Keeping track of which element inherits from where can become a nightmare very quickly if not managed properly and DesignPropEZ is helps you manage that through the nice interface, shown in Figure B. It is a lot easier to work with than the standard Notes synopsis.

FIGURE B

The DesignPropEZ interface is a lot easier to work with than the standard Notes synopsis. Click picture for a larger image.

With DesignPropEZ, I am thinking of getting back to having a big database that contains reusable design elements and have my application inherit from that database. I left that approach a while ago as it was hard to keep track of which element inherits from where (and had few surprises when the design task ran), but now it is easy to find out with DesignPropEZ.

With ND6 pushing harder on shared design elements, I will get into that philosophy knowing that I have DesignPropEZ to help me manage all that inheritance.

SignEZ
There's not all that much to say about SignEZ, but I'm sure that a lot of developers have to deal with administrators to get their design signed by some ID that has all the proper rights on the server.

This is often frustrating, as you have to wait for your administrator to get around to setting up the right options. It can also be frustrating for the admins, as they probably don't like the pressure that we, developers, put on them to have our things signed for yesterday. SignEZ is a great tool that will allow admins to concentrate on problems more important than signing databases, and will keep developers more happy as they will be able to sign their databases when they want to.

The way it works is quite simple. Administrators can store IDs in the SignEZ database and developers can then use one of the stored IDs to sign their databases. SignEZ allows for more than one ID to be stored and each ID is available to developers as seen in Figure C.

FIGURE C

You can sign in using a variety of stored options. Click picture for a larger image.

Secured with standard Notes security, the ID passwords are very safe. SignEZ is a nice tool to ease the frustration that often exists between administrators and the developers. I've seen this frustration in a few companies I worked for, and getting the two groups to be in a collaborative mood more than a competitive mood can prove a challenge. That could be a nice subject for another article! Bottom line is SignEZ promotes less irritation between the two groups, the more productive they become. ScanEZ definitely helps on that matter. Simple, effective, right on the spot.

ScanEZ
Last, but not least, is ScanEZ. I initially started using this tool so I could see the content of a document and edit that document without having to write agents. The document properties box shown in Figure D is helpful, but not very interesting to work with.

FIGURE D

The standard document properties box is somewhat helpful. Click picture for a larger image.

Compare that to the ScanEZ screen shown in Figure E.

FIGURE E

On the other hand, ScanEZ provides access to a lot more. Click picture for a larger image.

ScanEZ lets you build a list of documents to work on, using a search formula, the UNID (Unique Identifier), or by building the list manually. Then, it is quite easy to act upon these documents; change a field value, add, modify or delete a field, and so on. This could be great if you had some agent that changed the status of certain documents and for some strange reason given by the user, you need to revert the status to what it was before the agent ran. Instead of writing a one shot agent, ScanEZ can be used to build the list of documents to modify and actually modify these documents.