IBM Lotus Domino Designer 8.5
  Versions 8.5 and 8.5.1

Selected form properties

You can use the Form Properties box to set form attributes.

To open the Form Properties box

1. Open the form.
2. Choose Design - Form Properties.

Protecting author/editor anonymity

If you want a document's author or editors to remain anonymous, define a form that doesn't record the names of people who create or edit it. For complete anonymity, be sure that the author name does not appear elsewhere on the document -- for example, in a visible computed field.

On the Form Info tab, select "Anonymous Form."

Changing form focus

On the Form Info tab, you can choose:

• No initial focus -- Lets you choose to have no initial focus on the form.
• No focus on F6 -- Lets you disable the F6 and SHIFT+F6 keys. These keys usually give focus to a frame.

Note Domino^® Designer users should use CTRL-F7 to navigate in any direction.

Handling replication conflicts

A replication-or-save conflict occurs when users in different locations edit the same document. One version becomes the main document, and the others become conflict documents that are marked with a diamond in the view.

At the "Conflict Handling" section of the Form Info tab, choose one of the following options for the form:

• Create Conflicts -- Creates conflicts so that a replication conflict appears as a response document to the main document. The main document is selected based on the time and date of the changes and an internal document sequence number.
• Merge Conflicts -- If a replication conflict occurs, saves the edits to each field in a single document. However, if two users edit the same field in the same document, Notes saves one document as a main document and the other document as a response document marked as a replication conflict. The main document is selected based on the criteria listed in the bullet above.
• Merge/No Conflicts -- If replication occurs, saves the edits to each field in a single document. If two users edit the same field in the same document, Notes selects the field from the main document, based on time and date, and an internal document sequence number. No conflict document is generated, instead conflicting documents are merged into a single document at the field level.
• Do Not Create Conflicts -- No merge occurs. IBM^® Lotus^® Domino^® simply chooses one document over another. The other document is lost.

For more information on replication conflicts, see Lotus Notes Help.

Opening documents in edit mode automatically

For users' convenience, you can specify that documents created with a form automatically open in Edit mode.

On the Defaults tab, select "On Open: Automatically enable Edit Mode."

Choosing a content type for Web access

If the application you are designing will be accessible from a browser, consider what content type to make available to browser users. The "On Web Access" section of the Default page of the Forms properties box lets you choose between IBM^® Lotus^® Notes^®, HTML, or Other. Displaying a form as a Notes form will pass along the form to the Web server, which will translate it into HTML. If you have designed the form using HTML you can set the content to serve the HTML directly to the browser. If you choose Other, IBM^® Lotus^® Domino^® Designer displays an edit control that lets you specify another display option, such as XML.

Generating HTML for hidden fields

On the Defaults tab of the Form Properties box, select "Generate HTML for all fields" to generate HTML information about hidden fields on a form. This allows documents in a Web application to work like documents in a Notes application. For example, if you create a form that relies on a hidden field for a calculation, that form may not behave as expected in a Web application in certain situations. By generating HTML for the fields, the information is available for Domino to successfully complete the calculation. The HTML generated for the hidden fields is also accessible through JavaScript^™, so you can change the value or find out the state of a hidden field with a script.

Selecting this option creates larger files on the Web and may decrease application performance. Also consider security, since information in hidden fields, though not visible in the browser, is visible through the "View Source" menu item on the browser.

On the Defaults tab, in the "On Web Access" section, check the option "Generate HTML for all fields" and deselect HTML in the Content type section.

Using data sources on a form

If you have already created data connection resources in the database, you can browse for data resources to use on the form.

1. On the Defaults tab of the Form Properties box, click the Browse button in the "Data Source Options" section. A "Browse External Data Sources" dialog box appears with a list of data connections resources already created in the database.
2. Select a data connection resource and click OK. The resource populates the "Default data connection" field on the Defaults tab of the Form Properties box. The "Default metadata object" can be either a backend database table, a view, or a procedure.

Once the user starts to create fields on the form using an external data resource, the default metadata object can be changed.

To define a header on a form

If you are designing a form for a Notes application, you can define a header that does not scroll off the screen when the user scrolls down the form or document created with that form. For example, in the Notes mail template, a header displays all of the information contained in the mail sender and recipient fields. This section remains static while you scroll through a mail message. Headers can contain any element that a form can contain. The only caveat is that a table cannot be the first element in a header; it must be preceded by a text object, even if the text object is blank.

1. Enter the text, graphics, tables, or other elements you want in the header region of the form.
2. Move the cursor to the line below where you want the header to start.
3. Choose Design - Form Properties.
4. On the Header tab select "Add header to form" to mark off the header area.
5. Set the display properties for the header.
• Height can be set in pixels or as a percentage of the form height. You can choose "Fit to content," which set the heights automatically depending on the contents.
• Select a scrolling option. Auto automatically turns scrolling on when the content of the header exceeds the space allotted.
• "Allow resizing" lets users reissue the header area. You can choose this option only when the border width is greater than 0.
• Border controls the display of the dividing line between the header and the body of the form. You can change the thickness of the line and the color of the border. You can turn the border off by setting the width to 0. Select "3D shading" to show the border with a 3D effect.

To display a graphic in a header

To display a graphic in a header, add a background graphic to the form. This becomes the background for the header only. Note that if you do this, the remainder of the form is blank and cannot display another background graphic.

If you want the user who creates a document to be able to add a graphic to the body of the document when it is created, check "Allow users to change these properties" at the Form Background tab of the Form Properties box.

To create a print header and footer

You can define a header and footer that will print on all documents created with that form. Headers and footers are not supported for Web applications.

1. On the Printing tab, click Header and enter the text you want to appear in the header text or click Footer and enter the text you want to appear in the footer text.
2. Click one or more of the icons (located just below the text area) to insert the following into the header or footer:
• Page number (first icon on the left)
• Date
• Time
• Tab
• Title (last icon on the right)
3. (Optional) Assign a font, size, and style for header or footer text.

Header and footer alignment

Headers and footers have three preset, permanent tab stops: left, center, and right. When you insert one tab, text to the left of the tab is left justified, and text to its right is right justified. With two tabs, text to the left of the first tab is left justified; text between the two tabs is centered; and text to the right of the second tab is right justified. For example:

&D|&T|&P-- Left justifies the date, centers the time, and right justifies the page number.

|URGENT| -- Centers the text URGENT.

||URGENT -- Right justifies the text URGENT.

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Last updated: Monday, October 5, 2009