Connecting to External Applications
Domino Designer 6 enables you to integrate third-party tools into the developer IDE by using WebDav (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning). In addition, when working within Domino Designer, you can launch alternate applications (for example, an image editor, and XML parser, and so on). If these third party tools support WebDav, you can save certain design elements directly back into remote Domino 6 databases.
The following design elements can be accessed by a WebDav client:
File resources
Images
Cascading Style Sheets
By default, Domino databases are not automatically enabled for WebDav. WebDav must be enabled on the Domino server before you can use it. This is set in the Web Site document in the Domino directory (located in the Configuration, Web, Internet Sites view). On the configuration tab, Allowed Methods section, the WebDav option must be enabled (see Figure 8.3). Therefore, this must typically be enabled by the Domino Administrator. Regardless, the HTML task must be restarted for this setting to take affect.
After WebDav has been enabled for the Domino server, it must then be enabled for each Domino database within your application. Follow these steps to enable WebDav within your application:
1. | Provide WebDav users with Designer access (or Manager access) in the database ACL. Also enable Create Documents and Delete Documents privileges. |
2. | Set the Maximum Internet Name and Password field on the Advanced tab of the database ACL to Designer or Manager access. |
3. | Enable design locking for the current database (this topic is covered in detail in Chapter 7, “Database Management”). |
4. | If using a Web browser as the WebDav client, disable proxy server access for the browser. |
5. | Disable session authentication for the server. This setting is located in the Server document, Internet Protocols tab, Domino Web Engine tab, HTTP Sessions section. |
6. | Restart the HTTP task on the Domino server. |
Currently, WebDav is supported on Windows NT, 2000, and XP. The WebDav clients that are supported are
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0x or 6.0
Windows Explorer on Windows 98, Windows NT4, Windows 2000, and Windows XP
Macromedia Dreamweaver 4.01
Microsoft Word 2000
After WebDav has been enabled, you need to add a Network Place in Windows mapped to the WebDav server. For the location of the Network place, specify the URL for the Domino server and database with $files appended to the end of the URL. For example:
http://domino./libertastechnologies.com/development/contacts.nsf$files
After you have mapped the WebDav database, you can access the WebDav elements by using the native interface of the WebDav client. Using the WebDav client, you can access, add, edit, and save the design element back to the Domino database. You can also use Windows Explorer to view the design elements that are available as a network place displayed under the My Network Places.
 | File-specific attributes (such as read-only) are not supported in WebDav. Therefore, if a file is set as read-only from the file system, this property does not prevent users from editing the document. |
Design element locking is supported by WebDav. Therefore, if a design element has been locked by a designer, it is not available for access by any WebDav clients.
Whether third-party applications support WebDav or not, you can customize the Tools menu in the Domino Designer client to launch other applications or execute your own custom formulas. Follow these steps to add a tool to the tools menu:
1. | Select Tools, Add Tool from the drop-down menu. |
2. | Enter the name of tool in the Tool Name field of the Add Tool dialog box (see Figure 8.4). You can specify an accelerator character by using the underscore character (“_”) prior to the letter you want to act as the accelerator character. This makes the tool accessible to users with physical disabilities and easy to access in general. |
3. | Select the Tool Action as either Run Program or Run Formula. If you select Run Program, enter (or select) the path to the program executable. If you select Run Formula, enter the formula to determine what tool to launch. |
4. | In the Tool Context section, select the context in which the tool should be available (for example, Frameset Design, Frameset List, Page Design, and so on). |
5. | Click OK. |
Now, when you are designing in one of the contexts specified in step 4 above, the tool appears as an option in the Tools menu!
After you have added tools to the Tool menu, you will most likely want to organize, delete, change the context, or add submenus for these tools. You can do this by selecting the option from the drop-down menu Tools, Customize Tools to display the Customize Tools dialog box (see Figure 8.5).
This dialog box allows you to