The flags are used to store many of the design item selections that are made in the properties box when looking at the design document list, or when looking at the design item itself. The most useful one is "P" (upper case) which indicates that the design element is protected from change by design refresh/replace.

One curiosity I have with this library is that the field names that it returns are not the same as the field names that you see on design elements when you look at them with NotesPeek, or for those design elements that you can reach in other ways. However, that doesn't affect the value of the class library.

I've used this library to perform various tasks, such as:

• Locate items that have been modified by the R5 designer, so that I can check on version dependancies. Items modified with the R5 designer should not be altered with the R4.6 or below designer.

• Check for individual design notes that have a specific template dependency. Such things can cause havoc with design and template management.

• Similarly look for design notes that have "Prohibit Design Replace or Refresh to Modify" set.

• Check the signatures on design notes.

clsAttachment
This is a class that I've not actually used myself, but which I could have used had it existed a few years ago! I had a customer application that transported file attachments from place to place as part of the application workflow. We were able to detach the attachments, but the process of ensuring that they got re-attached after editing was not pleasant. This class, written by Heinz Ulrich Krause, provides the tools to enable your application to manage the process of detaching, editing, and reattaching an attachment to a document very easily.

The class library comes, like all of them, as a script library in a Notes database, and there's a test document in the database that shows how it all works. When you get under the covers, you'll find that some of the database is in German, but the class library is commented and written in English, as are the key bits of the demo form design. This is one class library that you'll need to review in a bit of detail, to determine how to use it, because there's no specific documentation. Check the code on the "Detach->Edit->Attach" action of the Document form.

This class also interacts with the Windows API to work with the file system. Specifically it uses the file associations to get the attachment edited, which means that you need to have an application on the machine that's associated with that file type. This is actually little different than the mechanism used by Notes itself to launch attachments, but you do need to take it into account.

RNext does to an extent make this class redundant. RNext has new buttons on the attachment properties box that enable attachment editing; when you save the document it asks if the attachment that has been altered should be reattached. This is a different process model than that used by clsAttachment, which gives you the tools to be in control. However, the RNext process is of course part of the Notes product, and it works the way it does and in no other way. This class library enables you to be in control, in the places you need to be.