Table 8.6 describes these special fields and actions. TABLE 8.6
Automation Features
Automation Feature
Implementation
Value
SendTo
Text field
E-mail addresses of recipients.
MailOptions
Text field
1 to mail automatically on save.
CopyTo
Text field
E-mail addresses of recipients on copy.
BlindCopyTo
Text field
E-mail addresses of recipients on blind copy.
Send Mail Message
Simple action
E-mail with doclink or copy of document.
Send Newsletter Summary
Simple action
E-mail with summary of document Date, Author, and Title with links back to individual documents.
Forms that include a SendTo field with no value and, at the same time, a CopyTo or BlindCopyTo field with a value can still route mail automatically. This feature allows you to send mail to any number of users, and they will not know the other recipients of the document.
Troubleshooting Automation Features The automation features described in Table 8.6 rely on the ability of information to be routed using the Domino mail infrastructure. When a routing fails, the problem is often related to addressing problems. Let’s review some of the issues with these special fields. The SendTo Field If the SendTo field exists but its value does not contain a valid destination address, the server will still try to route the document but will fail. The failed send generates something fondly referred to as dead mail. Dead mail is stored in the server’s MAIL.BOX database, the routing database. If the On Close: Present Mail Send Dialog form property is set and no SendTo field exists on the document, an error will occur. To troubleshoot this problem, add a SendTo field to the form. The MailOptions Field The MailOptions field tells Domino to automatically route a document to the recipients in the SendTo field directly after the document is saved. If the SendTo field contains invalid values, the document becomes dead mail. Only a value of 1 is recognized in the MailOptions field. Any other value is ignored and no mailing takes place. If no SendTo field exists for the MailOptions field to use, the error dialog shown in Figure 8.10 is displayed. FIGURE 8.10
On documents that were created with the Store Form In Document attribute, a MailOptions field should not be included on the form. If this field is present, the document will be routed whenever the recipient opens the document in Edit mode. The Send Mail Message Simple Action For the Send Mail simple action to work, a SendTo field must exist. To create the Send Mail simple action, do the following: 1. Create a button on a form or an agent. 2. Select Simple Action(s) from the drop-down menu. 3. Click the Add Action button. 4. Select the Send Document action, as shown in Figure 8.11. FIGURE 8.11
Add simple action dialog
Simple actions are only valid in agents or buttons.
The Send Newsletter Summary Simple Action The Send Newsletter Summary simple action specifies parameters using the dialog window shown in Figure 8.12. FIGURE 8.12
Send Newsletter Summary
If the To: field is not correctly filled in, the routing will fail. To help ensure that valid e-mail addresses are used, the button to the right of the To: field can be used to pick e-mail addresses from the Domino Directory. The @MailSend Formula The @MailSend function can be used with or without parameters. When no parameters are specified, a valid SendTo field must exist. If the SendTo field is not present or the value of the SendTo field is invalid, an error will occur. When used with parameters, the first one is required and is the recipient of the document. The syntax of the @MailSend formula is @MailSend(sendTo;copyTo;blindCopyTo;subject;remark; bodyFields;[flags])
If any of the parameters have invalid values, the document will not be mailed. Table 8.7 details the parameters and Table 8.8 lists the optional flags that can be used with @MailSend. TABLE 8.7
@MailSend Parameter Options Option
Description
SendTo
Text or text list containing the recipient(s) of the message.
CopyTo
Optional text or text list containing the copy recipient(s) of the message.
BlindCopyTo
Optional text or text list containing blind copy recipient(s) of the message.
Subject
Optional text to be displayed in the subject field of the message.
Remark
Optional text that can be placed at the beginning of the message’s body field.
BodyFields
Optional text or text list containing the names of fields from the current document that you would like included in the mail memo. The fields will appear below the body field in the order listed.
[flags]
One or more optional flags separated with colons indicating the message’s security level and priority. All of the flags are listed in Table 8.8 and must be enclosed in square brackets as shown.
Add an electronic signature to the message from the user’s ID file.
[Encrypt]
Encrypt the document with the recipient’s public key from the Domino Directory. This will ensure that only the recipient with the correct private key will be able to unlock the document for reading.
[PriorityHigh] or [PriorityNormal] or [PriorityLow]
Set the priority for the message. If no priority is specified, PriorityNormal is used.
[ReturnReceipt]
Notify the sender when each recipient reads the message.
[DeliveryReportConfirmed]
Notify the sender as to whether the message was delivered successfully.
[IncludeDocLink]
Add a link pointing to the opened or selected document that this command was launched from.
LotusScript Send Method LotusScript agents are often used to trigger the routing of a document from one place to another. When LotusScript code is used to route documents, the recipient e-mail addresses are parameters to the send method. The syntax is shown below: Call notesDocument.Send( attachForm [, recipients ] ) Using this method, Domino will either create a field on the form called SendTo or override the value in an existing SendTo field. If the parameters to the send method are incorrect and the recipient addresses invalid, the router attempts to route the document and fails, again creating dead mail.
If any of the parameters have invalid values, the document will not be mailed. Table 8.9 details the parameters and the flags that can be used with the LotusScript send method. TABLE 8.9
LotusScript Send Method Parameters Option
Description
AttachForm
Value is either TRUE or FALSE. When TRUE, the form will be stored with the document when it is sent. When FALSE, the form is not stored and the default form in the recipient’s database will be used to display the data.
Recipients
This is an optional text list to specify the recipients for the document. If the SendTo field appears on the form, this document will be sent to recipients also.
For a LotusScript program to mail the document, the document must be associated with a form and it must have been saved already. If the form has not yet been saved, an error similar to the one in Figure 8.13 will display. FIGURE 8.13
No Form Associated With Document dialog
You can fix this problem by associating the document with a form using one of the following four techniques:
Hide the button or hotspot containing the LotusScript send method until the user saves the form.
Programmatically save the form using the NotesDocument save method before calling the send method.
Associate the document with a form before you send it by using doc.form = “YourFormName”.
Do not store the form in the document; setting the first parameter in the doc.send method to FALSE does this.
You’ve seen that much of the workflow automation that can be programmed for forms and databases involves mail routing and the correct use of special fields. In addition, workflow-related fields and events help move information through a process in a predetermined way.
Workflow-Related Fields Earlier in this chapter, we described ways to enable a form to be mailed. In workflow applications, sending mail is one of the keys to the success of an application. To create a mail-enabled form, fields such as SendTo and MailOptions are used. Table 8.10 lists additional fields that provide additional mail functionality to Domino forms. TABLE 8.10
Reserved Text Fields for Mailing Documents Field Name
B—Generate a delivery report if delivery fails. C—Generate a delivery report if delivery succeeds. T—Generate a delivery report tracing the entire delivery path. N—No delivery report is generated (default).
Encrypt
1—Encrypt the document. 0—Do not encrypt the document.
MailFormat
B—Mail both data and encapsulated form structure as a cc:Mail. E—Encapsulated data and Notes form structure to attach to a cc:Mail. M—Body field of document is text and pasted into cc:Mail. T—Contents of the document are rendered as text and pasted into the body of the cc:Mail.
Reserved Text Fields for Mailing Documents (continued) Field Name
Value and Behavior Description
Return Receipt
1—Return a receipt to sender when recipient reads the mail. 0—Do not return a receipt to sender.
Save Options
1—Suppress the on save dialog prompt. 0—Do not suppress the on save dialog prompt.
Sign
1—Digitally sign the document. 0—Do not digitally sign the document.
When you make any change in a document and attempt to close it, Domino will present the options to save as shown in Figure 8.14. FIGURE 8.14
Save dialog
This behavior is perfect for most situations, but if you require the window dialog prompt to not be displayed, the special text-editable field SaveOptions will provide added functionality. When the value of SaveOptions is set to “1,” the document is automatically saved and the window-dialog prompt will be suppressed. If the SaveOptions field is set to any value other than “1,” the window dialog will still prompt to save any modifications. Using the SaveOptions field will only stop Domino from prompting the user to save any modifications made in the document since it was created or last saved. This will not stop the user from saving a document. To stop documents from being saved, you can use the Querysave form event.
Form Events Form events can trigger workflow behavior because they represent changes in the state of the document. Any event can invoke code. The code could be programmed to do tasks like route a document, pop a question box up on the user’s screen, or put the user into Edit mode of a particular document. The set of form events available in the Object Viewer is shown in Figure 8.15.
Querysave The Querysave form event, for instance, is triggered when a user saves a document executing any code contained in the event. To stop documents from being saved in a database, you can write conditional code to set a stop flag in LotusScript. The stop flag is known as the Continue variable. Continue takes on the value of True or False; when Continue equals True, the document saves; when Continue equals False, the document cannot be saved. The following code gives you an idea of how this should be coded if you want to exclude documents of a certain form type from saving: Sub Querysave(Source As NotesUIDocument, Continue As Variant) If Form = “WineMaster News” then Continue = False End Sub
Queryclose If you want to force a document to be saved when a user presses the Escape key and prevent the window dialog from prompting to save the document, you have an interesting dilemma. The Save dialog can be suppressed by setting the SaveOptions field to “1” as described earlier; however, the document will not be saved if the user presses the Escape key after editing the document. To accomplish this feat you need to programmatically set the SaveOptions field to “1,” then programmatically save the document in the Queryclose event and reset the SaveOptions field back to “0.” The following LotusScript code gives you an idea of how to do this: Sub Queryclose(Source As NotesUIDocument, Continue As Variant) Dim ws As New NotesUIWorkspace Dim uid As NotesUIDocument Dim doc As NotesDocument Set uid = ws.CurrentDocument Set doc = uid.Document If uid.editMode Then doc.SaveOptions = "1" Call uid.Save doc.SaveOptions = "0" End If End Sub
Troubleshooting Form Events If the Continue variable in the Querysave event is set to False, and the SaveOptions field is set to “1,” your form could get stuck in an infinite programming loop prompting the user continuously to ask if they want to save the document—and never letting them do it! Let’s examine this below: 1. When a modification is made to the form and you close the document,
you will be prompted to save the document. 2. If you select Yes, the Querysave event will be called. The Continue
Variant is set to False in the Querysave event, which stops the save. Since the SaveOptions field is set to “1,” you will be prompted to save the document again, as in step 1. 3. This will continue until you select No or Cancel from the given
Hiding Design Components Design components have the ability to be hidden based on a formula or document event. Hiding components is a quick way to change the look and feel of a form based on formula-related information, such as if the user is using the Notes client or is accessing the page from the Web. Hide When formulas are specified for each design element using the Paragraph Hide When tab of the Properties box as shown in Figure 8.16. FIGURE 8.16
Paragraph Hide When settings
Table 8.11 describes the different situations that can be used to hide data. TABLE 8.11
Hide When Options for Field Design Elements Field
Description
Notes R4.6 or later
Hides the element from users of Notes R4.6 or later.
Hide When Options for Field Design Elements (continued) Field
Description
Previewed for reading
Hides the element when users are reading the document in the preview pane.
Opened for reading
Hides the element when users have the document opened for reading.
Printed
Hides the element when the document is printed.
Previewed for editing
Hides the element when the document is opened for editing in the preview pane.
Opened for editing
Hides the element when the document is opened for editing.
Copied to the clipboard
Prevents the element from being copied to the clipboard to be pasted elsewhere.
Hide paragraph if formula is true
A true formula condition determines the circumstances in which the information is hidden.
Summary
W
orkflow support is one of the primary strengths of the Domino product, and in this chapter, you have examined the programming capabilities that implement Domino workflow. Workflow is the movement of control and information and the automation of a defined business process. Business processes are composed of activities and interactions. Domino workflow applications encapsulate business processes and are coded to distribute information using the send model, the share model, or the hybrid model, taking advantage of either parallel or serial information distribution.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: @ functions @Commands activities Agent log BlindCopyTo Boolean business process collaboration constants CopyTo dead mail distinguished name Domino Directory events fields forms Hide When formulas Mail Options field MAIL.BOX Mail-In database MailOptions replication Response document Response to Response document
Review Questions 1. Amanda is trying to formulate a good definition of workflow. Which
of the following describes workflow best? A. The movement of control in a defined business process B. The movement of information in a defined business process C. Both A and B D. None of the above 2. Billy is trying to understand what a business process is. Which of the
following describes a business process? A. A set of steps that describes how to perform a specific task B. A program used to accomplish a business task C. The flow of information and control D. None of the above 3. Carmen would like to understand what to use workflow applications
to do. Which of the following is a good definition of this? A. Encapsulating workflow B. Encapsulating business processes C. Both A and B D. None of the above 4. Dirk has mail-enabled a form so that an e-mail alert is sent to users
when a task needs attention in a central database. The users of the system are both in-house on the local area network and remote users. What can Dirk do to make it convenient for both types of users to easily process the information? A. Include a copy of the document in the e-mail alert. B. Store the form in the document. C. Include a doclink to the remote server. D. Make the form usable from a Web client.
5. Elise’s form contains fields for mailing-address and billing-address
information. She wants the mailing address to be visible to certain users and the billing address to be visible to a different set of users. What can she do to accomplish this? A. Put the fields in a controlled access section. B. Put the fields in a standard section. C. Apply Hide When attributes using a formula. D. Apply Hide When attributes to hide when reading and editing. 6. Felipe wants a document to be mailed as soon as it is saved. Which of
the following can he use for this purpose? A. @MailSend B. SaveOptions C. MailOptions D. LotusScript send method 7. Grant wants to use the @MailSend formula without any arguments to
route a document. Which of the following fields needs to exist on the document first? A. SaveOptions B. MailOptions C. SendTo D. DeliveryReport 8. Harmony wants the radio buttons for color choices to be visible only
when a user is editing a document. What can she do to suppress the radio-button field visibility? A. Use Hide When field attributes to hide while in Read mode. B. Use Hide When field attributes to hide while in Edit mode. C. Place the field in a controlled access section. D. Place the field in a standard section.
9. Issac wants to place some LotusScript code in a form event to prevent
certain users from saving a document. Which of the following events can he use? A. Querysave B. Queryclose C. PostOpen D. Terminated 10. Jana is trying to decide whether to use a controlled access section or a
standard section. Which of the following is a true statement about controlled access sections? A. Users cannot collapse controlled access sections. B. Multiple users are needed to use controlled access sections. C. Users may be able to see but not edit the section. D. None of the above. 11. Kassandra is concerned about her development time line and would
like to choose a workflow model that does not take a long time to implement. Which of the following workflow models should she therefore avoid? A. The share model B. The send model C. The relational model D. The hybrid model 12. Luther wants to trigger an action when a document is closed regardless of
whether it has been edited. Which of the following events can he use to do this? A. Queryopen B. Queryclose C. Terminate D. Initialize
13. Marcia created an application that implements serial distribution to
the marketing, sales, and accounting groups. In what order will the information be distributed to the groups? A. Marketing, sales, and accounting B. Accounting, marketing, and sales C. Sales, marketing, and accounting D. None of the above 14. Nathan needs to get a return receipt sent back to the originators of a
workflow document. Which of the following fields can he place on the form to accomplish this task? A. $$Return B. $ReturnReceipt C. MailOptions D. $Signature 15. Oretha is creating an application for the sales force of her company.
The sales team is out of the office most of the time, connecting remotely. What would be the best model for developing applications for this team? A. The send model B. The share model C. The hybrid model D. None of the above 16. Phil wants to create a discussion database application. He would like to
send a message to interested individuals when information is entered into the database. What design model does this most resemble? A. The send model B. The share model C. The hybrid model D. None of the above
17. Queenie needs to create an invoicing application that must go to two
department heads for approval before the document can be considered closed. What method of distribution should she implement? A. Parallel distribution B. Serial distribution C. A and B D. None of the above 18. Ricardo wants to create an application that incorporates an approval
process. The application contains a set of users who can approve tasks as they become available. What method of distribution should he try to implement? A. Parallel distribution B. Serial distribution C. A and B D. None of the above 19. Sandy knows that all replication events are recorded. Where are these
events recorded? A. The replication log for the server B. The design synopsis for the database C. The shared actions in the database D. The replication history for the database 20. Theo noticed that certain documents were not replicating between
two servers. Where should he look to see the replication events? A. In the replication log B. In the replication section in the Domino Directory C. In the replication history dialog D. In the replication design element
21. Ursula created a controlled access section that she wants to be visible
to editors of the section only when the document is in Edit mode. How can she accomplish this? A. Use expand/collapse rules for the section. B. Use the Hide When attributes for the section. C. Limit the section to being edited by users with Editor access. D. This functionality is not possible with controlled access sections. 22. Van’s workflow application mails documents to user mail files. The
users are complaining that they can’t see any data when they open the e-mail. What is a likely cause of the problem? A. The form is not stored in the document but is present in the user’s
mail file. B. The SendTo field was not created correctly. C. The document contains truncated data. D. Form is not stored in the document and is not present in the user’s
mail file. 23. Wanda wants to send users an e-mail that summarizes a workflow
document that needs processing with a link back to the document to process. Which of the following easily accomplishes this? A. Send Mail Message simple action B. Send Newsletter Summary simple action C. @MailSend function D. LotusScript send method 24. Xavier wants to mail documents directly to user mailboxes. Which of
the following should he do to ensure that the data in the document is visible? A. Do not use Hide When attributes. B. Store the form in the document. C. Use standard access sections. D. Set the database property to allow merging of conflicts.
25. Which formula should Yelena use to send a doclink to specified users
as part of a workflow application? A. @MailSend(“Mary Jones/”;”Action
Needed!”;(IncludeDocLink)) B. @MailSend(“Mary Jones/”;””;””;”Action
Needed!”;””;””;[IncludeDocLink]) C. @MailSend(“Mary Jones/”;”Action
Needed!”;[IncludeDocLink]) D. @MailSend(“Mary Jones/”;””;””;”Action
Needed!”;””;””;”IncludeDocLink”) 26. Zack wants to combine the @MailSend with a formula to condition-
ally send a document only if the document has never been saved. Which function will help with this task? A. @IsNewDoc B. @Accessed C. @True D. @Created
Answers to Review Questions 1. C. Workflow can be defined as the movement of information and
control through a defined business process. 2. A. A business process is a set of steps that describes how to perform a
specific task. 3. B. Workflow applications are used to encapsulate business processes. 4. A. Both internal Notes users and users who connect remotely are best
served by including a copy of the document in the original e-mail alert, which offers the fastest and most convenient access to the document. 5. C. Hide When formulas can hide fields from users based on a formula,
including being able to test to see if a user is a member of a group that should see the field. 6. C. The MailOptions field with a value of 1 automatically mails a docu-
ment when it is saved, using the SendTo field to obtain the recipient list. 7. C. The SendTo field contains the recipient list for a mail-enabled
form, and it must contain a valid value for the @MailSend to be used without any arguments. 8. A. The basic Hide When field attributes should do the trick here, sup-
pressing the radio buttons while in Read mode but displaying them in Edit mode. 9. A. The Querysave event can set the Continue variable to False to prevent
specified users from saving a document. 10. C. Controlled access sections are editable by a subset of the users who
are allowed to access the entire database. The information in the section is visible to all users but can only be edited by the subset of users. 11. D. The hybrid usually takes the longest to implement because it requires
a great amount of understanding from the user and programmer with respect to the overall business process.
12. B. The Queryclose event fires when a document is closed regardless of
whether it was edited. 13. A. Serial distribution will send the information from group to group,
sequentially one at a time. 14. B. The $ReturnReceipt is used to return a message back to the sender
after the recipient has read the mailed document. 15. A. Since the sales force will be connecting remotely and will not have
consistent connections to their network, developing applications that store all the needed information in an e-mail would make the sales team’s job much easier. All they would have to do when connecting to the network would be to replicate their mail file. 16. C. Since a notice, not the actual document, is going to be sent to individ-
uals, but they will be accessing the information in the discussion database, this application uses a combination of send and share, making it a hybrid. 17. B. In this case the document, or a link to the document, needs to be sent
to the correct people in a specific order and the state of the document needs to change sequentially. Therefore, serial distribution is the best distribution option. 18. A. Since a set of users can approve the items in the database, Ricardo
should send an approval notice to the set of individuals in the group, indicating work needs to be done. 19. D. All replication events are stored in the replication history dialog. 20. C. To help troubleshoot replication problems, the replication history
dialog is a great tool. This is accessed from the Properties dialog of the database. There is no such thing as a replication design element, the Domino Directory doesn’t have a replication section, and there isn’t a replication log. 21. A. A section’s Properties box contains settings to control the expand/
collapse behavior when the document is previewed, opened for reading, opened for editing, or printed and allow it to be set specifically for section editors.
22. D. If the form is not stored in a document that is mailed to users’
inboxes, the user must have a copy of the form in their mail database to view the data. 23. B. The Send Newsletter Summary e-mails a summary of the document’s
Date, Author, and Title with links back to individual documents. 24. B. Storing the form in the document delivers the form structure and
the document data to the user mail files so that the data can be viewed directly. 25. B. There are six required parameters plus optional flags for the
@MailSend function unless the option of using no arguments is chosen. The flag needs to be enclosed in square brackets. 26. A. The @IsNewDoc function is a Boolean function that returns a 1 if
the document has never been saved. When used with @MailSend, it can guarantee that a document will be sent only once, at create time.
Application Planning LOTUS EXAM COMPETENCIES COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER Design a secure application Design an update distribution mechanism Design an update distribution mechanism using replication Design applications based on the object store Design applications for consistent ACL enforcement Plan applications based on how attachments are handled Design applications for replication Plan applications based upon impact of replication on server involvement Plan for Design distribution based on replication Plan for Design distribution based on templates Plan applications based on backwards compatibility Plan application security based on Password encryption Plan application security based on the Domino directory Plan applications based on authentication characteristics Plan application security based on User Ids Plan application security based on Notes authentication Plan application security based on Web authentication Plan applications based on Database architecture Plan Capacity based on bandwidth Plan for access mode Plan for different license types
Plan for North American vs. International license types Plan for usage Plan for connected usage Plan for constantly connected usage Plan for remote access mode Plan for disconnected usage Design Archiving techniques based on Document characteristics
ou’re in your car driving through the countryside humming to the radio. Do you know where you’re going? Do you know the route? Do you have a map? Do you have fuel? You could wander about aimlessly for a while, but with the price of fuel and the scarcity of clean bathrooms, you might want to rethink that plan. Plan? Did we say plan? Yes, everything starts with a plan. Planning your Domino application before you begin building it is similar to preparing for a drive in the country. As an application architect, your job is to understand the business problem to be solved and code an appropriate solution to it. Your coding environment is Lotus Notes Domino, so planning will be done with the functionality of the coding tool in mind. Let’s start by understanding Domino’s infrastructure and how Domino stores, retrieves, presents, and processes information.
Laying the Groundwork
For companies that went looking for a distributed, multiplatform, client/ server database system to use as a messaging platform, application platform, Intranet platform, and Internet platform, Domino and Lotus Notes was the answer. Domino is the server component, and it’s been designed to work on a wide variety of operating systems, including Windows NT, Windows 2000, AIX, HP-UX, Linux, Solaris, OS-400, and OS-390. Lotus Notes, Domino Designer, and Domino Administrator are the Windows 32-bit clients from Lotus that interact with the server storing, retrieving, processing, and presenting data.
Distributed Database A distributed database means that there is no central server that everyone interacts with for services. Instead, servers can be located around the world or around the hall. Interactions from client to server travel through a network and are not dependent on where the server is physically located. Servers interact with one another, treating each other as clients requesting data. The distributed nature of Domino makes it ideal for working in your office, offline sitting by the pool (well, maybe not), or connected via a modem in a hotel room. Data in Notes is stored as documents in databases. These documents are called notes (you’ll be able to sleep better knowing where the product name came from!). There are four types of notes used in the system: data, design, Access Control, and database headers. Figure 9.1 depicts the four types of notes stored in a typical database. FIGURE 9.1
Notes in a database
Database header notes Access Control notes Data notes Design notes
Database header notes Store the database’s name and server location. All databases sit on a server or on the local machine. Local in Notes means the hard drive of your personal, private machine, as opposed to a network server resource. Access Control List notes Store security information about a database, making the database itself a kind of self-governing body. Data notes Store the data that is entered by end users. Design notes Allow end users to create data notes. They store the structure that gives the data shape and meaning. Design notes are also referred to as design objects and design elements.
Data Storage Model At its simplest, the Notes storage model is a container hierarchy. The operating system contains databases, databases contain documents, and documents contain items of data. Figure 9.2 gives you a graphical look at the container hierarchy. FIGURE 9.2
Notes container hierarchy
Operating system
Database
Items Company Name Address City State/Province Postal Code Telephone
Documents
If you’re a relational database person, the equivalent is an operating system, which contains tables, which contain records, which contain fields. The NotesPeek tool, which is a free software utility from Lotus, helps you examine the contents of a database from a hierarchical container perspective.
Documents Documents are the container that holds user data and presentation content. They can store a wide variety of objects including
Any other kind of object that can be embedded in a document
The database format for data is referred to as the Notes object store. This object storage model is flexible and unstructured as compared with a relational data storage model in which data characteristics are predefined and more structured. The relational model revolves around the concept of primary keys. In Notes, there is no primary key for documents, but there are several unique values that identify information in a Domino database and assist the server in its distributed database tasks. These unique identifiers are generated automatically by Notes whenever a new database or document is created, as shown in Table 9.1. TABLE 9.1
Unique Identifiers in Domino Unique Identifier
Purpose
Replica ID
Each database has a Replica ID that is unique across servers.
Document Unique ID
Each data note has a Document ID that is unique across servers.
Note ID
Each data note has a Note ID that is unique within a database.
Domino has a concept of a parent/child relationship between documents. A document created in relation to another document becomes a child document. This is known as a Response document in Notes.
Response Documents A Response document in Notes represents a relationship or a link between a Response document and another document. As an example of this relationship between documents, consider a customer management application that tracks individual human contacts within a company. Your application would model this as a Company document representing global information about the company, and Contact documents representing specific information about each of the people who are your contacts. The relationship
between the documents would be coded such that the Contact document is a Response document to the Company document. This relationship is created with a special variable called $Ref that the Notes system adds to Response documents. $Ref stores the Document Unique ID of the parent document, similar to creating a pointer back to the parent’s address. Using this parent/child relationship, Notes can model the traditional one-to-many relationship found in relational databases. Notes does not, however, enforce referential integrity between parents and children, so it is quite possible to have orphan documents in an application that is not planned, designed, and programmed properly. So who is responsible for the referential integrity? You guessed it—you! If you allow users to delete a parent document, you need to write code to automatically process the child documents in some way. How you process them will depend on your application needs.
A Domino Application When you use the term application in Domino, it is often synonymous with the term database. A Notes database contains data in the form of parent and Response documents, the code, the graphical user interface, and security settings. a Notes database = Data + Code + GUI + Security There are essentially two kinds of Notes databases: application databases and application templates. Application database Typically has an NSF file extension, which stands for Notes Storage Facility. An application database contains data notes, design notes, Access Control notes, and database header notes. Application template Typically has an NTF file extension, which stands for Notes Template Facility. A template has the same structure as an application database but it generally does not store data notes. Figure 9.3 compares NSF note storage to NTF note storage.
Application databases and application templates are used together. You can create your own templates or use ones from Lotus or third-party developers. Prebuilt templates can let you quickly create applications like discussion forums, address books, and approval cycle workflow, to name a few based on templates from Lotus. Most important, however, is your ability to make a template yourself. Templates are typically the focus of programming activity, and store code and not user data. Application databases store user data and code, and they can inherit the code (or design notes) from a template. This inheritance means that on a scheduled basis on a server, or on demand between servers and local machines, an application receives incremental changes to the design notes. The separation of where the coding activity is performed and where the user activity is performed keeps production data out of harm’s way. To test, it is common to copy production data notes from an application database into the template on the server to use as test cases, and at no point is live data at risk.
Client/Server Data in a Notes database on a Domino server is available to users with Lotus Notes clients and to non-Notes clients. Domino is the server component of the Lotus Notes Domino client/server software. Imagine a very proper butler, one hand tucked behind his back, bending toward you and presenting a silver tray full of newspapers from around the world. The butler is serving up information to a client… you! The Domino server can serve up information to a variety of client types.
The first type of client to come to mind, naturally, is the Lotus Notes client. Clients make use of server information. Some not-so-obvious Domino clients include
Web browsers
Internet mail programs and newsreaders
x.500-capable directories
Non-Notes applications
Client Types
W
hile Domino is a proprietary software product from Lotus and IBM, it is at the same time an open system serving data to many clients or acting as a client itself.
Client Access Methods Client access methods include technologies like
standard that uses Java applets to interact with network resources like databases. Domino supports CORBA as both a data source and as a client that retrieves data.
Communication Ports When clients of any type communicate with Domino, they use dedicated ports and client-specific protocols. The ports and protocol arrangement lets servers and clients agree to send and receive network messages over a prearranged channel. Table 9.2 lists popular network client types, the protocols they use to communicate, and the port or channel used to transfer messages over a network. TABLE 9.2
When clients interact with a Domino server, they are requesting a service. In response to the service request, the Domino server then interacts with the operating system software. These interactions are shown in Figure 9.4. FIGURE 9.4
Domino service interactions Domino applications
Domino services
Operating system
To manage these communication tasks, Domino has two types of services: system services and application services. System services allow Domino to communicate with clients, other servers, and low-level computer resources, while application services allow databases to interact with one another and with network services.
System Services System services provide the communication backbone essential for authentication, directory services, database replication, and message routing. System services focus on tasks that take place at the server level.
Directory Services The Domino Directory is a Notes database that stores all the configuration information for a Domino server. The operating system filename is names.nsf. Configuration settings determine what the server is capable of and how secure it is.
Domino Directory All Lotus Notes clients as well as Web users are registered in the Domino Directory. Users can also be grouped within the Domino Directory to help in granting privileges and checking security. When individual users become members of groups, security for a database can be controlled at the group level rather than for individual users. The concept of a system directory is one that has become standard in the Internet world. Simply put, a directory is like a phone book. It provides a way to look up information you need based on information you know. When you use the phone book or a PalmPilot to find phone numbers, you start out with someone’s last name and retrieve the person’s phone number through a lookup into a directory. LDAP While the Domino directory lets Notes users look up information on the server, external clients, like Web browsers, also need a way to look up key information like e-mail addresses. To allow lookups into the Domino server from non-Notes clients, Domino supports the industry standard Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP). LDAP is an Internet directory standard that allows information lookup between directories based on the x.500 standard. The Domino Directory supports the x.500 standard through an LDAP service. With this service running, software like Outlook communicating as an LDAP client can look up information in the Domino Directory as depicted in Figure 9.5. FIGURE 9.5
Steps to good security Network O.S. Domino server Database View & Form Document Section Paragraph Field
Authentication At the top layer are the rights to access a server from the operating system and network level. Once you have access to the operating system, the Domino server authenticates a user by checking the user’s identity to verify that the user has a valid certificate to access the server. Like a traffic cop stopping a driver and checking to see that they have a valid driver’s license, the Domino server checks the certificate of the user attempting to access the server. Certificates are permissions to access a server in general, and they are stored in a user’s ID file. An ID file is created when a new Lotus Notes client user is registered on the server. The ID file contains critical information that identifies the user, including the username, the Domino certifier of the server issuing the ID, and encryption keys used to create encrypted data using digital signatures. The process of validating a user is called authentication, and it’s a major security service provided by Domino. Authentication is performed every time a user accesses a Domino server resource. Database Security Database security is comparable to the front door of your house. Once you get into the house, there are many rooms you might want to visit, but first you need to get in. The security you apply to a database as a whole guards the contents as a whole.
If a user passes the server’s authentication challenge, individual database security is checked for the user’s privilege authorization to access the database. Once inside a database, a variety of security measures can be put in place to protect the database contents. Stay tuned for an in-depth look at securing a database application in Chapter 12, “Application Security.” LOCAL DATABASES
When working with local databases, the server’s Domino Directory is not available, so local databases like your Address Book are not protected by the same tight security that exists on server resources. In fact, no security is enforced on a local database at all unless you enforce a consistent ACL by enabling an advanced property in the ACL. Figure 9.7 shows this ACL setting. FIGURE 9.7
Enforcing consistent ACLs
The Domino server is the bastion of security, so this lack of security enforcement on the local level is explainable because none of the server’s services are available.
Replication Also a system service, replication is an incremental field-level data synchronization process between two or more replica copies of a database. At the end of a replication, all data notes and design notes are identical in the replicated databases, unless otherwise specified in replication settings. Server and Client Replication Replication can be configured to be bidirectional and can take place
Between two Domino servers
or
Between a Notes client and a Domino server
On the server, replication can be automated through scheduling. For instance, two servers can be timed to replicate every 8, 16, or 24 hours.
In addition to servers replicating with one another, individual users can replicate databases with a server. Mobile users often work remotely and work in disconnected mode. Notes provides an environment where users can make a local replica copy of any database, work with the data offline on a local machine, and then replicate changes back to the server when they’re back online. Replication Settings With these mobile users in mind, it’s useful to examine some of the replication options that can affect the amount and selection of data that is sent between two replica databases. Replication options are set on a database-bydatabase basis and can be set either when a new replica is first created or at any time after that. Replication settings are viewable through the database Properties box. Table 9.3 outlines the replication options. TABLE 9.3
Replication Options Option
Purpose
Remove documents not modified in x days
X is the purge interval in days; deletion stubs are purged.
Only Replicate Incoming Documents Saved or Modified After: date
Use a date to determine document replication candidates.
Receive summary and 40K of rich text only
Truncate documents before replicating.
Replicate a subset of documents
Write code to choose which documents should be replicated.
Replication settings are accessed from the database Properties box using the Replication Settings button. The settings can then be configured using the dialog box shown in Figure 9.8.
Replication History Domino tracks the replication activity that takes place on a database, associating a time stamp with each replication and recording the direction, as shown in Figure 9.9. FIGURE 9.9
data items have been modified. Incremental changes are exchanged based on the time stamp of the last replication. You can access the replication history using the Replication History button on the database’s Properties box. Replication Process How does the server know which databases to replicate and which items within a database have changed? Two databases that are allowed to replicate and exchange data are called replica copies of one another, and they share an identical Replica ID, as shown in Figure 9.10. You may recall from Table 9.1 in this chapter that the Replica ID is a unique number that identifies a database on a Domino server. Two databases that share this unique number are actually multiple instances of one another and therefore can share the data. FIGURE 9.10
Within a replica copy of a database, Domino keeps track of when the last replication was, which fields were replicated, and who performed the replication. Every document in Notes has a unique document ID, so the server makes a list of the documents that have changed and then incrementally updates them until they are identical. MECHANICS OF REPLICATION
Replication keys off a document’s Document Unique ID, the time stamp when it was saved, the number of times it’s been saved, and the individual fields, or items, stored in the document. When the Replication task sees two documents with the same Document Unique ID, it examines the items on the documents
to see if any incremental modifications need to be shared between the two replicas. Each time a field is modified by a user, a special flag associated with the field is incremented. This flag is called SeqNum and tracks the number of times that field has been changed. So to summarize, replication relies on five things:
A database’s Replica ID
A document’s Document Unique ID
Date time stamp when the document was last saved
The number of times a document has been saved
A field’s SeqNum flag
By using these five tracking values, no updates to a document fall through the cracks. There is, however, the chance for multiple changes to a single document wreaking havoc in your database. Consider the case where Alex modifies the FirstName field on a document on the New York server and Norma modifies the FirstName field on the same document on the Florida server. The two servers don’t know about the change until they replicate. At that point, the database’s Replica ID is checked (and matches), the document’s Document Unique ID is checked (and matches), and the field’s SeqNum flag is checked (and matches). Domino proceeds with the replication and the result is that two documents are created where originally there was one. One of the documents becomes the main document, while the other becomes a response to that main document. The Response document is marked as a conflict document through the addition of the special flag field $Conflict. REPLICATION SAVE CONFLICTS
The presence of the $Conflict flag field indicates that a Replication Save Conflict has taken place. These conflicts require manual user intervention to compare the changes and delete one of the documents. So which document gets marked as the conflict document? Well, the good college professor answer is that it depends. Here are the rules:
The document saved the most times is promoted to main document and the remaining document is demoted to a Response document with $Conflict present.
If the two documents were saved an equal number of times, the save time stamp is examined, and the most recently saved document becomes the main document and the other document becomes the $Conflict response.
If the change that took place on a document was a deletion of the document, then additional rules apply:
All replicas of the document are deleted if no changes were made on replica copies of the document, meaning the deletion was the only change.
The document is not deleted if a change was made to the replica copy after the deletion was done, thus pulling in the date time stamp of the document change.
The document is not deleted if the replica copy of the document has been saved more times than the deleted document.
Confused yet? Fortunately, the Lotus folks have this replication stuff all figured out, but without a good understanding of it yourself, you might think strange things are happening to your data.
The error condition is known as a Replication Save Conflict in Notes because it can happen when documents replicate between servers or when they are saved on the same server. The trigger is the same (users modifying the same data in the document) but the moment at which Domino notices it is different.
REDUCING REPLICATION CONFLICTS
Lotus provides two mechanisms to reduce the number of Replication Save Conflicts that occur. They are
Document versioning
Merging replication conflicts
Document versioning allows you to save a complete audit trail of every change to a document by creating a new document each time a change is made. The new document can be associated with the original document as either a response or as the parent. Using this method gives you a good data trail, but it chews up disk space like kids eating french fries. The second mechanism, merging conflicts, gives Domino the ability to merge two replica documents where different fields were changed. So, if Sally in Kansas City changes the Address1 field and Walter in Newfoundland changes the Address2 field, then when the servers replicate, Domino will automatically merge the changes and not raise a conflict condition.
Both of these options are enabled as form settings using the form Properties box. PULL-PUSH REPLICATION
The default direction for a server’s replication is to first pull all changes from the target database back to itself, and then push out any changes to the target database. In the case where documents were deleted from the target database, the server initiating the replication would pull in the deletion stubs from the target database, apply them to itself, and then push any new changes out to the target database. So in no way should replication be considered a backup methodology for data in a database! When a database replicates, new notes and incremental changes to notes are updated in the two databases replicating. The notes replicate in the following order: 1. Access Control List notes 2. Design notes 3. Data notes
Replication and the ACL Since Access Control List notes replicate before other notes, replication obeys the Access Control settings in place on the replica databases. Users and servers must have an ACL entry that allows them to access the data in the database. As an example, if a user is not allowed to delete documents, deletion stubs will not replicate. If deletions are allowed for the user doing the replication, deletion stubs replicate just the same as an addition to a database would replicate. Elements That Do Not Replicate The Replication task updates both data notes and design notes, making it useful as a built-in distribution mechanism for updating applications. Information not stored in data or design notes, however, will not replicate, including
View indexes
Full-text indexes
View indexes will be recreated on an as-needed basis when the replica database is opened. Full-text indexes, however, need to be manually created for each replica. Index structures don’t replicate because these structures aren’t stored as documents, and replication is document-based.
Planning a replication methodology for an application should be done with the system administrator to fully understand the replication topology, schedule, and constraints in place for an organization.
Routing If replication is the system service used to exchange data between two replica databases, routing is the system service used to transfer mail-related information between non-replica databases. Router Task Message routing moves message documents to and from clients and between servers. All messages between clients travel through the Domino server. When one user sends mail to another user, the message is routed through the Domino server and then forwarded to the other user, as shown in Figure 9.11. FIGURE 9.11
This server task is commonly referred to as the Router task. The routing path that the data takes between servers is dependent on the configuration established by the system administrator. While e-mail between individual users is the most popular form of routing, programmer-created Domino applications can also route documents. That means the database itself is sending mail! This is very powerful when you’re automating a workflow application. MAIL.BOX When a message is routed, the e-mail address is retrieved from a lookup into the Domino Directory and then the message is deposited in the MAIL.BOX database. This is a special database that the Router task monitors to see if anything needs routing. The Router can deliver mail to users and to mailenabled databases. Mail-In Databases Mail-enabled databases in Notes are known as Mail-In databases. This kind of database can receive mail just like a normal Notes user. The database has a username associated with it, and Domino can route mail to the database just as if it were routing mail to a user’s mail database. Mail for normal Notes users routes correctly because a Person document exists for the user in the Domino Directory. Similarly, a Systems Administrator adds a special Mail-In document for the database to the Domino Directory to mail-enable a database. The Router uses these documents to determine how and where to deliver messages for the person or database.
Application Services While system services are server-level Domino features, application services, by comparison, apply or are configured at the database level. Application services focus on the elements required to build, maintain, and run database applications, including essential services like
User Authorization Access to a Domino database is controlled by the Access Control List (ACL). The ACL specifies users and their privileges within the database. Any user not explicitly listed in the ACL as an individual or by membership in a group is governed by the Default setting, which must exist for every database. Figure 9.12 shows that the Default setting for this database has been set to No Access, a very safe access level. FIGURE 9.12
Default ACL setting
Each time a user accesses a database, their user ID is first authenticated by the server and then checked for privilege authorization granted to the ID in the database being accessed.
Access Levels There are seven privilege levels ranging from Manager, which has complete access, to No Access, which prevents users from interacting with the database. The Access Levels and their privilege settings are shown in Table 9.4. TABLE 9.4
Access Control Levels
Manager
Designer
Editor
Author
Reader
Read Docs
Edit Docs
Create Docs
Delete Docs
Modify Design
Delete database
Modify Replication
Modify ACL
Depositor
No Access
Every database ACL must have a Default setting. It also must have at least one entry that has Manager access, since Manager is the only level allowed to modify the ACL. Web Users and ACL Web users are also governed by the ACL. They can be listed explicitly in the ACL and granted a privilege level if they have an entry in the Domino Directory. Alternately, a special group name called Anonymous can be used to apply security to all Web browser users who are not explicitly listed in the ACL. When a Web browser requests information, if users are not forced to log into Domino, they are tagged as Anonymous users. All applications intended for Web deployment should have an Anonymous ACL entry with
an appropriate privilege level. If Anonymous does not exist, the Default setting will be used. There is one additional setting in the ACL that will affect a Web user’s ability to access a Domino application. On the Advanced tab of the ACL, you can enable an option that will set the maximum Internet privilege allowed for any user. This includes people who obtain access through the Anonymous group and Web users who logged in with names and passwords through the Domino Directory. Figure 9.13 demonstrates this setting. FIGURE 9.13
Maximum Internet access
If the maximum Internet privilege allowed is Reader, and Anonymous or individual Web users have privileges set to Editor, the highest access they will receive is Reader.
Database Management The Database service manages interactions within and between databases. Table 9.5 lists the tasks that maintain the health of Notes databases. TABLE 9.5
Database Tasks Service Name
Also Known As
Job Performed by the Service
Design Task
Design Refresh, Designer Task
Incrementally refresh the design of a database from a template.
Compact Task
Compaction
Remove white space from physical database storage to optimize read/write performance. Popular flags: –D Discard indexes –R Do not convert the ODS –B In place compaction with no copy –C Copy style compact to new space –L Enable users to use during compact
Examine a database for corrupt notes (design or document) and attempt a repair or delete the corrupt note
Design Task The Design task on a server is responsible for managing the update of serverbased databases that inherit their design from a template. Once a night, the Design task looks for databases that are marked to inherit from a template. For marked databases, the Design task brings incremental changes into the database that were programmed in the template since the last time the Design task was executed.
The Design task runs on the server at 1:00 A.M. by default, updating any server-based databases that use templates. The task can also be run on demand interactively. Design Refresh on individual design elements can be stopped from rolling out automatically by marking a design element property to prohibit design replace. Compact Task The Compact task does the equivalent of a defragmentation sequence. Compact will rewrite a database’s physical storage to compress out any holes that exist in the physical contiguous space. These holes would have been created through the process of deleting documents. FREEING UP SPACE
When a document is deleted, a deletion stub is put into the space originally occupied by the document. Ready for a corny analogy? Think of compacting
as the process of turning Swiss cheese into American cheese! Your data starts out with all kinds of holes in it due to deletion stubs, and after compacting, the holes are removed and a smaller slice of cheese, um, physical space is left in its place.
CHANGING ON DISK STRUCTURE
In addition to its space optimization duties, the Compact task is also used to preserve or upgrade the On Disk Structure (ODS) format of a database. With each major upgrade of Notes, the underlying database format, or ODS, has been modified to accommodate the new features of the product. While existing R4 Notes applications will run on a Domino R5, you may choose to upgrade your applications to take advantage of new R5 features. To do this, the ODS format needs to be converted from R4 format to R5 format. When Compact is run against a Release 4 database, it is automatically upgraded to the Release 5 file ODS format. You’re probably thinking, “But what if I want to free up space in my R4 database and not convert it to R5 format?” To do this, give the database the file extension NS4 instead of NSF. Then, when Compact is run, it will still reduce the storage space fragmentation but will not upgrade the ODS.
Each ODS version is assigned a number. In R5, the ODS version is 41. ODS version information can be found on the Info tab of the database Properties box.
Fixup and Transaction Recovery There are times when a database becomes corrupt and needs to be repaired. One example is when a user has a database open, then shuts the computer off without closing Notes and doing a proper shutdown. To fix a corrupt database, either the Fixup or Transaction Recovery tasks will be used. These two tasks are mutually exclusive of one another.
When a Domino server is started, Fixup automatically scans all databases that do not have transaction logging enabled. Fixup attempts to repair inconsistencies or corruption in views and documents. You can also run Fixup on individual databases if you suspect a database of being corrupt. Transaction Recovery is a new feature in R5 that can restore a database to a noncorrupt state. Transaction recovery relies on transaction logging. It is a method of tracking changes to a database while it is being modified by writing to a set of before, during, and after image logs, as depicted in Figure 9.14. Using these logs, a corrupt database could be recovered to the exact point of failure by applying incremental logged transactions. Ideally, the transaction log is written to a different physical hard drive to provide the best recovery opportunity in case of a disk failure. FIGURE 9.14
Transaction logging Data update
NSF
Log file
Transaction logging must be enabled for the entire server by the system administrator. Once turned on, all databases on the server will use transaction logging. Transaction logging can be disabled on a database-by-database level, and in that case, the Fixup task would once again be the way to recover for a corrupt situation.
Indexing Services The Indexing application service builds, maintains, and optimizes index pointer structures in Notes databases to efficiently retrieve notes (design and data). This server task is commonly referred to as the Indexer task or the Notes Index Facility (NIF).
Types of Indexes There are two kinds of indexing that take place on the data in a Notes database: View index Keeps track of documents in databases. This index is stored within the NSF and, therefore, contributes directly to the size of the database. Indexes, like databases, can become corrupt, so Domino has two specialized maintenance tasks that look after the health of view indexes. Full-text index Keeps track of individual fields of data, or items, within documents. A full-text index is stored separately from the database and can grow to be quite large depending on the options chosen when creating the index. Indexing options include choices to index. Among the options available, you can choose to index file attachments, OLE objects, encrypted fields, and case-sensitive words. The more options you enable, the larger the size of the full-text index. The rule of thumb is that the full-text index can grow to be three-fourths the size of the database itself. Since the full-text index is not part of the NSF file, it does not replicate with the database. Index Maintenance Tasks Index structures are dynamic pointers to data and documents. The index structures are constantly growing and shrinking as documents are added and deleted from a database. To keep indexes optimized and performing well, the Updall and Update index maintenance tasks are available. UPDALL
Updall is a scheduled task that runs at 2:00 A.M. on a server and can also be run interactively. If you suspect a corrupt view index or full-text index, running Updall will update all the views and indexes for the database. Updall discards deletion stubs and rebuilds view indexes that are corrupt. UPDATE
The Update task runs continually on a Domino server. It is responsible for adding and deleting entries to both view and full-text indexes.
Data Archiving Keeping a database manageable involves healthy indexes and a manageable amount of data. When the content in an application grows too large, it can be slow to open and slow to work with for the users. The built-in archiving tool allows you to set up a secondary database that documents can be moved to from the primary database on a scheduled basis or on demand.
End users often make use of the archive facility to make local archives of their mail database.
Archiving in R5 is straightforward. If an archive database doesn’t already exist for a database you want to archive, Notes will create one to get you started. The archive database is given a name prefixed with an underscore (_) and the database name. By default, the archive database is created in the Archive folder under the Data directory on your local machine, but this is configurable. The data to be archived can be selected by criteria based on document characteristics; for example, the creation time stamp of the document, its author, and the time stamp it was last modified.
Integrated Development Environment The Domino Designer provides a complete integrated development environment (IDE) that is used to build and maintain Notes databases. Coding functionality in a Notes database can be done with several coding techniques. Table 9.6 lists the coding languages that work with Domino. TABLE 9.6
Coding Options Code Method
Description
Simple and System Actions
Built-in utility tasks that can be combined
Formula Language
Task-oriented, optimized internal language
LotusScript
BASIC-like procedural programming language
JavaScript
Document-oriented programming language
Java
Object-oriented programming language
Understanding the coding options available to you is the topic of Chapter 11, “Application Coding,” where it is covered in detail.
Optional Services In addition to application and system services, Domino also provides optional services that tailor a server to the needs of an organization. When a newly installed Domino server is first started, a set of default services is invoked automatically, including several of the ones discussed previously. A Domino system administrator often tunes server performance by turning off unneeded services or adding optional services required by the organization. Many of the optional tasks available are shown in Table 9.7. TABLE 9.7
Optional Domino Services Service Name
Job Performed by the Service
HTTP Server
Web server functionality for Web clients
LDAP Server
x.500 directory publishing and interactions for LDAP clients
SSL
Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
POP3
Post Office Protocol v3 (POP3) for POP3 clients
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) for SMTP clients
IMAP Server
Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP) for IMAP clients
NNTP Server
Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) for NNTP clients
DECS
Domino Enterprise Connection Services
It’s no mistake that most of the protocols listed in Table 9.2 map very closely to the optional Domino services listed previously. For each of the different ports and protocols to be available in Domino, the appropriate service must be running on the Domino server. With this design, the server can be tuned to provide exactly the services needed without extra baggage in situations that don’t require the full complement of services available.
Think, for a moment, about your favorite local restaurant and where it is physically located. Can you think of the street name? Do you know what roads you would travel on to get to the restaurant by car? Would you take the same roads to get to your destination regardless of where you started your trip? Would you take a different path to the restaurant at different times of the day, perhaps trying to bypass rush-hour traffic? As you can see from the line of questioning, the path you take to your favorite restaurant depends on several factors, such as where you’re starting from, the time of day, and traffic. Likewise, the users of a Domino server might take different paths depending on several factors. Let’s explore the factors that can influence the path.
Lotus Notes Clients A Lotus Notes client can connect to a Domino server in different ways depending on where the client is located or which network path is best. So that’s two different variables:
Location of the client
How the client connects to the server
Configuration documents providing this information are stored in a user’s local Address Book, which is also called your personal Address Book. The local Address Book has the operating system filename names.nsf. Sound familiar? It should! That’s also the filename of the Domino Directory on the server. What’s the difference? The server’s names.nsf stores server configuration information and is available to all users of the server. Your personal names.nsf stores user configuration information and is only available to users of the computer where it’s installed. Figure 9.15 shows a personal names.nsf for a Notes client with several connection settings. FIGURE 9.15
The configuration information that determines how a Lotus Notes client connects to a Domino server is stored in two special types of documents in the local Address Book:
Connection documents
Location documents
Connection Documents Notes clients store connection information about how to get to a server in a special document called a connection document. The document specifies the communication protocol to use to connect to a server, as well as the name and network address of the server. Protocols include Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) connections over a Local Area Network (LAN), Notes direct dial-up connections through a modem and phone line, and network dialup. Figure 9.16 shows a connection document to a server. FIGURE 9.16
A connection document
The kind of connection you make to a server can affect the performance of an application. Bandwidth is a measure of the speed and capacity of information that can pass between two points on a network. If you have limited bandwidth available, using your application over a network will be slow. Another factor in application performance is whether you’re working with a dedicated connection or one that exists only when you invoke it. Dedicated connections Dedicated connections maintain a persistent end-to-end connection between a client and a server. That means they’re always available and generally offer good connection speeds. Dial-up connections Dial-up connections connect to a server on demand by modem connection to a server. The connection exists only when you dial in and the speeds reach a maximum of 56KB of information per minute.
Internet connections As a public network, the Internet provides communication pathways to millions of destinations. If the Domino server you need to connect to is accessible through the Internet, the Internet becomes a pass-through to the Domino server. Hybrid connections There are times when a combination of connection types works best. A hybrid of dial-up and dedicated connections can create an Internet connection. The scenario is that you make a local phone call to your Internet Service Provider (ISP), which gets you to the Internet. Since the communications protocol used on the Internet is TCP/IP and Notes can communicate on TCP/IP, you can use the Internet to simulate an office connection to the dedicated IP address of a Domino server on the Internet. This scenario is depicted in Figure 9.17. While the maximum speed is still governed by your modem connection to your ISP, your connection to the server goes through as network traffic instead of modem traffic. FIGURE 9.17
A connection document
Location Documents Connection documents work in conjunction with location documents. Location documents identify the mail file to be accessed, the TCP/IP address of the server or a phone number to dial it directly, which server the mail database sits on, ports to use to send messages, and which user IDs are allowed to use the location documents. Figure 9.18 displays a location document. FIGURE 9.18
Ports For connection documents and location documents to work in the Lotus Notes client, ports must be active to send and receive network data. Earlier, the topic of ports was introduced in reference to how a server communicates with services. Lotus Notes clients also must store information about ports so they know where to look for network traffic. Port information for clients is stored in the User Preferences area of the Notes client. You can access the settings using the menu sequence File Preferences User Preferences Ports, as shown in Figure 9.19. FIGURE 9.19
Port options
The ports enabled by the client will be the ones available for network traffic. COM ports are used by modems to make dial-up connections to a server. The TCP/IP port is very popular since it can be used to talk to LANs and to the Internet since traffic on the Internet communicates between points using TCP/IP.
Web Clients Internet traffic includes requests traveling from Web browser clients connecting to a Domino server. While the request travels from a Web client to the server over TCP/IP just like Notes clients talking to a server, Web clients are treated in a different way from Notes clients. A Web client has no user ID file issued by a server, so the rules have to change a bit. If the system administrator has turned on the HTTP service on the Domino server, the server becomes a Web server as well as a Domino application server. When Domino acts as a Web server, data is communicated using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which is the communications protocol of the Internet. When Domino’s HTTP service is started, Domino becomes a server capable of fulfilling Web requests. Domino listens for requests from a Web browser on port 80 and responds to requests by authenticating a user, checking authorization at the database level, pulling the appropriate data from a Notes database, converting it on the fly to HTML, and sending it back to the requesting Web browser. This process is depicted in Figure 9.20. FIGURE 9.20
HTML conversion process
Security check Authentication & authorization
On-the-fly conversion to HTML
HTTP Web request
Domino server
NSF
Display HTML page
Like other Web servers, Domino can also serve up information from an NSF using Java programs, Java applets, and JavaScripts. Domino can serve raw HTML files and image files and can execute CGI scripts and Perl programs if they are stored in the subdirectories provided in the Domino path. These subdirectories are shown in Figure 9.21.
Two types of licensing come into play for the Lotus Notes and Domino products: client license types and security license types.
Client License Types When you install a Lotus Notes client, you are asked what kind of client is being installed. Depending on your choice, different executable files run and install each of the clients you chose. When you purchase the software, the type of client license you buy determines your purchase price. Table 9.8 describes the purpose of the current client license types, but beware, the
licensing strategy changes complexion whenever it takes a good hard look at itself in the mirror! TABLE 9.8
Lotus 5.0.3 Client Types Client
Purpose
Lotus Notes for Messaging
Interact with Domino mail and discussions
Lotus Notes for Collaboration
Interact with Domino applications of any kind, including mail
Domino per-user Client Access License (CAL)
Interact with Domino applications by logging on using a Web browser; fee is charged on a peruser basis
Domino per-server Client Access License (CAL)
Interact with Domino applications by logging on using a Web browser; fee is charged on a per-server basis
Domino Designer
Create and modify Domino applications
Domino Administrator
Administer the Domino server and register new users
In the spring of 2000, Lotus introduced a new client license, iNotes. This license provides for secure access to a Domino server from a browser; Web mail using POP, IMAP, HTTP, or MAPI, offline capabilities; and Microsoft Outlook client access to Domino.
Security License Types Domino R5 was introduced to the marketplace on April 1, 1999, with two different kinds of security licenses: North American and International. The citizenship of the user or the geographic location of the server determined the license issued. This same scheme was used in Release 4 of the product. The server and a user ID each have a security license.
When you install a Domino server or a Lotus Notes client for version 5.0.3 and earlier, you choose the licensing type from one of six available: North American, North American Canadian French, International English, International English for France, French for France, and French. User IDs for Lotus Notes clients are generated by the Domino server and specify either a North American or International license type. The administrator issuing the ID chooses the license type at registration time based on the user’s citizenship.
Starting with release 5.0.4, Lotus adopted a global licensing scheme in recognition of the U.S. government’s relaxation of laws that previously banned the export of high (strong) encryption software products outside North America. North American releases 5.0.4 and higher with strong encryption can be exported to most countries.
The difference between the North American and International license types is cryptographic strength. Lotus Notes and Domino use two kinds of cryptography: symmetric key and public key encryption. R5.0.3 and earlier International flavors of Lotus Notes and Domino use a 40-bit symmetric key, while North American versions use a 56-bit symmetric key. Figure 9.22 shows an International User ID. FIGURE 9.22
Symmetric Key Encryption A symmetric key is one in which a single key exists but many copies of it are available; any of the copies will encrypt or decrypt information. In a sense, this is single key encryption. When you create an encryption key in a Lotus Notes user ID and use it to encrypt a field of data, you are using a symmetric key. To decrypt the data, your intended users will need a copy of the key. This is often referred to as secret key encryption in Notes.
Public Key Encryption Public key encryption takes a dual key approach to protecting data using a public key and a private key. Public keys are used to encrypt mail messages. The public key is available to everyone, while the private key is available only in the user’s ID file. With public key encryption, one key is used to encrypt information and the other key is used to decrypt it. For instance, if Sara encrypts a mail message for Lee, she’ll use his public key because it is published in the Domino Directory. When Lee receives the encrypted mail message, he’ll use his private key to decrypt the message.
With 5.0.4, a Notes client can use a 64-bit symmetric key to protect data on a Domino server. Domino servers can use even higher keys for communications between servers, supporting 1024-bit dual keys and 128-bit symmetric keys.
The logical question to ask at this point is whether North American Domino servers can talk to International Domino servers. The answer is yes, with one exception: data that will be used worldwide should only be encrypted with keys created on an International client. North American servers will negotiate down to the lower key to correctly decrypt information. The opposite, however, is not true. International servers cannot trade up to a higher key, so data encrypted with a North American key will not be visible to users with International licenses.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: Access Control List (ACL) Client Access License (CAL) Component Object Model (COM) Compact connection document Design Refresh dial-up connection Domino Directory Fixup Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) indexing International license type Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) location document Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) North American license type Notes Storage Facility (NSF) Notes Template Facility (NTF) object store Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) Post Office Protocol v3 (POP3) private key
Review Questions 1. Anne is trying to explain to the NT systems and security administrator
how a Lotus Notes application communicates with a Domino server. What is the best description of how this communication takes place? A. Remote Procedure Call B. Notes Remote Procedure Call C. Application Programming Interface D. Lightweight Directory Access Protocol 2. Bob has encrypted several fields of data within a database, a large
number of image files that are read-only, and several long attachments. The database is searched frequently, so Bob has decided to add a full-text index. What security concern will Bob face if he turns on all available options when he creates the full-text index? A. Image files cannot be protected after they are indexed. B. Text within the images will be indexed. C. The attachments will no longer be protected by the ACL. D. Encrypted fields are stored in a full-text index as clear text. 3. After struggling for an hour and being unable to modify information in
a database on the server, Cassandra made a local copy of the database. Her purpose is to get mailing labels out for a last-minute marketing campaign request. She doesn’t care if her changes are saved long term since this is a personal project that doesn’t affect anyone else in the department. What aspect of Notes is allowing Cassandra to do this? A. Local databases allow the changing of data, while server databases
do not. B. Server databases can become corrupt. C. Notes does not enforce security on local databases. D. Databases on a local machine do not save changes.
4. Dana has just completed a major programming change to an existing
application. She’s ready to roll the change out to users on the seven company servers located around the world. Which of the following Domino services will she utilize to accomplish the rollout? A. Indexing B. Directory C. Replication D. Routing 5. Which of the following Domino services will protect Eva’s new data-
base application from a user trying to perform a task outside his or her assigned privileges? A. Security authentication B. Security authorization C. Directory D. Indexing 6. Frank is in the final stages of planning a new database application and
the customer has put forward the new requirement of including key information currently stored in Microsoft Word documents. Users will continue to maintain this special data in Word but the information needs to be available in Notes as well. Frank has decided to include the Microsoft Word documents as attachments embedded in documents that will open when clicked by a user. By doing this, he is taking advantage of which of the following Domino features or services? A. Directory B. Database C. Indexing D. Object store
7. George wants to use Microsoft Excel to pull field-level data out of a
Notes application stored on a Domino server. Which of the following data access technologies would not be a good choice for this data exchange? A. DDE B. OLE C. COM D. ActiveX 8. Hillary is dialed in from her home over a modem connection to her com-
pany’s Domino server. She notices that it’s taking a longer time to open documents in the application she is using than when she used it yesterday in her office. What would explain this performance slowdown? A. Her phone line isn’t capable of fast data transfer. B. Performance in her office is faster because she is physically closer
to the server. C. The data transfer speed is being affected by other users dialed into
the server. D. The data transfer speed is limited by the capabilities of the modem. 9. Ivy promised one-hour turnaround on a design change. She’s made the
change to the design template and is ready to distribute the change to the users on the three servers. The servers are located in Austria, New York, and Germany. Which of the following server tasks should she do immediately to distribute the changes to the servers? A. Design B. Replicate C. Routing D. Update
10. Joyce promised 24-hour turnaround on a design change. She’s made
the change to the design template and has tested it successfully. The servers are located in London, San Francisco, and Italy, and they replicate all templates and databases with one another every eight hours. Which of the following server tasks will distribute her changes for her automatically at 1:00 A.M.? A. Designer B. Replicate C. Routing D. Update 11. K.J. has been working in Release 5 for a while now, but many of his
database applications are still in Release 4 format. The databases have been stable for years and are working just fine on the Domino R5 server since they were moved over. K.J. knows that the Compact database utility that the system administrator runs has the capability of upgrading his Release 4 databases to Release 5 format. Which of the following should he do to ensure that his R4 database is not automatically upgraded by Compact? A. Ask the administrator to use the -B option when running Compact. B. Disable Design Refresh on his R4 databases. C. Give his R4 databases a file extension of NS4. D. At the operating system level, apply the -R read-only flag to R4
12. Lily is attempting to use a Domino application that her friend told her
about on the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Domino server. Lily has not previously visited the FAA server. She has set up connection documents and location documents using the same settings her friend used. When she attempts to get to the server, she types in her Notes user ID and password and receives an error message. What is the most likely problem? A. She failed the authorization process because she was not granted a
license to use the FAA server. B. She failed the authentication process because she was not granted
a certificate to use the FAA server. C. She failed the database security check because she was not listed in
the Access Control List. D. She failed the authentication process because her connection doc-
ument was incorrect. 13. Mike is grinning from ear to ear. He’s just written an application that
will present a Web-based calendar application for scheduling hotel meeting rooms for convention groups. Users will authenticate with the Domino server, log into the application, and then make new convention reservations on line. Mike is piloting the application with 10 users. He’s had the system administrator issue him 10 Notes user IDs that he can use during the pilot. After sending the users the temporary Notes ID files and a separate e-mail with the temporary password, he sits back and breathes a sigh of relief that the application is complete. What has Mike forgotten? A. Notes IDs cannot be sent via e-mail. B. Web users do not use Notes IDs to log into an application. C. Web browsers do not allow users to log into a Domino application. D. The Domino Directory cannot store individual Web usernames.
14. Norma has been assigned to create a Web site in Domino. The home
page will be read-only for all users, but from that point forward, a click on a link will pop up a login screen before allowing a user to proceed. Which type of system design should she plan for easy Domino authentication? A. Use Domino as the home page and then link to HTML pages. B. Use HTML as the home page and then link to a Domino database. C. Use Domino and put all content in one database. D. Use Domino as the home page in one database, making it read-
only, and then build separate databases for the content with individual security. 15. Orson is designing a database for the call center. This database will be
sure to grow because documents are created for each incoming call. These documents can never be deleted, but call documents modified during the last 90 days are the call-center team’s focus. What can Orson do to limit the size of the database? A. Delete data every 90 days. B. Archive data every 90 days. C. Copy and paste data to a different database every 90 days. D. Make an operating-system copy of the NSF file every 90 days and
then delete data older than 90 days. 16. Petra has successfully tested her new Web site project in her New York
office on the company network. The site will be used as the official Austria visitor site. Since its draw is tourism, the site includes a great many graphics of the Austrian countryside in the fall, winter, spring, and summer. Which of the following is going to affect the performance of her application on the Internet? A. Monitor resolution B. Bandwidth C. Monitor size D. Web browser palette settings
17. Q is planning a database that will keep track of James’s gadgets. This
Web application will retrieve information from an Oracle database on a remote Linux server. Which data access method could be used to accomplish this task? A. DDE B. COM C. ActiveX D. CORBA 18. Richard is stumped. He’s been trying to figure out why Web users who
log into his Domino application with names and passwords aren’t able to edit information even though they are explicitly listed in the database’s ACL with Editor access. Which of the following might explain the problem? A. The Default ACL entry is set to Reader. B. The Anonymous ACL entry is set to No Access. C. The ACL option to enforce a consistent ACL is turned on. D. The Maximum Internet Name & Password Access option is set to
Reader. 19. Susan has built a contact management application that contains docu-
ments with a parent/child relationship. Company information is stored as a parent document, while the names and phone numbers of company representatives are stored as child Response documents. Which of the following is a false statement about Response documents? A. Response documents contain the variable $Ref. B. Deleting the parent document will automatically delete the child
Response document. C. Response documents store the Document Unique ID of the parent
document. D. Databases may contain orphan Response documents.
20. Thomas has modified the human resources application. He’s made
changes to the user’s data, the code, the graphical user interface, and the application security settings. How many NSF files will Thomas need to distribute in order to roll out all of the changes? A. One B. Two C. Three D. Four 21. Ulysses has led a mysterious life and has many secrets. He keeps his
secrets safe by utilizing a symmetric or secret key encryption scheme on his data. If Ulysses encrypts his data with a secret key, which key will decrypt his data? A. The same key that was used to encrypt the data. B. The public key stored in the Domino Directory. C. The private key stored in his ID file. D. A combination of public and private keys is required to decrypt
the data. 22. Victoria has written an e-mail to Tommy. Both are using Lotus Notes
clients. She has encrypted the e-mail and Tommy will be decrypting it. Which key is used when? A. Victoria’s public key is used to encrypt the e-mail, and her private
key is used to decrypt the e-mail. B. Victoria’s private key is used to encrypt the e-mail, and her public
key is used to decrypt the e-mail. C. Tommy’s public key is used to encrypt the e-mail, and his private
key is used to decrypt the mail. D. Tommy’s private key is used to encrypt the e-mail, and his public
23. Wills wants to make sure the Salary field and Ethnicity field on the
company’s personnel profile documents are very secure. He’s designed an application that makes use of secret encryption keys, so he has created two secret encryption keys and would like to associate each field with a different encryption key. Will his strategy work? A. No, because when multiple encryption keys exist, all are used to
encrypt all encryptable fields. B. No, because more than one key is not allowed. C. Yes, because each field can be associated with a named encryption key. D. Yes, because multiple encryption keys automatically apply one at
a time to any encryptable fields. 24. Xavier knows that users will be replicating his application to their lap-
tops so that they can use it with their local copy of Notes when they travel. The users are granted access to the database through a group name in the ACL. What option should he enable so that the users do not compromise the security of his system? A. Set the Default ACL entry to Reader. B. Set the Anonymous ACL entry to No Access. C. Set the ACL option to enforce a consistent ACL. D. Set the Maximum Internet Name & Password Access to Reader. 25. Yomar is planning an application that will be used by Web browser
clients to log in, then retrieve and store data. He anticipates only a handful of users for the application; however, they are new to using Domino. Which of the following client license types should he pursue? A. Lotus Notes for Collaboration. B. Lotus Notes for Messaging. C. Domino per-user Client Access License (CAL). D. No license is needed for Web browsers.
26. Zoe is preparing to encrypt documents in a database that will be rep-
licated between the New York server and the London server. Users in both cities need to work with the data. The New York server is running Domino’s North American version 5.0.3, while the London server is running the International 5.0.3 version. Which of the following is a true statement? A. A North American encryption key should be used to encrypt the data. B. An International encryption key should be used to encrypt the data. C. Both an International key and a North American key should be
used as dual keys, where one key encrypts and the other decrypts. D. Encrypted data cannot be replicated between servers using differ-
Answers to Review Questions 1. B. NRPC is a proprietary remote-procedure call implementation used
to pass messages between Lotus Notes applications and Domino servers. That means that answer A is tempting but B is more correct since it is the specific type of RPC that allows the communications to take place. An application programming interface is what programmers can use to manipulate the object store and has nothing to do with how the information is passed across a network. LDAP is a protocol that allows x.500-directory-compatible applications to interact with the Domino Directory, so it does not control how a Lotus Notes client talks to a Domino server. 2. D. To index encrypted fields, the encrypted data is stored in the exter-
nal index file as clear text, which may be a security concern. Answers A, B, and C are all false statements. 3. C. Cassandra was most likely unable to modify data on the server
because security prevented it. She was able to bypass the security by making a local copy of the database. However, her changes will never be sent back to the server, so the security on the server-based copy is intact. All the other answers are completely untrue. 4. C. The replication service synchronizes multiple copies of the same
database, making the design elements and data contents identical. The Indexing task keeps view and full-text indexes healthy, but neither is involved in replication. The Routing task moves messages between clients and servers as well as between servers. To roll out changes, communication is taking place between servers, but the Router task does not get involved because the application is not being sent to a particular user. Rather, the updated application needs to be put on the server and will be invoked on demand by authorized users. The Directory service manages user information and will be consulted when Dana replicates the database to ensure that she has the right privileges to do the replication; however, the Directory service itself does not perform the rollout.
5. B. Authorization is the service used to control which users have access
to an application and what privileges and rights they have within a database. While authentication was a reasonable choice, the Authentication task is actually responsible for validating the identity of the user and the server and does not check the privileges of the user. The Directory service manages user information, but the security authorization is invoked to check privileges on a database. The Indexing service creates pointer structures to documents, and data is not involved in security. 6. D. The object store allows flexible, unstructured data and therefore
allows a Notes document to contain attachments that get stored as part of the NSF. The Domino Directory controls server configuration and security, so it really doesn’t come into play in terms of storage. The Database service controls interactions within and between a database but not how data is stored. The Indexing service maintains pointers to documents, which is important for fast retrieval, as opposed to how the database stores the data. 7. A. DDE is an older technology that only allows a Notes server to act
as a client of data, not as a server of data. OLE, COM, and ActiveX all provide programmatic access to Domino data. 8. D. Data transfer speeds negotiate down to the common denominator.
Since the modem cannot send or receive as fast as her office network, data slows down to the fastest available speed from her modem. While answer A is reasonable, the real gating factor is the speed of her modem. Answer B is incorrect because physical closeness to a server doesn’t determine data transfer rates; the communications connection does. Answer C is not correct because a modem connection, once made, is dedicated to the user dialed in; no other traffic flows through that connection.
9. B. Replication is the task that synchronizes databases across servers.
While Design is a tempting choice, the Design task incrementally refreshes a database that inherits its design from a template. Until the template with the change exists on the three servers, the Design task will have no effect. So, in fact, the Replicate task must run first and then the Design task will take over. Routing is also a reasonable choice; however, routing focuses on distributing messages between databases rather than changes within a database. The Update task is responsible for updating view and full-text indexes, so it does not apply to distributing design changes. 10. A. The Design task runs at 1:00 A.M. every night to refresh the design
of server-based databases that inherit their design from a template. Since the change was made in a template that replicates every eight hours, the design change will occur automatically on each server at 1:00 A.M. local time to the server. The Replicate task is involved in the change rollout since it distributes the template, but the Design task updates the production application. Routing is also a reasonable choice; however, routing focuses on distributing messages between databases rather than changes within a database. The Update task is responsible for updating view and full-text indexes, so it does not apply to distributing design changes. 11. C. Compact will defragment the space in an R4 database and leave it
in R4 format if the file extension is NS4. Running Compact with the -B option simply tells Domino to compact the database in place and reduce the file size if possible, so this will not prevent the automatic conversion to R5 format. Disabling Design Refresh will prevent a template from updating the design, but it has no effect on the R4-to-R5 automatic conversion. Finally, going to the operating system and setting a read-only flag might actually work, but no one would be able to interact with the database back in the Notes world, so this is not a reasonable solution.
12. B. When Lily attempted to log into the server, her ID file was checked
for a certificate that allowed her to access the server. None existed. Although she was able to create connection documents to the server, connection documents do not grant server access. The authorization process is not the same as the authentication process; authorization is the privilege level at the database level granted to an ID. Lily did not get that far since she failed authentication at the server level. Similarly, the database’s Access Control List was never checked since she failed to authenticate with the server. 13. B. Web users are registered in Domino and are given an Internet pass-
word, which the server checks for authentication. A Web browser does not make use of the Notes ID file in any way. Instead of registering new users, Mike should have requested that the system administrator add 10 new people to the Domino Directory and assign them an Internet password. Notes IDs can be sent via e-mail, so that is not an issue. Web browser users can log into a Domino application if they have an Internet password, and each user can be stored in the Domino Directory individually, so the issue is that Web users do not use a Notes ID file to access applications. 14. D. Using separate Domino databases will let users authenticate closer
to the content that they actually access, and each of the content databases can use different security settings. Answer A is not an option since HTML does not natively provide security control. Answer B will also work, but since Norma was asked to use Domino, there’s not much motivation to use HTML at the top if Domino can do the same job. Putting all the content in one database will also work; however, security becomes a bit trickier since it would need to be applied within the database at a lower level than at the gateway into the database. 15. B. Using the Notes archive facility, data can be archived automatically
based on document characteristics, such as when they were last modified. Deleting data would get Orson in a bit of trouble, and copying and pasting the documents would take up an unnecessary amount of time. While an operating system copy of the NSF file would work, it also would take up an unnecessary amount of time as compared with the built-in archiving facility.
16. B. Petra cannot control whether users access her site with a 28.8
modem or a T1 line. Since graphics take time to download and display, the slower the bandwidth, the worse the application will perform. Monitor resolution, monitor size, and palette settings will all affect how accurately the images render, but not how fast they display. 17. D. You can code Java applets using the CORBA as middleware to
access Oracle in a distributed network environment and pull data into Domino. Both COM and ActiveX require a Windows 32-bit operating system to be used, so these are not options for the Linux server. DDE is not supported in R5. 18. D. When the Maximum Internet Name & Password Access option is
set, the access level associated with it will be in effect for all Web users, both Anonymous and those that log in with a name and password. Since there is an Anonymous entry, the Default entry is never accessed for Web users. Having the Anonymous entry set to No Access does not come into play because the Maximum Internet Name & Password Access takes priority. The ACL option to enforce a consistent ACL only affects replica copies. 19. B. Notes does not have a mechanism for enforcing referential integrity
between parent/child documents, so it will not automatically delete Response documents when the parent is deleted. This creates the possibility of having orphan Response documents, so answer D is a true statement. Answers A and C are also true since the $Ref variable on a Response document contains the Document Unique ID of the parent document. 20. A. The design of the NSF is such that it contains the user’s data, the
code, the graphical user interface, and the application security settings all in a single NSF file, so only one file will need to be rolled out to the users. Answer D, four, may have been tempting since it matched the number of changes he made, but it is incorrect since everything is stored in a single NSF. 21. A. A symmetric key or single key is used to both encrypt and decrypt
information, making it very important for the key to be kept absolutely secret. Since the data was encrypted with a symmetric key, neither the public or private key will be used in conjunction with this data.
22. C. Public keys are used for encrypting mail documents, and since
Tommy does not have access to Victoria’s private key, the correct answer is C. Tommy’s public key was available to Victoria through the Domino Directory. 23. A. Using multiple encryption keys on a single document automatically
encrypts all encryptable fields with a combination of all available keys. There is no way to associate a named encryption key with a particular field. 24. C. Setting the option to enforce a consistent ACL will apply the ACL
of the server’s database to the local copy even though local databases normally do not enforce security. The Default and Anonymous ACL entries will have no effect on the users since the group name determines their access level. The maximum Internet password applies only when a Web browser is used, and in this case, the users will be using their Notes clients. 25. C. Since the users will be logging into the application, thus making use
of the authentication services on the Domino server, and there are only a few users, the Domino per-user Client Access License (CAL) makes sense. A Web browser license is not needed if users are interacting with Domino in read-only mode. Neither the Lotus Notes for Collaboration or Lotus Notes for Messaging licenses are appropriate because they don’t provide Web browser access. 26. B. For replication on version 5.0.3 and earlier to be successful and for
documents to be viewable on both servers, a key created with an International ID would need to be used since Domino will negotiate the North American key down to the weaker encryption. Answer A is incorrect because a Domino International server cannot negotiate up to a North American key. Answer C is not right because dual-key encryption requires a user’s public key and private key, which are created when the user is registered; the keys in this question are created specifically to encrypt data and are not user encryption keys. Answer D is incorrect because servers with two different types of licenses will replicate successfully; the issue is who can view the data after they replicate.
LOTUS EXAM COMPETENCIES COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER Design applications based on the basic “Note” unit Design applications based on the NSF structure Design applications based on design elements Design applications based on Document characteristics Design applications based on forms Design applications based on the appropriate elements (Forms vs. Subforms vs. Actions) Design applications based on sections Design applications based on OLE on a form Design applications based on field elements Design applications using item default values Design applications which use the Rich text structure Design applications to use the file attachment structure Design applications based on adding items to a DB: data integrity issues Design applications based on document items Design applications based on getting rid of items from a DB: data integrity issues Design applications based on item data type characteristics Design applications based on Summary/Non-Summary data storage Design View Hierarchies based on Document characteristics Design View Hierarchies using response documents
Design View Hierarchies using view categories Design applications based on view elements Design applications based on pages Design applications based on graphics elements Design applications based on outlines Design applications based on framesets Design applications based on the appropriate elements (actions vs. shared actions) Design applications for data percolation Design applications for Field Exchange Design applications to limit document size Design applications which use the NoteID Design applications which use the UNID Design applications based on Data Integrity issues Design applications based on document copy integrity issues Design applications based on conflict integrity issues Design applications based on document replica copy integrity issues Plan for Design distribution based on templates Design applications to integrate data from heterogeneous sources Design applications to integrate with host data in batches Design applications to integrate with host data in both directions Design applications to integrate with host data using ODBC Design applications to integrate with host data using SQL Design applications to integrate with host data via live connections
esigning a good Domino application is not easy. In fact, it is much easier to design a bad Domino application. While this is true of every programming language, because Domino combines an application platform, messaging infrastructure, and security model in one package, your skills must be sharp in many areas to be a good programmer. In this chapter, you’ll learn design techniques that will help you build a good Domino application. How is a good application measured? Many yardsticks are used to measure software project success, and three good ones are whether
The application is implemented in an appropriate software tool.
The application produces accurate and complete results.
The application is gladly used by the customer.
You might find the last one a bit curious, but there’s a good chance you can recall struggling to use a difficult software product and being motivated to direct a few colorful words at your helpless computer monitor during the process. The reality of the software business is that if users are always complaining about having to use your program, the project is shy of success. This chapter focuses on designing good, solid, usable applications by the appropriate use of Domino’s design features.
From Planning to Designing
T
he design phase follows a successful planning stage. If you were having a house built, an architect’s plan based on your needs, project scope, and available tools would be the output of the planning phase and the input for the design phase. The input for the design phase of a Domino application is the infrastructure knowledge gained in the planning phase. A plan is a global understanding of a software project that applies general knowledge, while a design is a more granular look at the application to be built.
At the design level, you clarify and refine your plan by applying specific knowledge of Domino language features. Design decisions are made at two levels:
Application design level
Database design level
Decisions made at the application level will affect the design of a database, and database design decisions affect how you build the internal structure of your database.
Application Design
T
he term application is often synonymous with database in the Notes world. An application, however, can consist of multiple databases, making application design a bit more high level than the design of a single database. Designing an application takes into account the entire scope of the business problem being solved and how it should be implemented in Notes. Questions to ask at this point include the following:
Will multiple databases or a single database be used?
What client access mode, meaning Web browser or Notes client, will be used?
Will the application implement a workflow?
Will there be interaction with external data sources?
Application Databases: Multiple versus Single Notes applications are designed to solve business problems. Take the problem, for example, of tracking the sales of products to customers. To model this kind of application, you have to decide whether to store both types of entities in a single database or separate each entity into its own database. Since Notes is not a relational database, the formal process of entityrelationship diagrams (shown in Figure 10.1) and normalization to segment data into independent logical entities is optional. These conceptual
techniques, however, have value in Notes to help identify the dependencies that exist in the data being modeled. FIGURE 10.1
Entity relationship diagrams
Customer
1
Places
M
Order
1
Contains
M
Products
In a relational world, you would certainly put customers in one database table and products in another database table. The relationship between the customer and product data is the order that results when a customer buys a product. In Notes, you could choose to store customer data in a single Notes Storage Facility (NSF) file, product data in another NSF, and orders in yet another NSF. Or you could choose to store customers, products, and orders in a single NSF. Figure 10.2 depicts both options. FIGURE 10.2
Multiple databases versus single database
Customers
Products
Orders
Or Company sales Products Customers Orders
How do you decide whether to use one database or more than one? The rule of thumb is to store distinct logical entities in separate databases wherever possible. This has a few advantages:
Creates smaller, reusable NSF data components
Minimizes the size of the database given a single type of entity data
Makes data available to other application programs with minimum overhead
It may, on the other hand, be beneficial to your users to store interdependent entity data in a single NSF file. Possible reasons to go this route include
Replication of only one database instead of multiple databases
Single point of security control at the database level
Ease of use for users who get conceptually bogged down with multiple databases
The modeling approach you choose will be determined by your application needs, your users, and your deployment environment. For instance, if you have Customer information storing name, address, and customer ID, this information can be reused by many applications, so storing it in its own NSF is a good idea. If, on the other hand, customer data is only ever used in conjunction with market research information, you may want to store these two types of information together in a single NSF.
Templates Another kind of interaction that involves multiple databases is template inheritance. The multiple databases in this case are a development template and a production database. The template approach to application development connects a production database to a template from which it inherits its design structure but no data notes, as shown a single Figure 10.3. FIGURE 10.3
Template notes
Template Database header notes Access Control notes
Design notes Why are templates so popular in Notes? Consider the case of sitting at your home computer dialed into a Domino server over a 56K connection. You want to push a change out to a database on the server and also pull back some changes made by other programmers earlier today. To do this, you initiate a replication. When you replicate, both design notes and data notes are sent back and forth over your 56K connection.
No big deal if there’s very little data, but what if 600 new documents were added on the server during the course of the day? Your replication will pick up not only the design changes you wanted to retrieve but also the 600 new data notes. Not quite what you want over a 56K line! Design Tasks and Replication Templates make use of the server’s Design task, discussed in Chapter 9, “Application Planning,” to merge design notes into a database from a template. A server-based database that is marked to inherit from a server-based template receives incremental design changes each night at 1:00 A.M. The Design task is not equivalent to the Replication process, although both are associated with incrementally updating database contents. Table 10.1 compares the two. TABLE 10.1
A template alias name can be any text, but it must be an exact match on the Design tabs for the database doing the inheriting and the template doing the refreshing. To create a template relationship, the following four things must be done:
Database must be marked to inherit from a template.
Designing an application using templates is a powerful way to separate code from data during the development stage of an application. It also provides an excellent way to create development and test environments through the use of multiple databases. Finally, it is an efficient method of automatically promoting changes into production.
Application Access Mode Whether you decide to use multiple databases or one database to create your application, the next question you need to ask is what kind of client the users will use to access your application. You thought about access modes a bit in the planning stage, specifically physical access modes like modem dialups. Here, the clarifying piece of information needed is whether the users will access your application through a browser, a Notes client, or perhaps both. Some database settings can be tweaked for either environment using the database Properties box.
Browser Client Database Settings Several settings in the database Properties box pertain specifically to browser clients. The Properties box is shown in Figure 10.4 and the property settings are described in Table 10.2. FIGURE 10.4
Info Tab The first tab of the Properties box generally contains the most important settings, and that is certainly the case here. Allowing Domino to use JavaScript and SSL when sending information to a browser controls display and security options. JAVASCRIPT
Let’s take a closer look at the option to enable JavaScript. The JavaScript database setting has several implications when it’s enabled, with radically different behavior from when it’s not enabled. Here’s a summary of what this setting does when enabled:
Formulas for hotspots are evaluated when the hotspot is clicked.
Multiple buttons can be displayed on a form.
No Submit button is automatically generated for input forms.
The following @Commands work on the Web:
@Command([FileCloseWindow])
@Command([FileSave])
@Command([ViewRefreshFields])
Here’s a summary of what this setting does when disabled:
Formulas for hotspots are evaluated when the form is opened.
Only one button can be displayed on a form, and that one button will always be a submit button (don’t worry if you didn’t code it that way; whatever you did code will be interpreted as a submit button anyway!).
The JavaScript database setting was present in Release 4.6 of the product and was disabled by default. In Release 5, the option is enabled by default. This is a point to consider when migrating 4.6 applications to Release 5.
SSL
The second setting listed in Table 10.2 enables Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connections to the database from a Web browser. This setting is useful for databases that need secure transactions between a Web browser and a Web server like e-commerce applications. Any Web browser accessing a database with this option enabled will be challenged to authenticate using its browserspecific SSL certificate. Launch Tab The last setting in Table 10.2 determines what part of the database will be shown, or launched, when the application is opened from a browser. Notes allows you to have separate launch options for the browser and the Notes client.
Notes Client Database Settings Several settings in the database Properties box apply only to users who access a database using a Notes client; these settings are shown in Table 10.3. Figure 10.5 demonstrates how to enable the database-wide image loading setting. TABLE 10.3
The first setting in Table 10.3 tells Notes to load graphics completely into Notes client memory before showing them on the screen. This allows the rest of the information on the screen to display as the images are loading, therefore speeding up the delivery to the user. If this option is not enabled, each graphic is displayed in the order it is placed on the form, which slows down the presentation of any data located below the graphic.
This is consistent with the order of evaluation of all design elements (fields, subforms, sections, etc.) on a form in that they are evaluated based on physical placement from left to right, top to bottom.
The second setting in Table 10.3 determines what design element will be displayed when the database is launched from a Notes client. The Notes launch option and the Web client launch option are independent of one another, allowing you to set different options on a single database depending on the user’s client access mode.
The Domino Designer environment provides you with tools and settings that will allow your application to be used in both a Web client and Notes client environment. In Chapter 11, “Application Coding,” you’ll discover techniques to add to the database settings discussed here.
Workflow Applications Like the decisions for how many databases to use in your application and what kind of client access mode to use, the decision to implement workflow in an application will affect how you design your application. In Notes, workflow is the automation of state transition and approval processes in an electronic format. It results in electronically flowing information into the hands of users who process it. Since Domino is both an application platform and a messaging platform, workflow is a natural type of application to implement in Notes. The Approval Cycle Template provided by Lotus is an example of a workflow application. There are two basic information models for workflow, as shown in Figure 10.6, and the models are often referred to by multiple names, including some that might not have made the following list. Let’s see if you recognize any of these popular phrases for the same two models:
home every week, the push type of information flow is being used. The information is being pushed out to you without any weekly effort on your part.
Pushing Data to Users The subscription, push, or send model puts the responsibility for flowing information on the database to deliver it to the user. When the push model is implemented in Notes, the messaging infrastructure is used to deliver information to users. The main issue for this type of workflow is to identify and test the mail systems being used by the clients. You may find yourself in an organization that uses Notes as an application environment yet uses a non-Notes system as a mail infrastructure. Typically, when information is pushed to users, it is triggered by a state transition of a field on a document or a change in the environment. Imagine a status field that changes from a value of Pending to Complete. As a programmer, you can use the point in time that a field changes value as a trigger to push information to users. Likewise, when a document is first opened, which is a change in the environment, information can be pushed out to users.
Pulling Data from NSFs The on-demand, pull, or share scenario, on the other hand, dictates that the user is responsible for retrieving information from its source. This is an easy architecture to implement in Notes because of the shared nature of NSFs as data repositories on a server. By applying appropriate levels of access control to a database, you can make the information available to users for retrieval. The key to this type of model is that users must check the NSF to see if some action is required on their behalf, thus pulling the information when they desire it. The pull scenario is often used in combination with the push model. This provides central storage of information accompanied by an e-mail to the appropriate user to notify them that data has changed. One of the most popular ways to do this in Notes is to send a document link embedded in an e-mail to the person who needs to take an action on the data.
External Data Interactions While workflow revolves around processing data stored in NSFs and people interacting with that data, often an NSF interacts with data outside the Notes world. Notes can interact with external data in a variety of ways, including
Formula language code using Open Database Connectivity (ODBC)
LotusScript Data Object (LS:DO) ODBC class library
Domino Enterprise Connection Services (DECS)
Import/Export Data can be imported into Notes using a form as a structure to store data in documents and using a view to present the data. Importing and exporting document data is done in the Notes client and is not supported in the Domino Designer client.
Copy/Paste Copying and pasting data into Notes uses the Windows clipboard facility. The clipboard is used as a temporary storage location that holds only the most recent information placed in it. You can copy and paste data as well as design elements.
Embedding, OLE, COM, ActiveX Embedding attachments or using OLE, COM, and ActiveX components is accomplished in Notes through the use of rich text fields on a form. Rich text fields can contain any kind of data and therefore behave like a variant or Binary Large Object (BLOB) data. To embed attachments using a Web browser, a special File Upload control is available in Notes and can be embedded in forms and pages using the following menu sequence: Create Embedded Element File Upload Control Embedding objects creates a static set of information in Notes. Using OLE for linking, on the other hand, enables field-level exchange of data to named cells in external applications like Excel. Linking to a source is a good choice if the external data changes frequently and the Notes database wants to display the current source data at all times.
C API The C API provides programmatic access to external data using C and C++. The entire Domino Object Model can be accessed using class libraries written in C that can be manipulated to interact with Notes data without benefit of the Notes user interface.
LotusScript The LotusScript language provides programmatic access to Domino using the built-in, Visual Basic–like language LotusScript. LotusScript has three class libraries that work with different types of information in Notes:
Front-end classes
Back-end classes
ODBC classes (LS:DO)
The front-end and back-end classes allow interactions with Notes data that is on-screen (front end) and data that is stored to disk (back end). These will be examined in some detail in Chapter 11, “Application Coding.” ODBC Interactions In addition to interacting with front-end and back-end data, the LotusScript programming language can interact with relational data using ODBC. The LotusScript Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) library is known as the LotusScript Data Object, or LS:DO for our acronym collection. ODBC is used to create two different kinds of data interactions between Notes and the external world:
Make Notes data available to external programs (like Crystal Reports).
Make external data (like Microsoft Access data) available within Notes.
To use the LotusScript ODBC classes, appropriate ODBC drivers must be correctly installed on the machine executing the code. For instance, to retrieve data from Notes (thus using it as a data source), the NotesSQL driver must be installed on the machine retrieving the data. Once ODBC drivers are correctly installed for the data source, you can code one- or two-way transactions in Notes to do the following kinds of tasks:
Perform data lookups into external databases.
Retrieve data back into an NSF from an external database.
Use external databases as a way to validate data entry in an NSF.
Display data in Notes that was retrieved from an external database.
Modify raw data in external databases.
Update data in external databases on-demand or scheduled.
If you only need to perform a one-way read transaction of ODBC data, Notes formula language can be used. Using ODBC formulas does not require traditional programming knowledge. Four specialized ODBC formulas carry out the read and retrieve transactions, and they are noted in Table 10.4. TABLE 10.4
Formula Language ODBC Statements Formula
Purpose
@DbLookup
Execute the equivalent of a simple SQL Select statement to look up values.
@DbColumn
Retrieve a column of data from an external data source.
@DbCommand
Execute a complex SQL Select statement.
@DbExists
Determine if the ODBC data source exists.
DECS Domino Enterprise Connection Services (DECS) is a Notes form-based method to exchange data with external ODBC data sources like relational databases. As an optional service on a Domino server, the system administrator must enable the DECS task. Configuring a DECS environment consists of customizing components in the server-based DECS Administrator database. The two form-based components of DECS are described in Table 10.5. TABLE 10.5
DECS Components Component
Purpose
Connections
A document that specifies the external data being accessed
Activities
A document that specifies when and what data should be exchanged, namely, on document create, open, delete, or update
For example, to update information in a server-based Microsoft Access database, you would create a DECS Connection document in the DECS Administrator database on the server to connect to Microsoft Access using ODBC. Next, you would create a DECS Activity document to monitor a Notes form so that when the user changed a key data value in Notes, the mapped data value in Microsoft Access would automatically update itself. To map the fields between Notes and an external data source, DECS provides a form-based wizard to associate the monitored field in Notes to its corresponding field in the data source, Microsoft Access in this example. DECS also lets you filter or strain the data, massaging it on its way to or from Notes. In some circles, this is referred to as data percolation, percolation referring to an analogy of water passing through coffee grinds, transforming it to coffee along the way. Transforming data is done with formula language programming.
To integrate with relational data, it’s a good idea to design your forms to include a unique identifier on the Notes side to match against the primary key in a relational database. For instance, build in a unique ProductCode field in Notes to map to the ProductCode primary key in a relational system.
Database Design
D
atabase design is one level down from application design since an application can be made up of multiple databases. At the database level, you do two things:
Configure database-wide settings.
Create design notes to solve the business problem at hand.
Domino provides a variety of database design elements to help you build a good application. A fairly comprehensive list of design elements is shown in Table 10.6, together with a brief description. TABLE 10.6
Design Elements Design Element
Purpose
About Document
Help menu–accessible document describing database’s purpose
Predetermined fields that have associated side-effect behavior
Script Libraries
Globally reusable LotusScript routines for a database
Sections
Collapsible areas on pages and forms
Shared Actions
Actions intended for use on more than one form or view
Shared Fields
Fields intended for use on more than one form
Subforms
Reusable components that can be embedded in a form
Synopsis
Snapshot documentation of an application
URL links
Clickable areas that jump to an Internet address
Views
Formula-determined index collection of documents
Design Notes Design elements are stored in design notes in an NSF. Not all design elements have their own design notes but, instead, are combined with other elements. Buttons, for example, are stored inside the design note of the large object that contains the button, perhaps a page or a form. The Design Panel for a database in Domino Designer displays the design notes for a database and provides a way to modify design notes and add new ones. Figure 10.7 shows the Other design category selected and the Icon design note highlighted.
Design Document Properties Each design note has a set of properties associated with it that can display or control aspects of the design object’s behavior. True to form in the Lotus product line, there is always more than one way to perform a task, and you can access design document properties in at least the following three ways:
Click the Display Infobox button at the top right corner of Designer.
Right-click the design note and select Design Properties in the context menu.
Use the menu options File Document Properties with design note selected.
Design properties are displayed in a tabbed Properties box, as shown in Figure 10.8, and describe the attributes that apply to the selected design object. The tabs of the Properties box show an icon describing the purpose of the tab, and moving your mouse slowly over the tab will display a text description.
All design notes have four tabs that provide information about the design object. The tabs and their descriptions are shown in Table 10.7. TABLE 10.7
Design Note Tabs Tab
Information Contained on the Tab
Info
Dates and times of when the design note was created, accessed, and modified, by whom, and its size
Fields
A scrollable list of all the fields in the design note and the value of each field
Design
Whether this design note can be overwritten by an associated template, what template to inherit from, and other information about the database design
Document IDs
The unique document ID for the design note
Design Document Inheritance You learned earlier that databases can inherit their design structure from a template and that the server’s Design task updates server-based databases from server-based templates on a nightly basis. The Design tab on a Design document
Properties box shows that inheritance can also be enabled or disabled at the design element level, not just at that database level, as shown in Figure 10.9. FIGURE 10.9
Document-level inheritance
This means that even if a database inherits its design from a template, an individual design element, like the one used in Figure 10.10, can prohibit inheritance on itself. FIGURE 10.10
Prohibiting design refresh
Template A
Template B
Database
Other design notes
Design note
Several design notes, by default, do not allow design refresh, including the ones listed below:
For settings that are stored in a design note, like the About and Using documents, you can change the default setting in the design note’s Properties box to remove the prohibit refresh restriction. An individual design element can also inherit its design from a completely different template than the one being used for the database as a whole. This technique is useful when you want to use many of the features in an existing template but perhaps not all the design features. If you inherit from a template and don’t protect an individual design note, each night when the template refreshes the database, any changes you made to the design note are overwritten. To summarize inheritance, Domino allows a database to inherit from exactly one template while at the same time allowing individual design elements to prohibit the inheritance or to inherit from separate templates. Inheritance applies to all named elements that are stored in their own design note.
Document Design The purpose of the design notes we’ve been discussing is to store structures created by the programmer and used by users of the database. Data entered by users in an application is stored in documents that are based on form design notes. Documents represent the user content stored in a database. To create a document, a user works with a form created by a programmer. The user enters data into fields placed on the form and then saves the information. The process of saving the information creates a new document or updates an existing document. Document = Save(Form + Fields + User Data)
Form Design Forms are the most important design element in a Notes database. Only through the use of a form design note can a user store and view information
in documents. A form can be made up of a combination of any of the components in Table 10.8. TABLE 10.8
Form Components Component
Function
Fields
Store user data
Text
Label user data and present static information
Graphics
Used as hotspots and to improve aesthetics
Subforms
Reusable, embeddable units that are exactly like forms except these need to be embedded in a form to be used
Sections
Collapsible areas on a form used to organize and streamline the presentation of information
Embedded Elements
Using the Create menu, the following elements can be embedded in forms and pages: –Outline –View –Date Picker –Group Scheduler (not allowed in Pages) –Folder Pane –File Upload Control (for Web clients only and not allowed in Pages)
Special formatting elements
Used to make an application more user friendly, e.g., horizontal rules, tables
From the form structure created by a programmer, users interact with the system to create, edit, and retrieve documents. Forms and Documents A document in Notes exists in three distinct states, each of which is depicted in Figure 10.11: On-screen front-end What the user sees In memory What is interacted with when the document is open On-disk back-end What is stored to disk in the NSF
The distinction between the front-end document and the back-end document is important in Notes. The Domino Object Model is actually split into front-end class libraries and back-end class libraries to provide programmatic access to the document in these two states. In the on-disk representation of the document, the separation of the form from the data in the document allows Notes to keep overhead storage low while providing a flexible presentation structure to the data. Consider an NSF that contains 100,000 documents, all based on the same form. The form itself is stored once and the data is stored in the 100,000 documents. Notes keeps track of the name of the form that was used to store the document data in a special internal variable called Form. Figure 10.12 demonstrates that the document Properties box can be used to inspect the value of this special internal variable. FIGURE 10.12
When one of the documents is opened, Notes locates the form, presents the form structure, and populates it with the document data from disk. In a sense, a dynamic merge of the two takes place at runtime. This dynamic merge at runtime has the benefit of allowing changes to a form structure over time to be reflected in previously saved data. For example, if you add a new field to a form and give it a default value, the next time you edit a previously saved document, the new field and its default value will be saved with the document data. Stored Forms While the default in Notes is to store the form separately from the document data, a form attribute allows you to override this default and store the form structure with the document data. This is called creating a stored form. This form attribute can be set using the form’s Properties box as shown in Figure 10.13. FIGURE 10.13
With the form stored in the document, the amount of disk space will go up. Why use it, then, you ask? Well, what if you decide to implement a push workflow design that involves mailing a document to users? When a document is mailed to a user’s mail database, the form needed to view the data is now stored in a different database. Without the form, Notes will not be able to render the document data since the form acts as a viewing mechanism. If the form is stored in the document, when it gets mailed to a user and received in their mail database, the viewing mechanism is a part of the document, solving the presentation problem. DISADVANTAGES OF STORED FORMS
Storing a form in a document is beneficial for workflow, but there is a downside. If you modify a form over time, documents previously saved using the stored form will not have their form structure updated to reflect any changes. Basically, when a form is stored in a document, that document contains a snapshot of the form as it existed at save time. Notes will not automatically update the form structure in previously saved documents. $TITLE AND FORM
When a form is stored in a document, the special internal variable called Form is not used. Instead, a different special internal variable called $Title identifies the name of the stored form, as shown in Figure 10.14. FIGURE 10.14
To determine if a document is storing a form, you can inspect the fields of the document, and if $Title exists and Form does not, the document is being stored in the form. Forms to Display Data Since the default in Notes is to store the form separately from the document, a natural next step is to allow a different form to display the document data than the form that was used to save the data. At runtime when a document is opened, Notes goes through a series of steps to determine what form to use to display the data. The following sequence is used to find a form to display the data: 1. If the form is stored in the document, use the stored form. 2. If the document is being displayed in a view and the view has a form
formula, use the form specified in the form formula. 3. If the form is not stored in the document and no form formula is in effect,
use the form that created the data as denoted by the Form variable. 4. If there is no stored form, no form formula, and the Form variable
doesn’t exist or the form identified by the Form variable doesn’t exist, use the default database form. FORM FORMULA
When a document is opened through a view, the view can specify a particular form to use to present the data on the screen. This is called a view form formula, which you’ll often see referred to simply as form formula. The form formula event is coded in the programmer’s pane as shown in Figure 10.15. FIGURE 10.15
One form in a database can be marked as the default form. This form will be used to present data on the screen if at least one of three conditions is met:
The document doesn’t have a stored form. The view displaying the data doesn’t have a form formula. The original form used to store the data isn’t found.
A form can be marked as the default form on the form’s Properties box as shown in Figure 10.16. FIGURE 10.16
If Notes is unable to open the document using the preceding four rules, then an error message is displayed. At this point, you cannot open the document. The error message will let you know that a default form couldn’t be found or the form used to create the data wasn’t found. To fix this problem, you would need to create a form that contains the appropriate fields necessary to display the data in the document. Form Events and Relationships While Notes is not an object-oriented language, an NSF can be thought of as an object-based event-oriented environment. Design elements, like Forms, are treated as objects.
To be object-oriented, a language must programmatically support polymorphism, inheritance, and encapsulation. Notes is written in the spirit of these but does support them completely.
As a document moves from state to state (on-screen to memory to stored), a set of events for the form provides a way for programmers to customize the behavior of the document. The events are shown in Figure 10.17 and will be more fully examined in Chapter 11, “Application Coding.” FIGURE 10.17
In addition to the event-oriented nature of Notes, inheritance can take place at the document level. Forms, and therefore documents, can be related to one another through inheritance. Inheritance in Notes’s documents takes the form of parent-child documents and values that can be passed from one document to new documents. PARENT-CHILD
A document is created as one of three types, as shown in Table 10.9, and the type is set using a form property. TABLE 10.9
Form and Document Types Type
Description
Document
Main or parent document, the default type
Response
Child document linked to a parent document via $Ref
Response to Response
Child document to either a Document or a Response document
Response documents and Response to Response documents are usually referred to simply as Response documents. To create the parent-child document relationship, Notes adds a special internal variable called $Ref to all child documents. $Ref contains the document unique ID of the parent document. A document unique ID contains the server’s ID, so it is unique across all Notes servers. A document also has a Note ID, which is unique within a database. As a programmer, you do not have to do anything to maintain $Ref other than setting the form type in the form’s property box to allow the relationship to take place. The value of $Ref can be inspected using the document Properties box as shown in Figure 10.18.
Another type of relationship between documents is one where a document inherits values from another document. The inheritance takes place when a new document is created while another document is open or selected. If the form property that allows inheritance is enabled, field values on an open document can be inherited into the document being created. Below, you see the two Properties box options that enable fields to inherit values from other documents.
The entire contents of one document can be inherited into a single rich text field on a new document. In this case, Notes will render the data in one of the following three ways depending on how you set the property:
Link
Collapsible rich text
Rich text
Alternately, individual field values can be inherited into fields on the new document. If the fields are Editable, they’ll inherit a starting value that can be modified by the user. Let’s take a closer look at fields and how to design them.
Field Design Fields are a part of the structure of a form and are the mechanism by which user data is stored in a document. When you think about the form created by the programmer, the term field is used to describe the data entry areas for users. When you think about a document that has been saved by a user, the term item refers to the data that has been stored in a field. Fields are in a form; items are in a document. Field Types Domino Designer provides a variety of field types to design your fields. A list of field types appears in Table 10.10. TABLE 10.10
Usernames from the database’s ACL or the Domino Directory
Text list of character data
Readers
List of valid Readers of a document
Text list of character data
Password
Asterisks in place of typed values
Encryptable character data
Formula
Used to select documents
Character data
Of the above field types, the only one that cannot be displayed in a view is rich text data. Rich text fields can contain any kind of data including graphics, video, audio, and spreadsheets. In R5, the following graphic formats are stored and rendered in their native format while other types of formats are stored and rendered as 256-bit BMP images:
Bitmaps (BMP)
Graphics Interchange Format (GIF)
Joint Photographic Experts Group format (JPG)
Each field of data is tagged as summary or non-summary data. Only summary data can be displayed in a view. Rich text fields are non-summary data. You can examine whether a particular field is summary by examining its information in the host document’s Properties box. If the Field Flags option is not tagged with the word SUMMARY, the field cannot be displayed in a view or used in calculations.
Field Value Types Fields have an associated value type that determines how the field will behave on the form and whether the value for the field will be stored back in the NSF. Field values are evaluated at different times depending on the value type. Field value types and their behavior are described in Table 10.11.
Default Value event executes when document is created and field does not already have a value
Yes
Computed
Formula evaluation or hard-coded value is stored in field variable
When document is –Created –Saved –Refreshed
Yes
Computed For Display
Formula evaluation or hardcoded value is calculated for on-screen display only
When document is –Created –Loaded into memory –Opened in Edit mode –Refreshed
No
Computed When Composed
Formula evaluation or hard-coded value is calculated and stored in field variable
When document is created
Yes
In addition to the Default Value event associated with an Editable field, two other events trigger on an edit field when a document is saved or refreshed:
The input translation event gives you a place to write code that will massage the data before it is stored in final form on disk. An example of when to use this event is if you want the value in a field to always be translated to uppercase regardless of how the user typed the data. INPUT VALIDATION EVENT
The input validation event also fires when a document is saved or refreshed. It executes after the input translation event. The input validation event is used to make sure that the user has typed a value in a field or to make sure it matches a certain format, for example, a length of 20 characters. Fields with Special Behavior Notes has several fields that you can place on a form that will cause a side effect. In this case, a side effect is a specific behavior that takes place if the special field is on the form when certain events fire. Several of the special fields are used in workflow applications that have implemented the push methodology and serve the purpose of mail-enabling documents. Table 10.12 describes some of the most often-used special fields. TABLE 10.12
For mail-enabling documents in workflow, the SendTo field is one of the most important special fields. It must be present for documents to be mailed automatically. In fact, other special fields, like MailOptions, rely on the presence of SendTo for mailing purposes. HIDE WHEN ATTRIBUTES
Special fields are normally created as editable text fields and can be placed on a form and hidden from users using Hide When attributes. This makes the field available programmatically and for execution at trigger time but doesn’t present unnecessary information to the user. A field’s property box allows you to set Hide When attributes. Figure 10.19 shows the options to set to hide a field from all users but leave it visible to programmers. FIGURE 10.19
Hide fields from users
When Hide When attributes are applied to a field, all fields on that line of the form are hidden. Hide When is paragraph-based, which means the hide behavior will stay in effect until a carriage return line feed (CRLF) character is reached. The exception to this is for fields and text placed inside table cells; table cells can be hidden independently regardless of whether a CRLF has been reached.
Hide When attributes can also be applied to any text, any fields (not just special fields), images, buttons, actions, shared actions, and sections. The paragraphbased hiding applies to these design elements as well.
Presentation Design Forms and fields are the design elements used to create user documents. With documents created, the next challenge is to present the information to database users, providing a way to create or retrieve information. Notes does not provide direct access to documents; rather, views and folders are the mechanism used to present collections of documents to users.
Views Views are the most important document presentation element in Notes. Simply put, if an application has a solid set of forms and a good set of views, you have a workable application. A view is a filtered row-column list of documents in a database. Each document can be opened to drill down to the complete document contents. A view, then, is a collection of documents that appear in Notes as a scrollable list, as shown in Figure 10.20. FIGURE 10.20
The view design note stores a description of the view structure. It does not contain the view itself. Views are dynamic pointer structures used to index and access documents in an NSF. As documents are added or deleted to the NSF, the pointer structure (or index) is updated. These pointer structures appear on-screen to users, presenting one row of data for each document. Document Presentation The documents displayed in the rows are determined through the coding of a view selection formula. The selection formula filters out documents that don’t meet the selection criteria and, therefore, defines the documents that should be included in the view. Formulas are used in views in three ways:
Code a view selection criteria formula.
Code a value for a column.
Code a form formula to determine the form to use to present document data.
For instance, if you have a CompanyName field on a form, you might code a view selection formula that would display only documents where the CompanyName field was a certain value, like “ABC Corporation.” Assuming the documents were created with the “Company” form, the view selection criteria would look like this: Select form=“Company” and CompanyName=“ABC Corporation” Your selection criteria should be as exact as possible in order to build an efficient view. The more general your selection criteria, the more documents will appear in the view collection. View indexes can consume quite a lot of space and memory. A column in that same view might have the formula “CompanyAddress”, which would display the value stored in the document’s CompanyAddress field. Columns can display values from fields on the document, calculations, and icons. While formulas are used to determine the data that appears on a user’s screen, view and column properties determine how the data looks. VIEW PROPERTIES
The Properties box is traditionally where visual attributes of a design element are set. A view’s Properties box, shown in Figure 10.21, contains settings that affect how the view as a whole is displayed.
You can control how each individual column of data is displayed. Settings include the following:
Column title and width
Whether to hide the column (useful for programming sort values)
Whether to display twisties (collapsible categories of documents)
Whether to display the column as an icon
Sorting criteria (ascending, descending, or both)
Creating totals for a numeric column
Font, color, and alignment for the data in the columns
Font, color, and alignment for the column heading
Number and date formatting
One of the column settings you’ll want to take advantage of for view performance is the clickable heading for sorting a column in ascending, descending, or both orders. Since every view is an index into a collection, if you can minimize the number of views you need by making good use of dynamic column sorting, you’ll be improving the overall performance of your database. Re-sorting an open view is faster than opening a different view.
Types of Views Most of the views created in a server-based NSF are shared views, meaning that anyone who has access to the NSF can use the views. There are basically two types of views, shared or private, but there are nuances that expand the following list to six types of views. Table 10.13 lists and describes the types of views. TABLE 10.13
View Types View Type
What It Means
Shared
Available to all database users
Shared, contains documents not in any folders
Available to all database users and displays only documents not found in any folders
Shared, contains deleted documents
Available to all database users and displays only documents not marked for deletion
Shared, private on first use
Becomes private to the user when opened
Shared, desktop private on first use
Becomes private to the user when opened and is stored in the user’s DESKTOP5.DSK file, not the NSF file
Private
Available only to the user who created it
Categorized Views Regardless of its type, a view can be grouped, or categorized, based on a column value. When a view is categorized, the category becomes an expand or collapse on-screen region for the user. Selecting the option to display twisties for categories will help your users to know they are working with a collapsible area.
Embedded Views Normal and categorized views generally display on the right-hand side of a Notes screen, take up most of the user’s screen, and list the documents in a rowcolumn arrangement. As an alternative to the default presentation, views can be embedded within a form or a page. The documents render in the same rowcolumn arrangement, but graphics, text, and fields can be placed on the same screen as the view to add functionality and make the presentation a bit nicer. Embedded views have their own set of properties, as shown in Figure 10.23, that are configured in addition to view and column properties. FIGURE 10.23
Embedded view properties
When used with categorized views, embedded views take on the additional display capability of being able to render a single category of the categorized view. The Show single category event, shown in Figure 10.24, is used for this purpose. FIGURE 10.24
Single category views can reduce the number of overall views in your database, minimizing database size and improving database performance. Consider the example of a categorized view that lists wines from around the world and displays them according to their vineyard regions. You can embed the categorized view in a page, write a formula in the Show single category event to dynamically show one of the categories, and use the view as a link destination from a world map. Clicking Argentina in the world map would display the single category of all wines from Argentina. If you don’t use single category views, then to create this clickable world map navigation, you would need to create separate views for each wine region. View Applet Whether a view is presented using its normal presentation method or is embedded in a form or a page, a special view applet can be used to display views to Web users. By default, when Domino renders a view to a browser, it is converted to HTML. With the view applet, a browser uses Java and XML to render data retrieved from the Domino server. The look and feel of a view rendered with the applet has the following nice advantages over the default HTML rendering:
Twisties for expanding and collapsing rows without generating a new HTML page for each expand or collapse configuration
Columns that can be resized by the browser user
Horizontal and vertical scroll bars
Increased number of row-column color and font options
View Index As pointer structures to collections of documents, view indexes are dynamic. With documents and views as the heart of an application, maintaining healthy, accurate indexes is a necessity. Notes does this in the background using a task called the Notes Index Facility (NIF). NIF works on collections of documents, including views and folders. Whenever a view is accessed, the NIF is active. It handles the following tasks:
Opening a view collection
Closing a view collection
Updating the documents in a view collection
Searching for a document in a view collection
Updating a view index by adding or deleting pointers
When changes (additions and deletions) to a view index or data collection are made, the back-end storage of data has changed. View settings control whether the view index and collection is manually or automatically updated. For users to see the change, the view needs to be refreshed. Using the view properties, you can set options to refresh the view in the following ways:
Display a Refresh icon at the top left corner of the view for the user to click.
Refresh the view automatically before opening it.
For open views, refresh the view from the top row toward the bottom row.
Folders Like views, folders are a mechanism to allow user access to documents. Contrary to views, however, the contents of a folder are determined by the user. The user drags and drops pointers to documents into a folder, and the data appears as rows of documents as shown in Figure 10.25. FIGURE 10.25
Contents of a folder
The folder design note stores a description of the folder structure. Just like a view, folders themselves are dynamic pointer structures.
Framesets Framesets are used in Notes to present data to users in an organized manner. A frameset is made up of multiple frames with each frame displaying an area on the screen. Frames do not overlap. Each frame in the frameset can operate independent of other frames; however, you can also code frame behavior so that clicking a link in one frame displays data in another frame. Both framesets and frames have properties that control how they display and behave. These settings represent the difference between using frames for presenting data over simple invisible border tables:
Data in frames is both horizontally and vertically scrollable by the user.
Frames can be resized by the user.
Data in one frame can change based on formulas and links in other frames.
Frame content can be set using Notes links, URL links, or any named element in an NSF.
Outlines While framesets present information in different on-screen regions, outlines present information in a hierarchical structure. An outline can be used by a programmer to help build an application structure and by end users to navigate an application. As a named element, outlines can be used as frame content to provide clickable links to change data in other frames. Outline Entries An outline is made up of outline entries. The entries can link to any design notes in the NSF, including forms, pages, views, folders, documents, URLs, or other Domino databases. To be viewable in Notes, outlines have to be embedded in a page or form. Embedded outlines have the following properties that can be set to control how the outline looks and behaves:
The size of the outline
Font choices and colors
Showing graphics or twisties for outline entries
Using HTML or Java applet for rendering to Web clients
Outline Applet Like the view applet discussed earlier, a Java applet can be used to present an outline to Web clients. This applet adds the following special behavior to an outline that isn’t available in the default HTML rendering to a Web client:
Vertical and horizontal scroll bars
Mouse-over color effects on outline entries
Pages Pages in Notes are rich text containers used to present static information to users. Properties for a page control how it renders in the Notes client and a Web client and include settings like the following:
Treating the page contents as HTML
Color for Web links that are active, visited, and unvisited
Background color
Launch attributes
The option to treat page contents as HTML means that Domino will not perform its on-the-fly conversion of the page contents to HTML when the page is requested from a browser. Instead, the page is passed directly to the browser and rendered as is. This is useful if you’re embedding HTML, XML, or JavaScript in your pages. Settings to control page behavior are available with the Page Properties box, as shown in Figure 10.26. FIGURE 10.26
Page Contents The types of data that can be placed on pages are wide and varied. Since it is a rich text container, almost anything goes except for Notes fields. Pages don’t store data items for users since they cannot contain Notes fields. The following list gives you an idea of the kind of content a page can contain:
Hotspot links to other destinations
HTML tags
JavaScript embedded in HTML tags
Buttons
Attachments
Graphics
Tables
Embedded elements
Embedded Elements While the focus of Pages is static information, embedding named elements can give Pages the ability to present nonstatic information. Embedded elements include the following:
Outlines
Views
Navigators
Date pickers
Folders
From the above list, outlines and date pickers cannot be displayed at all unless they are acting as embedded elements. The method for embedding elements into a Page is a menu sequence similar to the following: Create Embedded Element Outline
The art of building a good Domino application is combining the design elements to create an effective solution to the business problem at hand. Forms, fields, views, and folders are important building blocks for a good application. In the next chapter, “Application Coding,” you’ll examine programming techniques for creating interactions within and between design notes as well as between databases.
Key Terms Before taking the exam, you should be familiar with the following terms: application back-end classes back-end document database default form Default Value event Domino Enterprise Connection Services (DECS) embedded element fields form form formula Formula language front-end classes front-end document Hide When attributes Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) input translation event input validation event items JavaScript LotusScript LotusScript Data Object (LS:DO) mouse-over Notes Index Facility (NIF)
Review Questions 1. The users of Abigail’s Web application appreciate how the expandable
and collapsible categories organize the contents of the views. But at the same time, they’ll be unhappy if opening and closing the categories is slow. Which of the following view attributes will help improve the performance of expandable categories on views? A. Treat view contents as HTML. B. Use applet in the browser. C. Don’t show categories with zero documents. D. Restrict initial index build to designer or manager. 2. Brad is designing a form that will be used by Web users and Notes clients.
While most of the information is identical given the two different access methods, a handful of fields apply to the Web environment or to the Notes environment. Which of the following design elements will allow Brad to dynamically invoke fields at runtime depending on the access method, while providing the least amount of maintenance overhead? A. Shared fields B. Subforms C. Hide When criteria D. Sections 3. Calyn is writing a Notes application that will interact with Microsoft
Excel using Object Linking and Embedding. What type of Notes field should she place on the form if she plans on opening the OLE object from inside a Notes document? A. Text B. Rich text C. Combobox D. Shared
4. Dina has just taken over a Notes application from a programmer who
left the company before she arrived. On inspecting the design elements, she notices two subforms with similar names, Footer and tempFooter. Assuming tempFooter was unnecessary, Dina deletes the extra subform. The next day, users complain about not seeing some data that used to be in a document and getting the error message “Subform: tempFooter not loaded.” Apparently that subform wasn’t extra! What should Dina do to correct the problem? A. Recreate an empty subform named tempFooter. B. Recreate a subform named tempFooter with the exact contents it
had originally. C. Change the form that contains the subform to use the Footer sub-
form instead. D. Find a new job since the data is permanently gone and the users
are angry. 5. Eli is working on a Web site application that will sport lots of graphics
that will be used as image maps. Which of the following graphic formats will not be rendered in its native format? A. BMP B. GIF C. JPG D. TIF 6. Felicia is creating columns in a view to display documents that were
created based on the Company form. She’s attempted to get the information in a rich text field to be visible in the view. Why is she unable to do this? A. Rich text data is not stored in the NSF. B. Rich text data is not flagged as SUMMARY data. C. Rich text data is flagged as SUMMARY data. D. Rich text data must be marked as “Display images after loading”
7. Gerry has added an editable text field called Company_Name to his
form. He wants to set a starting value for the field, error-check it, and make sure that only certain types of values are valid in the field. In what order will the appropriate field events execute? A. Default Value, Input translation, Input validation B. Default Value, Input validation, Input translation C. Input translation, Default Value, Input validation D. Input validation, Default Value, Input translation 8. Heidi is inheriting the design for her database from one of the standard
Lotus templates. She has decided to customize one of the standard forms that is part of the template. When she completes her customization, which of the following should she also do? A. Enable inheritance in the source form in the template. B. Enable inheritance in the destination form in the database. C. Disable inheritance in the source form in the template. D. Disable inheritance in the destination form in the database. 9. Ivan is examining the data in the LicenseNumber editable text field of
the Vehicle documents in one of his production databases. He notices that some of the data appears with mixed case, some is completely in lowercase, and still other data is in uppercase. In which of the following events should he write code to help improve the integrity of the data? A. Default Value B. Input translation C. Input validation D. All of the above
10. Jacqueline has added a new field to the Product form and given it a text
label and a default value. Upon rolling it out to her production server, she notices that none of the existing documents are displaying the new field or the text label even when she goes into Edit mode. All the other fields appear to be displaying as normal. What might explain this? A. The default value is invalid. B. The documents are using stored forms. C. The form will not be updated until the nightly Update task runs. D. The field is marked as SUMMARY. 11. Kelly is confused as to the difference between items and fields. Which
of the following is a correct statement distinguishing the two? A. Items are stored in design notes. B. Fields and items are the same thing; it just depends on whether
you’re using the Notes client or the Web browser. C. Fields are created when users type data into items on a form and
then save the document. D. Items are created when users type data into fields on a form and
then save the document. 12. Lyle has decided to use Notes to record all of his thoughts for the
music album he is working on. What he’d like to do is come up with a song title, store it in a document, and then, over time, capture thoughts for the song and associate each thought with a date time stamp in additional documents that can be displayed in a view. Which of the following view settings should he be sure to set if he wants the data grouped by song? A. Set the view name and alias. B. Collapse the view hierarchy when the view is opened. C. Show Response documents using an indented hierarchy on-screen. D. Set colors for the view background and for the alternate rows.
13. Molly wants users to be able to add a picture of themselves to their
Personnel Profile by editing it through a Web browser. Which of the following will she need to add to the Personnel Profile form to accomplish this? A. Embedded Element—File Upload Control B. Rich text field C. Names field D. Subform 14. Nolan is weighing the advantages of using framesets over simply for-
matting the information in his database inside of invisible-bordered tables. Which of the following is not an advantage of framesets? A. Scrollable by the user. B. Resizable by the user. C. A separate design element is not needed. D. Data can be changed based on formulas and links. 15. Oscar has added entries to an outline to jump to each of his pages.
He’d like to use the outline as the first thing that opens when the database launches. Which of the following does he need to do to use the outline in this manner? A. The outline needs to be embedded in a page and the page set as the
database launch attribute. B. The outline needs to be placed in a frameset and the database
launch attribute set to launch the frameset. C. The outline needs to be placed in a subform before being set as the
database launch attribute. D. An outline cannot be launched in any way when a database first
16. Porscha wants to use a graphical front end in Notes to link to existing
data. Ideally, she’d like to include graphics that match the product branding the marketing department folks are pushing. Since the front end will not store user data, which of the following would be a good design element choice? A. Page B. Form C. Subform D. View 17. Quinton is building a template that will refresh a production database
on his home server and a remote server. The production database replicates between the two servers. What is the best way to push design changes out to the remote server? A. Place the template on both the home server and the remote server. B. Place the template on the home server and let the Replication task
push data and design changes out to the remote server. C. Place the template on the remote server and let the Design task
update the information on the home server. D. Place the template on a local machine and push the changes auto-
matically out with replication. 18. Randi is building a new database to manage marketing source codes
and campaign information. She’d like the form to contain fields for the codes but would like the information to be organized in a way that users don’t get bogged down with too much information at one time. Which of the following will help her create an organized approach to the information on the form? A. File Upload Control B. Fields C. Subforms D. Sections
19. Sherri is creating a view that will display both main documents and
Response documents. She wants the Response documents to appear indented under the main documents, but instead of showing data from the Response document, she wants to show an icon to represent the Approval field. If the value of the Approval field is “Approved,” she wants a smiling-face icon to appear. If the value of the Approval field is “Denied,” she wants a frowning-face icon to appear. Which of the following attributes will she need to set in the Properties box? A. Set the view property to show main documents. B. Set the view property to show icons. C. Set the column property to show icons. D. Set the column property to show Response documents in a hierarchy. 20. Tasha wants to examine the attributes of a piece of information that
was collected in a form using an editable text field. The document has been previously saved. How can she examine the attributes and the value of the field at the same time without opening the document? A. Use the document Properties box and examine the item on the
Fields tab. B. Use a view to display the field’s attributes. C. Program a formula to display the field’s attributes on a page. D. Edit the document and unhide the field’s attributes. 21. Ute is running into hard drive space constraints on his production
server. He’s in the middle of designing a new application that will be deployed shortly and start consuming some of his precious space. Which of the following should he avoid if he wants to limit the size of documents to the smallest size possible? A. Shared fields B. Subforms C. Sections D. Stored forms
22. Virginia wants to remove data associated with the Gender field in
previously stored documents. On inspecting the fields using the document Properties box, she notices that there is no $Title field present. If she modifies the form and deletes the Gender field, what does she accomplish? A. This eliminates the field from the form structure and deletes the
data from previously stored documents. B. This deletes the data from previously stored documents but does
not delete the field from the form. C. This does not delete data from previously stored documents but
does delete the field from the form. D. The form is not modified since $Title is not present. 23. Walter is planning a lecture on stargazing. To collect his thoughts and
organize his ideas, he’s decided to use Notes to store his lecture notes. He’s designed a form and created one document so far. Since most of the documents will have some of the same information, he’s used copy and paste techniques to quickly create 10 lecture documents. Which of the following is a true statement about the lecture documents? A. Only one document exists with nine pointers to the original document. B. Ten documents exist, each with their own unique document ID
and Note ID. C. Ten documents exist, each with identical unique document IDs. D. Ten documents exist, each with identical Note IDs. 24. Xena has coded a form that contains a utility task that will execute code
when a button is clicked. The code is used only in one place in her application. Which of the following should she have used to create the code? A. Action B. Shared action C. Shared field D. Subform
25. Yvette has designed an application for Jill that makes use of embed-
ded views, including one that categorizes the projects she’s assigned to her staff members. Jill would like to make the project view available to her staff, but she only wants each staff member to be able to see their own projects. Given the scenario of embedded categorized views, which of the following techniques can Yvette use to give Jill what she wants? A. Show view using Java applet. B. Show single category event. C. Show view as HTML. D. This is not possible in R5. 26. Zulia wants to include a Close button on every form she designs. Her
application has 20 forms. She’d rather not create 20 buttons executing the same code. What should she create instead? A. Action B. Shared action C. Shared field D. Subform
Answers to Review Questions 1. B. Using the view applet in a Web application will retrieve the data
from the server and store it in browser memory for fastest access. Treating the view contents as HTML actually disables collapsible categories, so this is not an option. The option to suppress categories with zero documents won’t affect the expanding since there is nothing to expand! And finally, restricting the initial index build to designer or manager will affect the initial opening of the entire contents of the view, not the performance of the collapsible categories. 2. B. Dynamic subforms can be invoked at runtime based on a formula,
for example, using the @ClientType formula. Designing two subforms, one for the Web and one for Notes, would solve the problem. Hide When criteria is a reasonable answer. However, each of the Hide When fields would need unique names, while with subforms you can use a field with the same name on the two subforms. Shared fields are not appropriate since they are intended for multiple use on more than one form, and in this case we want to use a single form. Sections will not provide any value since they cannot be dynamically invoked. 3. B. Rich text fields function as generic containers, able to store all kinds
of data, much like Binary Large Objects (BLOBs) in the relational world. For interactions with OLE objects, rich text fields are required. Shared fields is a tempting choice because the name makes you think of sharing data between Excel and Notes; however, shared fields refer to a field created once and reused on many different forms. Text fields are limited to storing character data only, and Combobox fields present text data in drop-down list format.
4. B. Deleting a subform affects all the documents that were created
using the form that contained the subform. While the data in the documents created with the subform is still intact, without the fields that were defined in the subform, data cannot be displayed. Recreating the subform with the exact fields on the original will allow the data to be displayed. Recreating an empty subform named tempFooter would eliminate the error message the users see, but it would not solve the problem of the missing data. Changing the form to use a different subform would also eliminate the error message but not display the missing data. While the last answer may be a programmer’s initial reaction, don’t panic; the data is still there! 5. D. Domino R5 renders BMP, GIF, and JPG graphic files in their native
format. All other formats are converted to, stored, and rendered as 256-bit BMP files. 6. B. Only data flagged as SUMMARY can be displayed in a view; rich
text is not SUMMARY data. All field data, including rich text data, is stored in the NSF. The option to “Display images after loading” is a database property that applies to Notes clients displaying graphics in forms and pages, not views. 7. A. The Default Value event fires if the field has no value when the
form is opened. When the document is saved or refreshed, the input translation event fires, doing things like putting text into uppercase. After input translation and when a document is saved or refreshed, the input validation event fires, performing tasks like checking the length of the data entered. 8. D. Heidi should mark the option on the Design Properties box of the
form design not to prohibit design refresh, therefore disabling inheritance at the design note level. If you inherit from a template and don’t protect an individual design note, each night when the template refreshes the database, any changes you made to the design note are overwritten.
9. B. A formula coded in the input translation event can convert typed
data to uppercase before it is saved to disk. Using the Default Value event will not help because the user can type over whatever default value is supplied; based on this, answer D is incorrect as well. The input validation event is not used to convert data, but it could be used to make sure the user types a value in the LicenseNumber field. 10. B. Documents that store the form in the document will never have
their form structure updated after the document is initially saved. Future changes to the form structure only affect new documents created when stored forms are in use. If the default value was invalid, the field would appear empty and the text label would be displayed, so this is an incorrect answer. The nightly Update task on the server might have fooled you just because of the word Update, but what this task does is update views on the server, not document contents. Finally, fields marked as SUMMARY can display in a view, but this flag does not affect whether the field displays in a document. 11. D. The statement says it all; items are created when users type data
into fields on a form and then save the document. Items are referred to as Notes Items. Fields are stored in design notes, not items. The client access mode plays no part in distinguishing an item from a field. 12. C. To create a one-to-many relationship between song documents and
comment documents, a document-response (parent-child) relationship should be set up. Given this, the data will be grouped by song if he sets the option to show Response documents using an indented hierarchy. Setting a view name is certainly required, but an alias is not. Collapsing the view when it opens and setting alternate row colors will make the view more pleasing to look at, but neither will help group the data by song. 13. A. The File Upload Control can be used to allow Web clients to upload
information into a server-based NSF. If the environment was the Notes client, a rich text field would be used for a file attachment. The Names field does not apply since it lists the names of users in the database’s ACL or the Domino Directory. If the File Upload Control was embedded in a subform, answer D would be partially correct.
14. C. Tables do not have their own design notes, in direct contrast to
framesets. The remaining answers are all advantages of using framesets over tables. 15. A. Outlines cannot be used directly; they must be embedded in either
a page or a form. By embedding the outline in a page, the database can launch the page to display the outline. The frameset option is a good guess, but the outline still needs to be embedded in either a page or a form to be usable in a frameset. Placing the outline in a subform will not help display it unless that subform is in turn embedded in a form. 16. A. As a rich text container for all kinds of non-user-entered data, a
page is the best option presented. A form would certainly work, but since no fields are required for user data, a page is good enough. A subform embedded in a form would also work but is not the best option for the same reason a form was not the best option. A view could act as a front end to data since document data is displayed by views; however, it’s not very graphical unless it is embedded in a page that contains graphics. 17. B. The Design task on the home server will update the production data-
base on the home server using the template on the home server. Once the production database is up to date, the design changes will be propagated to the remote server using the Replication task. If the template is placed on both servers, your databases may end up with duplicate design objects. Local machines doing replication or design refresh always require manual intervention and are never automatic. 18. D. Sections are collapsible and expandable by the users. They are the
best bet for simplifying and organizing large amounts of information on a form. Fields and subforms may be components of the final form, but sections are the mechanism that will help organize the fields and the subforms as well as the form itself. File Upload Control does not apply since there is no mention of Web clients or the need to upload information. 19. C. View columns can be set to display icons instead of text values.
20. A. The fields and their attributes are available for inspection without
opening the document by using the document Properties box and the Fields tab. A view cannot display a field’s attributes, only its value. Programming a formula to display the field’s attributes on a page sounds like a technical challenge and may be fun for some, but not all. Regardless, it won’t work since you’d need a field to write the formula in and pages don’t contain Notes’s fields. Field attributes are not stored as viewable information in the document, hidden or unhidden. 21. D. Storing the forms in the documents will take up more disk space
than not storing the form in the document. Shared fields, subforms, and sections will not increase the size of the data stored in the document when stored forms are not used. 22. C. Deleting a field from the form structure does not affect the item of
data already stored on existing documents. The absence of the $Title field denotes that the form is not stored in the document, and therefore, design changes to the form will be reflected in the view mechanism of previously stored documents. 23. B. Each document in Notes, whether it’s a design note or a data note,
has a Note ID that identifies it uniquely within a database. In addition, each document has a unique document ID that identifies it across all Domino servers. Copying and pasting will correctly create the 10 documents, each one with unique identifiers. 24. A. A single-use action would do the trick. Shared actions, shared fields,
and subforms are all reusable components that should be used when they will appear in more than one place in the application. 25. B. The Show single category event allows a formula to be written for cate-
gorized, embedded views that will show one of the view categories at a time. The options to use a Java applet or HTML will not help limit the data to one category or another; however, both are valid display options for embedded views. While showing a single category in a categorized view wasn’t possible in R4, R5 makes single-category views a reality.
26. B. A shared action to close a form can be coded once and reused on
every form. This way, the code is stored in one place for easy maintenance and smaller database size. Single-use actions would require writing the code 20 times in 20 action buttons. Using shared fields and subforms won’t execute utility code using a button.
LOTUS EXAM COMPETENCIES COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER Plan applications integrated with the Web Design applications based on appropriate coding alternatives (C) Design applications based on appropriate coding alternatives (Formula Language) Design applications based on appropriate coding alternatives (JavaScript) Design applications based on appropriate coding alternatives (Java) Design applications based on appropriate coding alternatives (LotusScript) Read HTML Read simple JavaScript Correct HTML Modify simple JavaScript Modify simple LotusScript Plan applications based upon impact of replication on HTML Plan applications based upon impact of replication on the NOTE ID Plan applications based upon impact of replication on the UNID
n the Domino Designer integrated development environment (IDE), the programming you do creates interactions within and between design notes and within and between databases. Several programming alternatives are available to you, and all work within Domino’s object-based, event-oriented programming model. In this chapter, you’ll learn about the event model, how to write code for events, and how to choose the right programming language for the task at hand.
Adding Code to a Database
F
act: the nuts and bolts of a good application are good forms and views. Why, then, do you need any code? Aren’t forms and views complete objects themselves? Simply placing fields on a form, creating documents from the form, and then displaying the documents in a view will certainly serve the purpose of collecting, storing, and displaying information to your users. Hold on, though; what if you want to provide default values for a field? Or convert field data to uppercase before storing it? Or ask the user a question interactively with a pop-up window? All of these require code. This code is the glue that fills in the seams of your database, making it into a robust, complete application for your users.
Code Placement Once the basic design objects are created for your application (forms, views, pages, etc.), the code you write is generally added to your application in three places:
Object events
Properties box formulas
Agents
Events The Domino event model provides code-driven access to many aspects of a design object. You can think of events as points in time when code executes during the use of a design object. Sometimes an event fires in response to changes in the environment, like the click of a button. In other cases, events behave like static properties that are given a value. Click Events A click event is a place to write code that will be triggered by a user clicking a freestanding button, an action button, or a hotspot. Buttons and hotspots can be placed on most design objects including pages, forms, views, and navigators. Action buttons can be added to forms and views. Action buttons differ from freestanding buttons since they appear on a button bar located along the top horizontal edge of the form or view on an action button bar and are not freestanding. Figure 11.1 shows how two buttons would appear on a button bar. FIGURE 11.1
Field Events Each field placed on a form has an entire set of events that control its behavior. Table 11.1 lists the events and describes each event’s purpose. TABLE 11.1
Field Events Event Name
Event Description
Default Value
Initial value given to a field when a document is first created
Input Translation
Reformat user input before saving to disk
Input Validation
Test for valid user input values before saving to disk
HTML Attributes
Set field-related HTML attributes (such as size) for a Web client
OnBlur
Triggered as focus leaves a field in a Web client
OnChange
Triggered when data value changes in a field in a Web client
OnClick
Triggered when left mouse button is clicked in a Web client
OnDblClick
Triggered when left mouse button is double-clicked in a Web client
OnFocus
Triggered when an object has focus in a Web client
Form Events As containers of fields and graphics, forms have events that control the overall behavior of the container including some static events like Window Title. Table 11.2 lists the form events and describes each event’s purpose. Figure 11.3 shows how these events appear in the Object viewer. TABLE 11.2
Form Events Event Name
Event Description
Window Title
Static or computed text label for window title bar
HTML Head Content
Code that passes through to the HTML tag
HTML Body Attributes
Code that passes through to the HTML tag
WebQueryOpen
Agent called when a document is opened from the Web
WebQuerySave
Agent called when a document is saved from the Web
HelpRequest
When F1 is pressed, formula in this event fires
Target Frame
Specifies the name of a frame to display this form
JS Header
Code that passes through to the JavaScript header
OnClick
JavaScript event detecting a single click
OnDblClick
JavaScript event detecting a double click
OnHelp
JavaScript event triggered by a click of F1 key
OnKeyDown
JavaScript event detecting a down motion on a key
OnKeyPress
JavaScript event detecting a held-down key
OnKeyUp
JavaScript event detecting an up motion on a key
OnLoad
JavaScript event detecting the loading of a document
View Events When views display documents, they are opened, closed, and navigated. Each of these different activities is associated with events that can contain code to customize view behavior. Table 11.3 lists the view events and describes each event’s purpose, and Figure 11.4 shows how the events appear in the Object viewer. TABLE 11.3
Properties Box Formulas A small percentage of the coding in Notes actually takes place in the Properties box. In general, the Properties box is used to set the look and feel of an object and not its behavior. However, some objects allow Properties box formulas, which are special-purpose tasks that are coded as part of the properties or attributes of an object. Three examples of this type of formula are as follows:
Controlled access sections formulas
Hide When formulas
Field formulas
Formulas written in a Properties box affect the behavior of an object. The coding for a Properties box can only be written using Formula Language, which is one of the built-in languages available in the Domino IDE.
Controlled Access Sections For controlled access sections, an access formula is written to determine who is allowed to edit information contained in the collapsible section. The access formula is written as a condition in an if-then-else statement. If the condition contained in the access section’s Properties box is true, then only those users are allowed to edit the information. For instance, in Figure 11.5, only the users in the [AccountingEdit] role can edit the information contained in the section shown below. FIGURE 11.5
Controlled access formula
Hide When For Hide When attributes, a formula can be written to control when an object appears. Objects like fields, sections, and buttons can be hidden based on formulas that evaluate to a true condition. Figure 11.6 demonstrates a formula that will hide this object if the document is new (meaning not previously saved).
Fields Field formulas are often used to determine values for option lists presented as choices to a user. The following field types are candidates for this type of formula:
Dialog list
Checkbox
Radio button
Combobox
Listbox
In Figure 11.7, a formula is used to calculate the value for a field based on a view. This results in a choice list for the user that can be used with all the field types above.
Agents In contrast to events and properties, which are associated with design objects, agents themselves are design objects. These design objects are selfcontained units of code stored in the NSF but separately from fields, forms, and views. Agents can be called from many different places within an application and are triggered in one of three ways:
The Agent Builder area in Domino Designer, shown in Figure 11.8, is where you write the code that executes when an agent is triggered. FIGURE 11.8
The Agent Builder
Coding an agent to do a task involves deciding on a trigger, choosing the documents that should be acted on, and writing code in an appropriate language to carry out the task. Now that we know where code is written in Domino, let’s explore the different language coding options available to write the code and determine when to use which option.
Programming Options
The programming options available to build Notes applications increase with each new release of the product. Domino Designer R5 provides coding alternatives that vary in skill level from simple to complex. In increasing order of difficulty, Domino’s built-in coding alternatives are shown in Table 11.4. TABLE 11.4
Internal Code Alternatives Type of Code
Description
Simple Actions
Built-in preprogrammed utility tasks
Formula Language
Declarative, task-oriented subroutines and functions
Internal Code Alternatives (continued) Type of Code
Description
HTML
Tagged language for formatting output for browsers
JavaScript
Web browser–embedded scripting language
Java
Object-oriented programming language
In addition to the language options built into the Domino IDE, external languages can be used to interact with the Notes NSF data format and to create custom user interfaces into stored data. Table 11.5 presents a few of the external language choices that can be used. TABLE 11.5
External Code Alternatives Type of Code
Description
C
Traditional procedural programming language
C++
Object-oriented programming language
Java
Object-oriented programming language with Web presence
Visual Basic
Traditional event-oriented programming language
C and C++ are the languages that the Domino Application Programming Interface (API) is written in and that can be used for complex, low-level interactions.
Since Domino is an IDE, direct access to low-level code is not available. Instead, all interactions with Domino objects (stored or in memory) are done using the Domino Object Model. As you can see from Figure 11.9, the object model is a layer that external coding options must utilize to interact with the Domino environment.
Items Company Name Address City State/Province Postal Code Telephone
Documents
ODBC
With all these coding options, choosing the right one for the job can seem a daunting task. Let’s examine the nuances of each option.
Simple Actions The concept of simple actions in Notes is to provide quick access to a task through the click of a mouse. They are specialized, built-in, preprogrammed procedures that provide a non-programming way to perform simple, oftenused tasks.
Be careful not to confuse Actions (a button with a click event where code can be written) with Simple Actions (a type of code that can be written). The names are far too similar for comfort!
Simple actions are added to an application using a wizard-like interface to choose a task, as shown in Figure 11.10.
Simple actions also have a more specialized version known as system actions. System actions focus on core tasks like opening a document in Edit mode.
System actions and simple actions are not supported when invoked from a Web browser; consider formulas as an alternative.
Formula Language Formula Language is a built-in task-directed language that is used in many places within a Domino application. As a language, formulas are slightly more complex than coding simple actions and less complex than working with LotusScript. Events that support the use of Formula Language are identified with a diamond icon to the left of the event title, as shown in Figure 11.11.
When code is stored in an event, the event’s icon is shaded, while events without code show the icon as an outline image.
Some areas in Notes require Formula Language to be used, not allowing other language choices. Table 11.6 lists the field, form, and view events that require Formula Language. TABLE 11.6
@Commands @Commands simulate tasks that are normally executed from the Notes client menu as well as a few specialized non-menu tasks. @Commands carry out a series of steps, making them similar to subroutines in other languages.
As an example of an @Command, consider the series of steps required to save a document using the menu: you click the File menu and then select the Save menu option. These two steps can be automated using an @Command. Here’s what the document save sequence would look like using an @Command: @Command([FileSave]) @Commands and Web Clients Since @Commands simulate menu-driven tasks in the Notes client, a majority of @Commands are not valid in a Web browser. If the database property “Web access: use JavaScript when generating pages” is enabled, the following @Commands will work when invoked from a Web browser: @Command([FileSave]) @Command([FileCloseWindow]) @Command([ViewRefreshFields])
When placed in a button on a form, the combination of @Command([FileSave]); @Command([FileCloseWindow]) is how to code a Submit button for Web input forms.
@ Functions @ functions behave much like functions in other languages and always return some kind of result. The result is either returned to the field that called the function or used as an interim value within a larger calculation. There are approximately 185 functions in R5, with more added as needs evolve over time. Formulas are covered in detail in the Designer Fundamentals 510 exam, so you should already be familiar with how they work. The following is a list of the functions available in R5:
@ Functions and Web Clients While a majority of @ functions can be invoked from a Web browser, some cannot. The functions that deal with Domino security and those that deal with opening dialog windows interactively make up a large part of the functions that do not translate to the Web. The following is a list of the functions that are not available in a Web client. @Certificate
@DocParentNumber
@MailSavePreference
@DbCommand
@DocSiblings
@MailSend
@DDEExecute
@Domain
@MailSignPreference
@DDEInitiate
@Environment
@PickList
@DDEPoke
@GetPortsList
@Platform
@DDETerminate
@IsAgentEnabled
@Prompt
@DeleteDocument
@IsCategory
@Responses
@DialogBox
@IsDocBeingMailed
@SetEnvironment
@DocChildren
@IsExpandable
@Unique
@DocDescendants
@IsModalHelp
@URLGetHeader
@DocLevel
@MailDbName
@URLHistory
@DocMark
@MailEncryptSaved Preference
@UserPrivileges
@DocNumber
@MailEncryptSend Preference
LotusScript LotusScript is a robust, BASIC-like programming language, making it more complex to code than Simple Actions and Formula Language. It is also, however, more powerful since it provides conditional selection statements, iteration, and access to non-Notes data.
Programming in LotusScript Events that support LotusScript are identified with a scroll icon to the left of the event name. Agents can also be coded in LotusScript. Programming in LotusScript requires a good understanding of the Domino Object Model in terms of events, properties, and methods that are available and when to use them. Domino Object Model Domino is an object-based, event-oriented language. Access to data stored in an NSF and design objects defined in an NSF is done through class libraries. These classes are defined by Lotus and provide an Application Programming Interface (API) to the Domino world. Domino objects are split into three families: front-end classes, back-end classes, and external data access classes. Front-end classes provide access to the things a user sees on screen, while back-end classes provide access to stored data. External data classes let a Notes database interact with external data sources through code. BACK-END CLASSES
Back-end classes interact with data stored on disk and not presented onscreen. Accessing stored data through classes is done through a hierarchy of individual objects that are used together to drill down to the individual data elements in an NSF. Here are a few of the most often-used back-end classes:
NotesSession
NotesDatabase
NotesView
NotesDocument
Consult the Domino Designer Help for a complete list of all classes. Even though back-end documents may be created without the aid of the user interface, Domino still enforces unique document IDs, storing the values in the unid$ variable.
A separate set of classes deals with the information displayed on the screen for users. These are known as the front-end or user interface classes. Some of the more frequently used front-end classes include the following:
NotesUIWorkspace
NotesUIDatabase
NotesUIView
NotesUIDocument
Whenever you work with data from a form using the front-end classes it is treated as text data; other data types are not recognized.
EXTERNAL DATA USING ODBC
Notes can act like a data source for external applications or be the application pulling data from external data sources. Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) is a popular middleware method for interacting with data sources, as depicted in Figure 11.12. FIGURE 11.12
ODBC as middleware
ODBC Notes
External data source
To use the Notes ODBC code library to access external data, the statement UseLSX “*LSXODBC” is added to the (Options) event of a form or object to make it available to all objects on the form. For Notes to act as an ODBC data source, the NotesSQL driver must be installed on the server or workstation hosting the NSF file. The ODBC driver lets Notes act like a relational database for the purpose of pulling data out of or pushing data into the NSF. When languages like C, Visual Basic, and Delphi use the ODBC driver to access Notes data, they bring to the table full programmatic control for read/write access to an NSF. When third-party tools like Crystal Reports retrieve data from Notes, the ODBC driver is the mechanism that connects the report engine to the stored Notes data.
The NotesSQL ODBC driver is available free from www.lotus.com. At the time this book went to print, the current version was 2.06, which works with Release 4.6 and Release 5 of the Notes product.
USING CLASSES
Classes can be treated as data types. Just as you would declare a variable of a data type–like number, you can declare a variable that is of a class type. Here’s a simple comparison: Dim X as Number Dim db as NotesDatabase Here, NotesDatabase is a class in the Domino Object Model, while Number is a primitive data type. The Dim statement dimensions, or declares, a variable that reserves memory space for it. With a data type declared, the next step is to assign an initial value. Again using the comparison example, the variables X and db are initialized: X = 2741 Set db = New NotesDatabase X is a variable that stores the integer value 2741 through direct assignment using the assignment operator. The assignment operator is only valid when used with built-in data types, like Number, so for class variable assignments, we have a different operator: Set. In the example above, the db class variable is assigned a reference to a NotesDatabase, and with it initialized, you can then access all the properties and methods in the NotesDatabase class through the variable reference db.
The process of initializing a class reference variable is known as instantiating the class; the class is an abstract concept and once you create something of that type through instantiation, the result is an object that can be referenced as a variable.
Every class, like the NotesDatabase class, has a set of properties and methods associated with it. Let’s define properties and methods: Properties Attributes of the class, e.g., NotesDatabase has a FileName attribute. Methods Behavior relevant to the class, e.g., NotesDatabase has a Compact method. Code to access the FileName attribute and invoke the Compact method in the NotesDatabase class looks like this: Dim db As New NotesDatabase("APSServer01","winemaster.nsf") Dim file As String Dim sizedelta as Long file = db.FileName sizedelta = db.Compact In the five lines of code, here’s what was happening: Line 1
Declared a class variable db and initialized it to the winemaster.nsf on the server APSServer.
Line 2
Declared a variable to store the filename.
Line 3
Declared a variable to store the space reduced number for the Compact operation.
Line 4
Assigned the variable file to the FileName property of the db class reference using dot notation.
Line 5
Assigned the variable sizedelta to the result of calling the Compact method for the db class reference using dot notation.
Dot notation is used to access class properties and call class methods.
Using dot notation, the values of all internal fields and programmer-created fields are available in LotusScript. To access them, however, you must traverse the Domino Object Model class hierarchy. For instance, to access the internal field called Form on a document that has its form stored separately from the document, you need to drill down from the top of the hierarchy to the document itself. You can both access and set form variables this way. Dim session As New NotesSession Dim db As NotesDatabase Dim doc As NotesDocument Set db = session.CurrentDatabase Set doc = New NotesDocument( db ) doc.Form = "Product Profile" Call doc.Save( True, True ) Here’s what was happening in these seven lines of code: Line 1
Declared a class variable session and instantiated it to the current Notes session using the keyword New.
Line 2
Declared a class variable db to reference a NotesDatabase.
Line 3
Declared a class variable doc to reference a NotesDocument.
Line 4
Instantiated the class variable db, setting it up to reference the currently open database in the current Notes session.
Line 5
Instantiated the class variable doc, creating a new document in the database referenced by the class variable db.
Line 6
Assigned the Form variable on the new document to be “Product Profile.”
Line 7
Saved the new document.
Debugging LotusScript If you’re human, there’s a good chance that code you write just might have errors in it every now and then. Within Domino, there is a code debugger for working through problems in LotusScript programs. Figure 11.13 shows the debugger environment. The debugger can be toggled on and off using the menu options Files Tools Debug LotusScript.
Use the debugger to step through code one line at a time, set break points, and watch values change during a subroutine.
Special Scripts You’ve noticed by now that most LotusScript code is written against field and form events. What do you do, however, if you want to use the same LotusScript code in two different forms? Should you code it twice? No! Domino provides two different kinds of special scripts that can be invoked by global calls within a database. Database Scripts While many events deal with things that transpire in fields or forms, several events occur at the database level. For instance, whenever a document is deleted anywhere in the database, you could pop up an “Are you sure?” message by using a database script. The code for this is shown in Figure 11.14. Database scripts are stored and accessed using the following path: Design Panel Resources Other Database Script.
Script Libraries Script libraries are another way to store and access code that will be used throughout a database. This code, however, is not written against events; instead, it consists of user-defined subroutines and functions that you call from other places in the database. This is a great way to write and access reusable LotusScript code. Script libraries are stored and accessed from the Resources area in the Design Panel using the path Design Panel Resources Script Libraries Figure 11.15 demonstrates a subroutine that is used to delete orders from a database. Since an order may be deleted from many places within a database, placing the code in a script library is a good idea. FIGURE 11.15
@LotusScript and Web Clients As a scripting language, LotusScript requires the presence of the Lotus engine to run. It is an interpreted language that is dynamically executed at runtime. Since it exists only within the Lotus environment, LotusScript code cannot execute in a Web browser. Since Web clients operate in a stateless HTTP mode, however, a browser can send a request to a Domino server, which in turn executes an agent in the server environment. Agents are often written in LotusScript. WebQueryOpen and WebQuerySave are two events intended to operate in exactly this manner. Figure 11.16 depicts these events as they exist in the interaction between a Web browser and a Domino server’s Notes database. FIGURE 11.16
Web events: WebQueryOpen and WebQuerySave
Conversion to HTML WebQuerySave Web submit Save to disk Web request
Domino server
WebQueryOpen NSF
Display HTML page Web browser
WebQueryOpen The WebQueryOpen event requires that an @Command call an agent that executes on the Domino server. If the event calls an agent, the agent is invoked just before the document is converted to HTML and rendered back to the browser. In Figure 11.16, imagine that an agent named RetrieveCurrentCustomerList exists. To invoke the event from a browser, the WebQueryOpen event would be coded as follows: @Command([ToolsRunMacro]; “RetrieveCurrentCustomerList”) The ToolsRunMacro command invokes the named agent on the server.
WebQuerySave The WebQuerySave event also uses the ToolsRunMacro command to execute an agent invoked from a Web browser. When this event has a value, the agent is called just prior to when user data is saved to disk. This is an excellent opportunity to validate the user input before making it a permanent part of the NSF.
WebQueryOpen and WebQuerySave have no effect in a Notes client.
HTML Like Formula Language, HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is a taskdirected language that is not as complex as full programming languages like LotusScript and Java. Its specific purpose is to customize Domino information for presentation in a Web client, which means it has no effect in the Notes client. You can also embed URLs directly in HTML on pages and forms for quick navigation.
URLs URLs can be added directly to a form to navigate to another location and to code buttons. URLs are also useful for passing field values from one document to another during the user’s navigation of a site. If a URL contains spaces by virtue of the Notes named element containing spaces, e.g., a form named “Product Profile,” spaces need to be replaced with some kind of a distinguishable character like an underscore. This replacement of characters is necessary because when Domino does its on-the-fly conversion of data to HTML, white space is removed, and in the case of URLs, that would make them invalid.
HTML Code Generation When a Web client requests data from a Domino server, the information is located and retrieved from the appropriate NSF file, converted to HTML, and sent back to the Web browser for rendering. This on-the-fly conversion of data to HTML means that you maintain your information as an NSF instead of as HTML. This has the advantage of easier code maintenance; however, since the HTML is being automatically generated for you, you don’t have direct control over the HTML formatting.
In the cases where you want specific control over browser formatting, you can tailor an NSF by directly adding HTML tags. Table 11.7 lists where in Domino HTML can be written. TABLE 11.7
HTML Code Locations Area
Code Location
Form events
HTML Head Content event, HTML Body Attributes event
Field events
HTML Attributes event, HTML tab in Properties box
Text on Forms
Text attribute “Pass-Thru HTML”
$$Return field
Default value event of field
As an example of how to embed HTML on a form, consider that you want to code a custom Submit button using HTML. You would type it directly onto the form and mark the text as Pass-Thru HTML using the Text menu. The following HTML would add a button to your form with the text on the button reading “Click to Submit.” The angle brackets (< >) are required to surround all HTML you type on a form in order to be processed correctly as HTML. Use the $$Return field to format a more personalized Web form submission message for users. The default message on submitting a form is “Form Processed.” If the $$Return field is present and has a valid value, a customized message can be returned. The value for the $$Return is generally a combination of HTML, Formula Language statements, and literal text, as shown in Figure 11.17. FIGURE 11.17
Hiding HTML Since HTML does not apply to Notes clients, all Pass-Thru HTML and the $$Return field are generally hidden from Notes clients using the setting shown in Figure 11.18. FIGURE 11.18
Hiding Objects in the Notes Client
Hidden HTML is stored in the database and, therefore, will replicate with the NSF between servers. Replication and HTML Replication technology only works on objects stored inside the NSF file. So while Domino can serve data to a Web browser from external HTML files, the HTML files cannot be replicated between servers.
JavaScript JavaScript, like HTML, is a language that is geared for Web clients. In fact, JavaScript is often used in combination with HTML in Domino. The purpose of the language is to use a simple command syntax to manipulate Web documents and their components. Since Notes documents are a similar concept to Web documents, it is a natural direction that JavaScript be effective
for both types of documents, and as such, there are places within the Notes client that support JavaScript execution.
For JavaScript to work in a Notes client, the user preference option “Enable JavaScript” must be enabled using the menu options File Preferences User Preferences Additional Options.
Programming in JavaScript In the Domino environment, JavaScript is used for data validation, presentation, and functionality outside of Domino’s capabilities. Writing JavaScript code in Domino can be done in the following places:
Field events
Form events
Subform events
Page events
Actions
Buttons
Action hotspots
Directly on a form or page by embedding it in HTML
Figure 11.19 shows a set of JavaScript events as they appear in the Domino Designer Object viewer. FIGURE 11.19
Client Support Each client supports varying levels of JavaScript events and code. If the client supports the event, then the code written in the event will execute. When writing applications that will be used in a Notes client and in a Web client, use JavaScript in events that work in both places. For instance, for document processing, use the following events to write JavaScript code for both types of clients:
OnLoad
OnUnload
OnSubmit
To process fields using JavaScript events, use the following events for both types of clients:
OnFocus
OnBlur
Table 11.8 gives you an idea of which events are supported in which client type and how some of the JavaScript events map to LotusScript events. TABLE 11.8
JavaScript Event Support LotusScript Event Equivalent
Expect differences between which events and which code works in Internet Explorer versus Netscape versus Notes clients.
GLOBAL JAVASCRIPT FUNCTIONS
The JS Header event for a form gives you a place to write JavaScript functions that can be called from other objects in the form, in a sense creating global functions. This is a good place to put global error handlers and global variable declarations. To call functions that are stored in the JS Header event, a JavaScript function call can be placed in any event. For instance, if you want to read a cookie that you previously stored on the user’s machine and you’ve written a JavaScript function named getCookie to do that, you call the cookie code in the form’s onLoad event with a statement like getCookie();. When Domino converts an NSF to HTML on-the-fly in response to a browser request, the code in the JS Header event is placed into the HTML tag.
JavaScript and HTML JavaScript code can be embedded directly in Domino forms and pages within HTML tags. The HTML tags need to identify the Script language being used, and if the browser supports that language, the code will execute when the form is loaded or the code action is called. A starting and ending Script tag is required, as shown in the following code: <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript"> (your JavaScript code goes here) You can use HTML to add buttons to a form as well and call a JavaScript validation routine. Building on the Submit button discussed earlier, the following code would place two buttons on a Domino form, one labeled “Submit” and the other labeled “Reset.” When the Submit button is clicked, the JavaScript onClick event fires, calling the JavaScript function checkFields, which takes no parameters.
Document Object Model Just as the Domino Object Model provides an access method to the properties and methods in LotusScript, JavaScript uses the Document Object Model to access properties and methods associated with Web pages and forms. The JavaScript Document Object Model deals with the user interface aspects of data, making it similar to the front-end classes in the Domino Object Model. The Document Object Model is a hierarchy that you traverse in code to access low-level components. Table 11.9 describes the high-level Document Object Model components, and Figure 11.20 graphically depicts their relationship to one another.
Arrays Each of the JavaScript Document Objects shown in Table 11.14 is implemented in code as a storage array. To interact with the object, you access the object’s array. For instance, to interact with the Domino form named “ProductProfile,” you would use the following JavaScript code, in which a Domino form name is preceded by an underscore character: document.forms[0]._ProductProfile Arrays in JavaScript use 0 as a lower bound, so accessing the 0th element of the forms array is accessing the first available form. A document in a Web browser may consist of multiple forms; however, Domino presents just one form at a time so you’ll always access the 0th element in the array. Table 11.10 explains the JavaScript object and code needed to access the components of a Domino form and the HTML tag that is used at conversion time. TABLE 11.10
Document Objects versus Domino Objects JavaScript Object Type
Domino Field Type
Array Subscript Access
Applets array
Action bar, view applet, Rich Text applets, custom applets
