Final flourish
If you have a little more time and patience, the final touch to an R5 menu is the watermark style graphics incorporated into the standard templates. This is accomplished using an image resource, usually a file called OUTLINE.GIF, with a width of 275 pixels and a height of 800 pixels. The top third of the image is blank. This rapidly fades into the bottom two thirds, which has a toned-down, repeated image.

If you're pushed for time (or if you're as artistically challenged as I am), you may want to either skip this stage or re-use one of the existing watermarks from the Notes templates. You'll find books in the document library, letters and stamps in the mail template, keyboards in the discussion template, handwriting in the journal template, and business cards in the Address Book. It isn't too difficult to design your own watermark with the right tools, especially if you use an existing one as a guide and have graphic tools that can alter the contrast on your images.

Applying the frameset
Now you'll want to apply this frameset to each of your pre-R5 databases. This involves the following steps:

1. Copy the MasterFrameset into the database design;

2. Change the view referenced in the NotesView frame of the frameset to be the local default view;

3. Copy the three referenced pages--DbaseTitleDisplay, dspMainOutline, and dspTemplateName--to the database design;

4. Copy the MainOutline, edit it, and use the Generate Default Outline to create a new menu structure for this database;

5. Edit the dspTemplateName page to reflect the name of this template;

6. Change the database launch properties to open the MasterFrameset;

7. Stand back and admire your handiwork.

The thirty minute makeover
You now have applications that look much more like contemporary R5 databases, and all for very little effort expended per template. There is, however, one major carryover from the R4 days left--your existing view and form action buttons and the Windows 3.0 style icons inside them.

These are left out of the five-minute makeover since to make the changes comprehensively means updating every form and view in the database. It also requires some thought as to which icons will replace the old in order to maintain some standard look and feel for your customers.

To get an idea of what we're talking about, lets compare the respective action bars in R4 and R5. In Figure B, you'll see an example of an R4 action bar.

FIGURE B

Here's a sample R4 action bar.

In Figure C, you'll see an example of an R5 action bar.

FIGURE C

Here's a sample R5 action bar.

This comparison of actions between R4 and R5 demonstrates the two main changes. For one, R5 action bars have white text on a dark background. Usually buttons are colored identically to the background, with R5 showing a 3D effect to make the button stand out from the bar when the mouse hovers over it. Secondly, R5 offers an alternative to the old built-in icons for actions. Standard templates tend to use simple, bold, monochrome icons.