I asked Maureen to walk me thru the process of creating a new Workplace component. In the space of about 20 minutes we were able to define the schema that we'd use (unlike Notes, it's separate from the design of the form), add controls to the form, define simple actions that would occur on entry and exit from the form, and dragged the component into our Workplace. Easy peasy.

There are a lot of things to like in Workplace Designer: Notes forms can be imported directly, making some conversion tasks very straightforward. If you choose to go the build-from-scratch route, Forms now have grids, and all UI (User Interface) controls can snap to the grid. That's a real step up from the Domino Designer.

As you mentioned Mick, some areas of the Designer have access to the Lotus @Formula language functions, so it's really easy to retrieve information from Notes in a way that's familiar. Maureen is also proud of the Submit button--a predefined object you can drag onto a form, requiring no coding (unless you want to add to it), that performs all the work associated with saving the current screen back into the data store.

There's one important caveat about the Workplace Designer though. As of today, the primary development language is going to be JavaScript. While we will have access to the @Functions, you'll have to use JavaScript when you want to do all of the real work in an application. Maureen said that while they have, of course, received a lot of requests for LotusScript to be added, it's definitely not going to be in the first shipping version of the Workplace Designer. Developers that are trying to stay on the path with IBM should definitely be building up their skill-set if they want to stay current.

That has to be enough about what's coming up, if you need more, Lotus has it spread all over their site.

Mick
So what else happened? A lot, as usual. This 'Sphere was the best of the millennium so far. If anything, the sense of community was expanded. I heard, totally unofficially, that numbers were well up too. Last year was the first the number was announced: 5273. I heard this year was over 6000.

Ed Brill said at the Blogger BOF (Birds of a Feather) session there were at least 51 Notes/Domino bloggers present at the Sphere. Some even blogged via the wireless network directly out of the opening session. Most turned up at the Bloggers BOF session, which in itself was an innovation in that it was on Wednesday lunchtime, and was pretty well attended. Now there's an innovation, BOFs at lunchtime! In previous years, all the BOFs have been either at 06:45 am or at 6:15 pm.

Richard (laughing)
Yeah, those are kind of tough to get to.

Mick
The Showcase buzzed more than in some previous years, with many vendors showing new products and updates, demonstrating the vibrancy of the Notes and Domino market, as well as the opportunities the Business Partners see in the new Workplace range. One product we at DominoPower are keen to explore is X1's inclusion of Lotus Notes content into their desktop search product. We just hope it allows design elements to be indexed and searched, as well as document content, so you can search for that elusive piece of LotusScript. We signed ourselves up for a review copy when it's available.