And all that means that as user selects a view entry, it publishes the specified column, and another app picks that up, uses the key value, looks up some data and displays it or does whatever you want it to do. The publisher and the consumer may both be Notes apps, or not.

Now, there's some flexibility, and lots of opportunity!

LotusScript and Java backend classes
There's new LotusScript and Java backend classes. Two manage access to Domino directories -- meaning that you use them to access directory-type information as logical entities, rather than, as now, needing to deal with the physical implementation of the directory as a Notes database.

See where that's going?

In the future, you won't necessarily have to have a Domino directory on the Domino server, but any apps that access directory info via these classes will just carry on working, while those that use NotesDocuments to traverse the current directory as a Notes database will struggle.

There's the new PropertyBroker classes I just mentioned for handling the Notes end of composite apps. There are massive improvements to collections, allowing you to match and merge, explore the union and intersection of collections, clone them, and even stamp a "template" document on to all members.

Domino 7 introduced the ability for Domino to publish its content via Web Services. Designer 8 now add the ability for Notes and Domino to be a Web Services consumer. That completes that piece of the jigsaw.

Eclipse client support
There are some more bits and pieces that are new, basically to support the Eclipse client. Things like the ability to specify which column in a view auto-resizes to match the window pane size that the view is in, rather than the current approach which is to float the size of the rightmost column.

You can also specify what the view is to do if it shrinks sideways so much because of the new vertical preview pane that there isn't enough space for it, how it is to reformat onto two lines to cope with the reduced width.

There's some extra things also in views and columns to handle the way they are displayed and managed in the Eclipse world, including the ability to plug in your own viewer. The example I saw -- in AD408 -- was the inbox displayed as a pie-chart divided up by the sender/addressee. Just imagine that as a way into doing some radical housekeeping, like selecting the pie slice and hitting delete.

There's an ability to create split action buttons, where the left piece of the button triggers an action and the right piece generates a pulldown menu, just like, for example, the forward and back buttons in Firefox. Lastly there are some Web improvements, JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) support, facilities to control DocType and some aspects of HTML conversion, and an HTML API.

Domino 8 goodies
Domino 8's got a lot of new stuff in it, too. It supports all the new client and designer features, as well as having new features of its own, including, at last, the General Availability of NSFDB2 -- the ability to use DB2 to underpin the storage of NSF data -- and some new features all of its own.