®

A Closer Look at XPages in IBM Lotus Domino

Designer 8.5

Ray Chan
Advisory I/T Specialist
Lotus, IBM Software Group

© 2008 IBM Corporation

 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Agenda

XPage overview

From palette to properties: Controls, Ajax & Localization

Look and feel: CSS & Themes

Where's the logic? Events, simple actions, JavaScript and more

Measure twice,IBM Software
cut once: Group
Custom | Lotus
controls

It's a wrap software

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

XPages – A Big Leap Forward

Visual Web page construction
– Advanced U/I controls
– Drag and drop development

Instant Application Development

– XML markup withIBM
sourceSoftware Group | Lotus
– Full control of HTML
software
– Business logic using JavaScript
– Presentation using CSS
– Skinning using themes

Leverages existing NSF assets
– Web agents, formulas, security,...

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

XPages – What is it?

A new Domino design element

A runtime designed to generate modern Web applications

Pure XML markup, defining:
– Controls, data sources, business logic, custom controls

Solves age-old limitations expressed by the Domino community

IBM Software Group | Lotus
– UI/Data separation, HTML generation control, server state, localization,
extensibility … software
– Capable of targeting multiple clients

Highly extensible runtime and design time

Standards-based technology: JSF

Full integrated into Domino Designer 8.5
– Visual Design Page, Source Page, Control Palette, Outline View etc

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XPage Prerequisites

Installation and configuration

– XPage runtime is installed by default
– If doing custom install, make sure its checked
– HTTP task must be running

Skills IBM Software Group | Lotus software
– Knowledge of Domino object model
– HTML, CSS, XML and JavaScript are very beneficial but you can
built an application without them
– Question = Do I need to learn Java?
– Answer = NO!

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

XPage Security

XPages use agent security model.

Settings for Xpage application access
– XPage signer must have explicit
access to server or select users
listed in all trusted directories.
IBM Software
– Other settings which likely Group | Lotus software
require XPage design element
signature to be added

XPage Web user access

– Standard Domino Web authentication applies

See Xpage User Guide: Designing with XPages \ Creating XPages \ Signing XPages

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Agenda

XPage overview

From palette to properties: Controls, Ajax & Localization

Look and feel: CSS & Themes

Where's the logic? Events, simple actions, JavaScript and more

Measure twice,IBM Software
cut once: Group
Custom | Lotus
controls

It's a wrap software

7
 IBM Software Group | Lotus software Controls
palette
XPages in Domino Designer 8.5

XPage
design
element

IBM Software Group | Lotus

software
Optional source
mode
Scripting & Simple
Actions

Custom Controls
palette

Outline Property
sheets 8
 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

XPage Controls

Extensive palette of pre-built controls
– All the basic controls and containers
expected for developing Web 2.0 apps

Two categories of controls
– Core – single entities used in XPage or custom control
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– Container – more complex and contain other controls

Extensible palette of controls
– Custom controls
– More on that later...

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

XPage in 5 min Demo

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Built-In AJAX Support

AJAX partial page refresh

– Available on any event
– Pre-built on View Pager

AJAX Typeahead
– Add behavior to any edit control
IBM Software Group | Lotus
– Content can be returned through a simple
software
formula in the page
• No need to write a separate service

Dojo is provided as the client side library
– Will share some common controls with the
“classic” Web applications

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Partial Update Demo

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

CSS Support

All look and feel is driven by CSS

– Enforce consistency between applications
– Help solving accessibility issues (Section 508 compliant)

XPages feature global references to CSS files

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Style classes and inline styles can be applied per control

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

CSS Skinning — Themes

Allows an application to pick up a look and feel without touching the actual
application code
– Default styles are applied to controls without any explicit style set per
control – every property can be set
– Skinning can be disabled per application/control
IBMbetween
– Association Software
controlGroup | Lotus
done through software
a “Theme”

– Defined at different levels: server or application

• Stored in a shared database
– Easily customizable by a developer and/or an administrator
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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Switch from this

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

To This... In seconds, the flexibility and agility of “Themes”

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Apply Theme Demo

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Application Properties

XPages tab
Localization
GZip support

IBM Software Group | Lotus software

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Localization Demo

IBM Software Group | Lotus

software
 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Agenda

XPage overview

From palette to properties: Controls, Ajax & Localization

Look and feel: CSS & Themes

Where's the logic? Events, simple actions, JavaScript and more

Measure twice,IBM Software
cut once: Group
Custom | Lotus
controls

It's a wrap software

20
 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Supported Languages

JavaScript
– On the Client
– On the Server
• Access to back-end classes, @function support
• Global objects
• Extended API for i18n, XPages data...
•
IBM Software Group | Lotus
Server Side state: application scope, session scope & request scope

Simple Actions software

Java
– Adding a Java class/library to an NSF
– JavaScript/Java bridge
– JSF managed beans – Using EL

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

XPages Events Model

XPages events
– Page events
– Control Events
– Data sources events
– Computed Properties – Data binding
IBM Software Group | Lotus
software

Server side JavaScript Libraries

Validating data
– Validation can occur on the client and on the server
– The predefined validators
– Creating custom validators
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Leveraging Existing Business Logic

Forms
– Default Values
– Validation Formulas

Views IBM Software Group | Lotus

– The query engine software

Agents
– Calling an agent (LotusScript)

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Custom Controls

Made by assembling existing controls

Behave exactly as native controls

Appear in the Control palette

Define their own set of properties
IBM Software
– Hierarchical properties, Group
with custom | Lotus
editors
– Editable areas software

Can be used
– As reusable UI assets (ex: an address control, a toolbar...)
– As a way to share some layout (ex: common page layout)

Can be shared through templates (NTF) as any other design
element

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Agenda

XPage overview

From palette to properties: Controls, Ajax & Localization

Look and feel: CSS & Themes

Where's the logic? Events, simple actions, JavaScript and more

Measure twice,IBM Software
cut once: Group
Custom | Lotus
controls

It's a wrap software

25
 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

XPage - Help

Accessed from menu

Two reference guides

IBM Software Group |F1Lotus

for software
context
sensitive
help

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Resources

New XPage Tutorial

Use instead of one in public
betas kits

Will ship with Designer

Learning objectives

Set up and view an application
containing XPage elements

Create an XPage

Add controls to an XPage

Bind data to an Xpage

Add navigation to an Xpage Download new XPage Tutorial here

Create a custom control

Use advanced binding and scripting

No need for server – use Designer preview in Web browser

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 IBM Software Group | Lotus software

Resources Continued

Discussion 8.5
– Coming soon to Lotus Greehouse
– https://greenhouse.lotus.com

XPages articles and examples
IBM Software Group | Lotus
– http://www.thenorth.com/northern.nsf/html/XpagesArticle
– http://www.jmackey.net/ software
– http://www.lotus911.com/nathan/escape.nsf/d6plinks/NTFN-
7FRG79

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