Domino 7 Lotus Notes Application Development. If you’re reading this book, you’re probably already familiar with the Domino server. You know about all the powerful productivity features offered by this product and you know how much your company relies on it to communicate, collaborate, and manage its collective store of corporate knowledge.
This is what I do. I run a design synopsis of the database using the Notes Designer. Dump the file to a text file. You can actually split the synopsis out to different objects like Agents, Forms, Views, etc. Then you can run UNIX/Linux/Mac Unix commands to compare the elements.
In Designer, right-click on the element's name and choose Design Properties. Then select the Design tab of the properties box (T-square and triangle) and under 'Hide design element from' select either the Notes clients or Web browsers.

We are currently using Lotus Notes 6.5.1. Yeah, I know its old. Several years ago, an employee custom made a sales tracking database to track leads, generate quotes, etc. Unfortunately that person no longer works here. We are planning to completely move away from Lotus Notes and into Microsoft CRM. Last I knew, there were a total of three universities which offered a program in HCI (Human-Computer Interaction). Of course, the only one I can remember is the one I go to, so I direct the interested parties to De Paul University depaul.edu, Chicago, and click the programs topic on the sidebar, and then find HCI under either undergraduate or graduate programs.

'Hide-whens' have a real personality. They are one of the most important tools in a developer's kit for building a quality user interface for a Domino application. Hide-whens can improve the user interface (UI) of an application, smooth out display differences between Notes clients and Web browsers, and help custom-tailor document contents to their readers. But sometimes hide-whens seem to have a mind of their own. Judging from the number of postings to Notes.net discussions, hide-whens can sometimes be a cause of frustration.

This article explores the ins and outs of using hide-whens, discusses some examples, and offers suggestions for some of the problems you may encounter. It assumes a solid understanding of using Domino Designer R5 to develop Notes/Domino applications.

Hide-when basics

Frustration with hide-whens may arise, in part, because they require some reverse thinking. Most Notes formulas are by their nature 'show-whens'-the formula displays something to the user. Hide-whens typically prevent the display of something. Another problem is that while developers tend to think of their application's UI object-by-object, hide-whens don't work object-by-object, they work paragraph-by-paragraph. And finally, hide-whens don't work the same way for all objects. Hide-whens typically apply to a field and its contents. But in a rich text field, for example, hide-whens can be applied to subsets of the field's contents. Changes in settings can ride into the field on pasted text or graphics. While this is usually the right thing for the content, it can be a surprise for you.

Hide-whens are invoked by the evaluation of a condition that takes the form if (A) then hide (B). For example:

If the document is in Read mode, then hide this field.
If the field TotalSales is empty, then hide this field.
If the client type is 'Web,'then hide this form.
If the reader is not the next approver, then hide this button.

Hide-whens allow you to manipulate what appears in the UI of the application based on the state or properties or contents of the object the hide-when formula is applied to. Almost anything in the UI can be hidden-fields, buttons, text, or graphics on forms. (The major exceptions are rich text fields and tables, which are discussed later in this article.)

Hide-whens are invoked in the object's properties box; the Hide tab is the one with the window shade. The most common reasons for using a hide-when can be selected on this tab:

Figure 1. Hide tab of the properties box

Check any of the boxes, and the paragraph containing the object will be hidden when that condition exists. The options on this tab have become more elaborate as Notes features have proliferated. It now allows you to:

Hide the paragraph from Notes or the Web â€“ These choices help enhance the application's compatibility with particular clients. You might hide a file-upload control from Notes clients, and hide a rich text field intended to hold file attachments from Web users.
Hide the paragraph when the document is previewed or opened for reading â€“ These choices can conceal elements when the document is in Read mode that are used only when the document is in Edit mode or used only by the application's developer.
Hide the paragraph when the document is previewed or opened for editing â€“ These choices can hide elements used only in Read mode. When used with the Read mode choices, they let you give users interface devices that help them enter data while the document is being edited, and then hide those interface devices so that the data is presented as simply as possible in Read mode.
Hide the paragraph when the document is printed or copied to the clipboard â€“ These two choices are gentle enforcers of security for sensitive information. (They work only in Notes clients, of course, not in Web browsers.) They don't make it impossible to extract data from a Domino application, but they make it more difficult.
Hide the paragraph when the formula is true â€“ This allows you to specify hide-when conditions that are specific to your application, using the full range of fields and properties. You can use @functions and formulas that base conditions on the ACL or the contents of other fields.

Three major uses for hide-whens

In Notes applications, there are three major uses for hide-whens. All of them are related to giving the application the best possible user interface, which means presenting appropriate information as simply and clearly as possible and helping the user understand the range of possible actions:

State-related â€“ Used when the designer wants to present a field in one format if the document is open in Edit mode, but in another format if the document is in Read mode.
User-related â€“ Used when content must be hidden from some users but displayed for others, based on user roles.
Client-related â€“ Used when a feature works on one client but not on another, for instance, rich text fields in the Notes client versus in a Web browser.

There are some alternatives to hide-whens for particular uses; computed subforms is one example. And finally, there are limits to what hide-whens will hide, and how effectively they hide it. More on that later.

State-related hide-whens

Perhaps the most common use for a hide-when is to give the user the gentle guidance of a UI control when they're entering data into a form, and then to hide that control when the saved document is opened for reading. You might want to give users a set of radio buttons to choose a department name when they're creating or editing a document, but just display the name of the selected department when the document is opened for reading.

To do this, you create two fields on the form, one directly above the other. In Designer, these fields look like this:

Figure 2. Two fields

You create the DepartmentEntry field as an editable set of radio buttons. You set the DepartmentDisplay field to be plain text of type Computed for Display with its default value set to the field name DepartmentEntry.

On the Hide tab of the properties box for the DepartmentEntry field, select the hide-when options to keep the radio buttons from being displayed when the document is in Read mode:

Figure 3. Options for hide for read mode

Then select the DepartmentDisplay field and do the opposite; select the hide-when options Previewed for editing and Opened for editing:

Figure 4. Options for hide for edit mode

Note: As an alternate to setting the field properties, you can achieve exactly the same affect by selecting each text label that says Department and setting its hide-when properties. Or you can select the entire paragraph and set its text properties. This can be a source of some confusion; just remember that when you set properties for a field or a label-any part of a paragraph-t

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