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Welcome to Domino Designer. Designer is an integrated application development environment that lets developers and Web site designers create, manage, and deploy secure, interactive applications for the Domino Application Server.

Domino applications let people share, collect, track, and organize information, using Lotus Notes or the Web. Domino applications can cover a wide range of business solutions, including:

• Workflow -- Route information
• Tracking -- Monitor processes, projects, performance, or tasks
• Collaboration -- Create a forum for discussion and collaboration
• Data Integration -- Integrate with relational databases and transactional systems
• Personalized -- Produce dynamic content based on, for example, user name, user profile, access rights, or time of day
• Globalization -- Use Domino Global Workbench to produce global sites

• Comprehensive development environment -- The environment includes all the design and development tools needed to develop and deploy applications.
• Intuitive visual environment -- The new Designer look-and-feel lets developers optimize their work environment by creating project bookmarks. Developers have easy access to all design elements and application metadata. The task-oriented environment better supports developer needs. The result is reduced development time and costs.
• Improved programming environment -- The Programmer's pane provides access to all application objects and reference information on the Domino objects and languages. The programming environment is consistent regardless of the programming language or tool used. New and updated tools enable easier access, use, and reuse of code and objects.
• Multiple-browser preview -- Preview your work in all of the browsers your end-users demand, including Notes, the Notes browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer, and Netscape Navigator. Automatic browser detection adds preview buttons for browsers installed on the developer's desktop.
• Context-sensitive Help -- Pressing F1 while in any of the integrated tools (such as pages, forms, outlines, or framesets) brings up the Help topic for the tool. Pressing F1 when a function is highlighted in the InfoList Reference tab displays the Help topic for the function as in previous releases.

• Outline Designer -- The Outline Designer is a visual tool for designing the structure and navigation of an application. You can design and display links to URLs, design elements, and actions in a hierarchical layout. The Outline is fully programmable, enabling a customized navigational structure based on user, time, or other criteria. You can embed the outline in pages or forms and add graphics and mouseover effects.
• Frameset Designer -- The Frameset Designer allows developers to create multi-pane interfaces to their applications. It includes a step-by-step process to allow developers to start designing Web sites with frames quickly with no HTML knowledge required.
• Page Designer -- Page designer is a WYSIWYG HTML authoring tool allowing designers to add styled text, images, image maps, tables, HTML, Java, ActiveX components, and multimedia objects to applications.
• Domino Applets -- You can use these Java-based components to add unique features to your Web site not previously available to browsers. Applets included are View, Action bar, Outline, and Text Editor.
• HTML 4 support -- HTML 4 properties are accessible within the visual development environment via menu options and properties boxes.
• Table enhancements -- Enhancements include style templates, nested tables, fixed and variable width columns in the same table, and cell background images, among many others. The improvements enable more control over page layout. You no longer have to work with raw HTML code to obtain necessary control over the page layout and table characteristics.
• Shared resources -- Images, applets, shared actions and Java libraries are added to existing shared code resources.
• Image maps -- You can create image maps by adding in-line hotspots to pictures.
• Picture properties -- HTML attributes, such as vertical alignment, text wrap, and float options, are available in the properties box.

• Domino Enterprise Connection Services (DECS) -- Domino Enterprise Connection Services (DECS) is a visual tool and high performance server environment you can use to create Web applications that provide live, native access to enterprise data and applications. The visual tool includes an application wizard and online Help to assist you to define external data source connections -- for example, DB2, Oracle, Sybase, File directory, EDA/SQL, or ODBC -- and fields within your application that automatically update with external connector data. For more information on connecting to legacy databases, see the Domino Enterprise Connection Services User's Guide. (DECSDOC.NSF) in your Notes or Domino data directory.
• Lotus Connector LSX Classes (LC LSX) -- Lotus Connector LSX Classes (LC LSX) allow for programmatic access via LotusScript to Lotus Domino Connectors' native connectivity to relational databases, transaction processing systems, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. Lotus Domino Connectors supplied with this release include: DB2/UDB, EDA/SQL, ODBC, Oracle, Sybase, and Text and File. Additional Lotus Domino Connectors for ERP and Transaction System Connectors are available separately from Lotus. For product information, please visit the Lotus Domino Enterprise Integration Web page at http://www.eicentral.lotus.com. Complete documentation can be found in the LSX for Domino Connectors On-line Manual (LSXLC.NSF) in your Notes or Domino data directory. You may also refer to LotusScript Data Object (LS:DO) documentation for more general guidelines on the use of LSXs.
• DB2 LSX Classes (LSXDB2.DLL) -- DB2 LSX Classes (LSXDB2.DLL) are included with the Notes client, Domino server and Domino Designer on Windows 95, 98, and NT platforms. DB2DAHLP.NSF is a documentation database that describes the DB2 specific features of the DB2 LSX. DB2SAMP.NSF contains a series of agents that demonstrates the use of the DB2 specific features in the DB2 LSX. The DB2 LSX is closely related to the LotusScript Data Object (LS:DO). You can also refer to LS:DO documentation for more general guidelines on the use of DB2 LSX. Note: DB2 LSX AutoCommit defaults to False. Some of the DB2 ODBC script might not work if the user forgets to set AutoCommit to True.
• JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) -- Access from Java agents to relational data via industry standard JDBC. A JDBC-to-ODBC bridge is also part of Domino.

• Support HTML 4 -- Designer supports features defined in the W3C HTML specification. There is no need to write HTML code, unless you want to.
• Mix-and-Match Coded HTML on Pages and Forms -- You can mix and match WYSIWYG and native HTML code. Use HTML if you want or need to.
• Import HTML Pages -- You can import existing HTML pages that are automatically rendered as pages in Designer.
• Upgrade existing HTML -- Import existing HTML files into Designer so you can take advantage of Domino features.
• Leverage Web Programmability and Scripting Options -- Web standards (Java, JavaScript, HTML 4.0) are supported in Designer R5 so you can use standard Web design languages and tools in Designer.
• CORBA/IIOP support -- The Common Object Request Broker Architecture & Internet InterORB Protocol permits remote access to Domino services. CORBA/IIOP enables creation of applets and applications that communicate with the server more efficiently than HTTP alone.
• Additional Domino objects -- Domino objects provide an integrated set of application objects that can be accessed from a number of industry-standard languages. New application objects are added to one of the richest object models for application development.
• Java enhancements -- Designer supports Java as an alternative to other programming options. Compile and edit Java code directly in the Agent Builder. There is support for shared Java libraries.
• JavaScript -- Direct support in Designer for JavaScript development. JavaScript events, such as onMouseOver and onBlur, are added to the event list for Domino Form and Page elements. Enables client-side scripting for both Notes and browsers. Support for the Document Object Model (DOM) within the R5 Notes client is as defined in the Notes Document Object Model database, which will be available at http://www.lotus.com/ldd.

• Domino Global WorkBench -- Create the design of an application in more than one language with the Domino Global WorkBench. Developers can quickly localize applications into multiple languages and keep them up-to-date as the structure and content of the application changes.
• Multiple language support -- Generate and maintain different language versions of design elements and documents via database and design properties. Allows the creation of local, global and translatable content in any supported language. Facilitate review and approval of localized documents through workflow process. "Switchbar" lets Web users switch between languages across synchronized pages in a multilingual Web site. Content appears accurately and simultaneously to all users worldwide. Access to appropriate information in appropriate/respective language in a timely fashion. Developers can build the translation process into applications to facilitate the rapid translation of Web content.
• Multiple currency support -- Ability to store and use calculations involving multiple currencies within a form or view. The currency indicator is stored with the field so that it remains consistent and doesn't change based on the user's local computer system preferences. Developers can more easily create applications that involve calculation and display of different currencies. Users can immediately understand the currency being used by the symbol and no longer need to do mental calculations to determine whether financial figures are correct or not.
• Euro support -- Full Euro support including Euro symbol input and display and rounding. Developers can easily create applications that use the new Euro currency. Users can immediately view financial figures calculated into Euros without doing mental or manual calculations. Combined with the multiple currency support feature listed above, developers have all the tools they need to develop truly global applications.
• Long dates -- Ability to specify a long date format in a date field: for example, 01-January-1999. Developers can use long date format to remove the ambiguity between the MM/DD/YY and DD/MM/YY date formats.