John MackeyComments and Insights on Lotus Technologies
Sunday 31st, August 2008
Lotus Notes 8.5 beta 2: Want applause at your next demo? Use this new beta 2 feature...08/31/2008 08:59 AM
Domino 8.5
Demoing the new XPages Select Controls Dialog Box will guarantee applause at your next demo. This dialog provides you the ability to drag all your Notes data fields from the data palette and select the type of control and label for each field. It then does the following for you:
- creates a table with 2 columns and rows for each field
- creates labels for each field
- creates the appropriate control
- binds the control to the data field
- additionally, it can even add a submit button and an error message control to the page.
Developers and Managers will applaud when they see you build a new XPage in 3 minutes time.
Here's some screen shots on how it works:
In the data palette, enable the Select Controls Dialog box by right clicking on a field and selecting it:
Next, highlight all your fields and drag them to the XPage:
The dialog will then popup and allow you to make your changes to the defaults:
When done making changes, click the OK button and the dialog will generate the complete table:
You can then rearrange the rows by using the Outline View that is located at the bottom left of the IDE. I requested that some row ordering functionality be added to the select controls dialog. Maybe in a future release, but for right now....I'm not complaining. This is a great feature that makes for great demos!