Lotus Domino Designer 8.5 Beta 1 release06/01/2008 07:54 AM
Domino 8.5
As a Lotus Domino 8.5 design partner, I have been working with the 8.5 pre-beta releases for several months. The public beta version 1 was released last Friday. There are many enhancements, the largest being within the Designer and the move to eclipse and the inclusion of xPages. With a background in Lotus Notes and Websphere Portal I am particularly interested in xPages since the technology is derived from the Lotus Component Designer.
Here is a good description of the new xPages technology taken from the IBM Lotus Domino Wiki:
XPages and custom controls
An XPage is a new design element based on JavaServer Faces (JSF) technology that lets developers create Web 2.0 enabled pages for use in Web browser applications running on Domino 8.5. XPages remove the barrier of Web programming in Domino by providing advanced page design capabilities and complete control of the generated markup. They also allow access to any kind of data and provide an easy method for localizing applications. XPages includes the following features:
AJAX enabled (for example, partial page refresh, type ahead capability, and so on)
Advanced Web control library (tabbed panel, and so on)
Full support for styling by using CSS
Fully extensible by using custom controls (composite controls or Java-based controls) or JSF extensions
Support for multiple clients (Web, rich client, and so on)
JavaScript scripting language support for client-side and server-side action
Pre-built simple actions provided for most common cases
Direct access to Java libraries on the server
A custom control is a collection of controls that are stored as a single object. Similar to subforms in Domino Designer, custom controls are design elements that you can create once and add to multiple XPages. When you update a custom control, every XPage that uses that custom control gets updated with the changes, saving developer time and effort.
I am working on a number of examples and samples that I will be posting demonstrating xPages. This will present some compelling reasons why Domino developers will want to use this technology. I'll be posting these over the next couple of weeks on this site....
Lotus Domino Designer 8.5 Beta 1 release06/01/2008 07:54 AM
